How do you bed down?

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Christmas_Kate

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I usually bed down on the back half of the stable, and found it easy to keep clean. This year i am thinking of bedding down the whole stable, as i read an article which said it's more economical to bed right up to the door, and it keeps in the warmth. Also we will have a bigger pony, and I think it'd be better to give more room to lay down (stable isnt huge).

Does anyone else do this? I am slightly worried about how it may affect the wooden door and stable front (back is stone), although I do take out the wet daily.

Do you find it just as easy to keep clean?
 
I bed down the whole stable right to the door and add some banks too. My YO laughs at how perfect i make it and then sends his great dane in to roll around and mess it up to annoy me lol. I find it easier to maintain as on a smaller bed my mare is really messy and wet but with a big fluffy bed she's much cleaner. I dont deep litter, i through the whole bed up every day to let the floor air.
 
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doesn`t it fall out when you open the door?

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no, although some does come out into the passageway when i bring her out the stable, but i just brush it back in
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I throw in a barrowload of shavings or a few handfuls of straw, scatter it about and there you go.
Stables have soil floors and are used once in a blue moon.

My run in sheds, by contrast, have about a foot of straw in them and are skipped out everyday.

I can't see that straw is going to affect the wood in your stable unless it is left soaking and absolutely rank for about 6 months at a time. Anyway, isn't it treated? It should be if it is an outdoor stable.
 
As we are on dirt floors (enormous stable) and Donkey cannot have a straw bed I deep litter her on shavings - banks and a 2 foot strip at the front for her water and lick
 
We use rubber mats so don't need a bed over the whole floor of the stable for warmth. But ours still get a full sized (well actually massive) bed on top of their mats and we do full muck out's every day. In winter their beds probably cover about 3/4 of the floor area.

If the horses weren't on rubber mats then I would definitely have bedding all over the floor area and would make sure it was very deep too.
 
This year is the first time I have bedded up right to the door (normally have a rubber mat by the door) and it is much cleaner. I have a piece of wood across the bottom of my stable so it prevents it all coming out.
 
I used to have a full bed of shavings then i went to straw and loved it.

My horse then went and smashed her fetlock up out in the field to while she was on box rest ( 6 months ) i put rubber matting down at the front of the stable ( just 2 so the first 4 ft at the frount was rubber.

This helped cushion her leg but enabled me to put her snack ball in to keep her amused too without having a afull bed.

I am now on shavings/equisorb and plan to just keep topping up with equisorb.

We have wooden stables with concrete floors and i tell you something if you stand on contrete and then stand on the rubber you wont believe how cold the contrete is!.

Im not a fan of rubber matting personally but having it at the front but it works for me.

If i didnt have it tho like you then id def have a full bed with no concrete showing. If you dont have a step at the front of the stable then ask a handy man to screw a big thick plank across the frount so they dont spill out, its very easy to do.
 
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Thanks for your replies everyone, it seems this does make for a cleaner bed (and therefore I assume less wasteage...I'm all for that lol).

I don't always have lots of time to dry legs off so last year bought stable chaps, but TBH he spent most of hs time in his bed anyway .. whch dried them naturally.

Will definately be trying bedding down the whole stable this year. Thanks
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We always used to bed down right up to the door. This was deep litter too. We never had rotting door probs. We used to nail on a 2 x 4 plank of wood across the door to stop the bedding coming out, slightly raised off the floor so you could wash out the stable floors when necessary.
 
I have rubber matting, but I've found that only covering part of the stable is false economy! I have just filled the stable with 5 bales of Bedmax, As soon as I put it down, my pony who is on box rest weed on it then lay down for a snooze
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I just clean out the poo daily, I will then clean out wet once a week. Takes a little longer, but the bed looks so warm and cosy, keeps thm clean and dry too
 
Misty isn't bedded down right to the door, it's a few feet back from the door and has nice banks up the sides. The old boys on the yard all have theirs bedded right to the door and the beds are so deep and cosy looking! Also one on box rest is bedded right to the door.
 
I bed down the whole of the stable and have a full bed over rubber! Most would say thats mad, but Ralph is a big boy and I always worry that he will get capped hocks
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I always leave a strip of about 3ft of concrete (we don't have mats) at the front of the stable. Reason being is that my friends horse only survived a fire in the stable block as the front of the stable had no bedding down to catch alight. He got away with only having a singed tail and and eyelashes. Rug was damaged though.
 
I bed the whole stable, right to the door. He spends a lot of his time with his head over the door, so it makes sense to have bedding there too (even though he has rubber mats). I'm not sure about it being cheaper though, I think it would work out the same for me, after the initial extra bale at the start.
 
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ARGH - OCD coming out in me but I could never bed to the door
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I have mats at the front!

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LOL!! Me too - I have to have my beds swept back from the door and the whole way along the front end of the stable where they eat and drink.

My stables are fully fitted with rubber mats and only use a small amount of straw at the back half of the stable.
 
I always bed down right to the door. When I started work at the showing yard they had very thick straw beds that stopped a foot from the door, so the horse was standing with its hind legs higher than its front legs whenever stood at the door. Now all the beds are the same thickness to the front, plus banks.
 
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ARGH - OCD coming out in me but I could never bed to the door
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I have mats at the front!

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I have to admit to having a slight obsession for sweeping the bed back, so it's in a straight line. We have a brick floor so no good for matting
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