Goldenstar
Well-Known Member
Its worth trying a supplement I have had great results with wynergy ventilpulman with several horses and now will give it for a period if I buy something with the wind not in great shape .
Least faffy way to get dust-free forage?
- Thread starter catembi
- Start date
catembi
Well-Known Member
We are currently using Science Supplements Respiraid which appears to work on everything but her. I also tried spirulina for a bit but it’s so green and gets everywhere!
I was offered either the nebuliser or oral steroids. I went for oral as she is skittish and timid…proper Dartmoor who was rounded up in the drifts and has never quite got over it. They are making quite a difference but she can’t stay on them forever. She might have to until I have used up the current hay supply and decide what on earth to do next!
Splitting the yard would involve buying Heras panels and would be a pain. If I move to round haylage, that would involve making a storage area for them and then unwrapping one at a time and trying to force it into the hay barn. Changing supplier might annoy the existing one so that he won’t empty the muck trailer that I am about to get.
Every solution has its drawbacks and I don’t know what to do!
I was offered either the nebuliser or oral steroids. I went for oral as she is skittish and timid…proper Dartmoor who was rounded up in the drifts and has never quite got over it. They are making quite a difference but she can’t stay on them forever. She might have to until I have used up the current hay supply and decide what on earth to do next!
Splitting the yard would involve buying Heras panels and would be a pain. If I move to round haylage, that would involve making a storage area for them and then unwrapping one at a time and trying to force it into the hay barn. Changing supplier might annoy the existing one so that he won’t empty the muck trailer that I am about to get.
Every solution has its drawbacks and I don’t know what to do!
catembi
Well-Known Member
Pony has also just tested 201 for insulin so now we have to deal with that as well 
teacups
Well-Known Member
With mine all it took was dampening down/wetting the hay nets thoroughly with a hosepipe, to stop the coughing.
maya2008
Well-Known Member
Pony has also just tested 201 for insulin so now we have to deal with that as well
That will be a nightmare in combination with the others. We got our Shetland’s insulin down to the teens on straw and low sugar haylage - but you can’t feed her that and the others something different because you can’t separate them…and she can’t have straw (unsoaked straw at least). For us, even the straw/haylage combo wasn’t low enough sugar so we had to use Ertugliflozin to get below 10, then wean onto an exercise plan - which you can’t do because of asthma and pssm.
You have my every sympathy, she’s so young bless her to have so much go wrong.
poiuytrewq
Well-Known Member
catembi
Well-Known Member
Apparently getting the gut biome right can also be very positive for PSSM but it sounded quite complicated so I set it aside as something to look into when I am feeling brainy!
ester
Not slacking multitasking
In which case I'd def try split the two smallies from the TBs who need the extra calories.
paddy555
Well-Known Member
All mine get hay and I would never ever dream of feeding dry hay however good the quality. Far too much risk from dust.
I soak daily for 8 (small bales) no problem at all. I must have soaked hay now daily for over 40 years.
I soak daily for 8 (small bales) no problem at all. I must have soaked hay now daily for over 40 years.
Michen
Well-Known Member
I love my steamer and it has made a huge difference to my horse post pneumonia. Paid 2,000 USD for a haygain that steams a days worth of hay (no grass) for a 15.1hh horse.
meesha
Well-Known Member
Some haylage is lower in sugar than hay, depends when it was cut. You may be able to get it tested or find out which cut is best (early or late) and which grass is in it ...
I think u have to be practical about the pony. There's a lot going on there and I would try haylage for all so u don't have to split them up but the dust is eliminated... If that doesn't work it may be cheaper to send her off on retirement livery where she'll live out on old meadow pasture in a big herd !! She could go for the winter and come back in summer ? May be cheaper than all the meds, special diet etc if it suits her
I think u have to be practical about the pony. There's a lot going on there and I would try haylage for all so u don't have to split them up but the dust is eliminated... If that doesn't work it may be cheaper to send her off on retirement livery where she'll live out on old meadow pasture in a big herd !! She could go for the winter and come back in summer ? May be cheaper than all the meds, special diet etc if it suits her
rextherobber
Well-Known Member
Can you turn her out separately and feed hay replacers, soaked haycobs, unmollassed sugar beet, fast fibre etc instead? Would be lower in sugar and starch than the hay/haylage option too..
catembi
Well-Known Member
Lots of good ideas for me to think through! I am genuinely NOT a ‘yes, but…’ person who has an objection to every suggestion. I know I need to make some changes but it’s a bit overwhelming!
whirlwind
Well-Known Member
If they live together on a yard setup can you not just get one round of haylege at a time and drop it on the yard for them- If you get a big bale net (I’ve found tricklenets although expensive compared to others last way longer) and let them just share it? That way no nets to fill or separation necessary and might solve your storage problem 
ITPersonnage
Well-Known Member
RE your comment about the gut biome, the sample of pooh you need to send off it actually quite simple to take (obviously) but you need to wait a while for the results (couple of months from memory?) so it might be worth biting the bullet and getting on with it, hopefully it will then start making a difference - these things do take time but the supplements aren't actually that expensive. I think I've noticed a difference with my mare. The report you get is quite long to read but they do break the conclusions down to "do this for x months, then something else for y months" - it's not beyond understanding
catembi
Well-Known Member
I did try the gut biome/poo sample thing with one of mine, but couldn’t make head or tail of the report (apparently they have since improved them) apart from it involving feeding lots and lots of their supplements! Sold the horse so I never got to try it.
cauda equina
Well-Known Member
One of the common recommendations from Equibiome seems to be to feed oily herbs (thyme, rosemary and oregano) which is not expensive at all and unlikely to do any harm
PurBee
Well-Known Member
If i was in the UK i’d feed big bale haylage for complete dust-free forage.
There‘s more reputable companies there offering medium/bigger proper well-made haylage bales than the smaller 20kg bales.
The trouble with hay, especially very thick stemmy grasses, is the outside dries very quickly in good hay making weather, but the inside of the stem still harbours moisture, which is why after baling at even 10% moisture measured with my tester, 24hrs later the bale will read anything from 18-25%, as the moisture within the stem then moves towards the outer stem layers and rehydrates that 10% outer layer.
If baled too tight this excess moisture cant escape and will help mould spores germinate, or if you have an ambient air moisture level permanently at 70%+ most of the year (i do in west ireland) there’s no ‘barn drying/curing’ possible as the bales absorb the air moisture and quickly go mouldy as they get damper and damper with every passing month.
In a drier climate the outer stem can be very dry but the inner stem remain damp and if you split the stem apart to reveal the inner straw-hole membrane of the stem you’ll sometimes find mould growing within the stalk, thats not visually seen externally (but the hay has a musty smell despite looking clean on the outside)
In the USA they have a new tech which is fabulous to over-come this problem of stem uneven drying. During cutting they have a roller-type attachment which the hay
passes over and get crimped - a bit like that hair-crimping fad of the 80’s that creates a zig-zag pattern! This crimping of the stems breaks the stems every inch along the length allowing the moisture to escape, and the whole stem to evenly dry-out. The hay is tedded as usual for a few days and then baled.
This machinery was developed to overcome the issue of mould in hay which is more common than not - especially if you were to send any sample for a mould spore count test. Even the most glorious smelling hay we can find will have a mould spore count - its the nature of a dried leaf product that isnt dried fully throughout at 12% and below. 10% max is preferable though to guarantee a very negligible spore count!
It will be great if all major hay makers would include these crimping rollers into their hay-making machinery set-up.
So the truth is, because horses eat kilo’s of hay per day, they are also eating thousands of mould spores imperceptible to our nose and eyes.
I didn’t realise the impact of minimal imperceptible mould on my horses until i switched fully to haylage. One had occasional coughs, both had mild gut disturbances: texture of poops change sometimes, bloating considered a ‘haybelly’ but is excess size even considering hay amount fed, one had more tender soles no matter what the hell i did - the other brewed abscesses as often as i do tea, they were behaviourally inconsistent, moody and ‘skittish’.
All these symptoms subsided when i switched fully to haylage and finally gave-up on hay. I’d spent a fortune of time and money literally searching for years for the best hay in europe. Importing from countries as far as latvia! I threw away more hay than i fed - for years! I wasnt going to give-up my search for glorious hay
The reason i eventually refused to feed musty forage was because sniffing it to check it for freshness, an hour later caused my nose to produce excess mucus, i got headaches, and later stomachaches with bloating. Initially i didnt make the connection that my symptoms were due to hay sniffing sessions earlier, i thought i had allergies to MY diet daily! It was only when i eventually realised i was absolutely fine on days i didnt breathe in hay, that i made the link with hay mould spores.
I’d really take in a large sniff, shove my nose into the hay, just like they do. Every flake i’d check, and after a ‘hay sorting session’ thought, if i get so bloody ill sniffing it, what effect does it have on them sniffing and eating it?
Their behavioural grumpiness/skittishness was easier to understand if theyve got inflamed sinuses, a headache, belly-ache and just want to be left alone. Their general stoic nature means these issues arent really seen overtly, and just seep through as behavioural, reluctance to wanting their belly groomed, reluctance to want to be fussed with due to headache. If we couldnt speak that we have a headache how would we behave? Non-comittal, try to keep to ourselves in the quiet, not be eager to play, but if forced to interact would be grumpy and not in a good mood generally.
So i started soaking, then steaming, but got fed-up with still throwing away lots of hay with visual outer mould on the bales, which i wasnt going to steam and feed. They preferred the steamed hay but dead spores are still something the body and immune system have to react to and filter as junk and not nutrition.
So i then switched to 100% haylage, purely for mould spore reasons.
I’m so glad i switched to (proper made 40-55% moisture) haylage, as i never knew the mould spores were the true cause of so many issues. They were on mixed meadow grass hays. Not GM supercrack-ryegrass-only cow-farm bales of hay - but traditional mixed hays. Sugar wasnt an issue, neither were weeds as i sifted each flake checking for quality. The few years of soaking hay and leaching sugars, nor steaming didnt fully resolve their issues.
I can now even feed 100% ryegrass haylage if i have to and they have no issues, because the fructans get broken down by the fermenting process. All excess sugars gets ‘digested’ by fermentation. Its just principally i wont mono-diet them on just ryegrass, and prefer they have a mix of grasses, but i know there’s wiggle room with ryegrass % if feeding as haylage verses hay.
(for photosensitive horses even ryegrass haylage has to be cautiously fed)
Here’s the kicker - mould spore ingestion causes the liver to be busy sorting out the ‘mould toxins’ so its functions for filtering other stuff becomes compromised, including filtering-out photosensitising compounds. Photosensitation symptoms have an effect themselves, including mainly not wanting their skin to be handled or touched, wanting to stay in the dark and becoming hard to handle in daylight as UV light reacts with the photosensitising compounds in their bloodstream, just beneath their skin layer. Ryegrass contains photosensitising compounds. If we feed musty hay and introduce some ryegrass haylage as ‘clean forage’, and the horse behaviourally acts skittish, its not necessarily ‘rich’ high sugar haylage doing that, but photosensitising compounds in ryegrass affecting them, because their liver is currently dealing with hay mould toxins, or the liver has been damaged in the past.
This is not a sugar issue, and could easily be assumed to be. Yet it should never high sugar from proper made haylage as that is always much less sugar than any of the equivelent hay counterparts, measurably, if fermented correctly.
The answer is to get rid of all hay (if you cant steam it to death) as it WILL have a spore count to some degree, and let their livers recover from the daily mould toxicity - THEN ryegrass haylage can be tolerated without ill effect. (Only IF the liver does not have past liver damage from ragwort, or other major toxic event - avoid ryegrass hay and haylage with all liver-weak horses)
Because well-made haylage doesnt have a chance to even grow any spores due to the nature of its production methods, it is literally as mould-free as we can find for forage-stuff (i keep saying well-made because there’s plenty out there that is horrid haylage, just like with hay)
So many niggly health issues were unexpectantly resolved with mine by switching to haylage. Also my symptoms went too - especially the chronic ‘farmers lung’ cough i had developed.
I’ve always given them balancer minerals to top-up deficits in forage when they were on hay, as i thought back then it was mineral/vitamin deficit or imbalance issues primarily causing their problems.
Only when i got rid of mould completely in their feed did their overall repetitive symptoms resolve.
If good haylage is hard to source or too expensive, the next best thing to provide the cleanest forage is to steam the hell out of good hay, making sure it gets to at least 100C in the middle of the net/bale for at least half hour.
But we can’t expect steaming hay to be a cure-all for any type of mouldy hay, as their body still has to process the dead mould spores they’ll definitely be eating, so we want the hay to be steamed to be visually free of mould at least.
If i had a horse with chronic lung/gut/hoof/behavioural issues i’d try a trial of haylage only diet, if steaming average hay hasnt helped.
There’s a uk supplier of various big bale haylages that you will likely fit into your barn catembi, as theyre not as wide as wrapped rounds. They do ryegrass/timothy/mixed meadow haylage. So there’s plenty of choice.
Just a word of warning about mixed meadowgrass haylage - if its from traditional meadows without herbicide treatment there will likely be buttercup leaves and flowers in the crop, and their toxin is only neutralised when fully dried-out, so is still an active toxin in haylage as it’s a damp forage. If considering a mixed meadow haylage buy a ‘test bale’ at first and check for buttercup leaves/stems/flowers. They are short and dark and are still toxic. Ask the supplier if there is buttercup in their mixed meadows they cut for haylage. (IME what is said and what is received is often 2 different things so i generally now disregard ‘sales speak’ and just buy a test bale to inspect/test myself before making a large pallet order. Some suppliers will send you smaller samples of their various haylages if asked)
Crikey, my ‘quick haylage supplier link’ reply has become an essay, i hope its helpful if you made it through!
There‘s more reputable companies there offering medium/bigger proper well-made haylage bales than the smaller 20kg bales.
The trouble with hay, especially very thick stemmy grasses, is the outside dries very quickly in good hay making weather, but the inside of the stem still harbours moisture, which is why after baling at even 10% moisture measured with my tester, 24hrs later the bale will read anything from 18-25%, as the moisture within the stem then moves towards the outer stem layers and rehydrates that 10% outer layer.
If baled too tight this excess moisture cant escape and will help mould spores germinate, or if you have an ambient air moisture level permanently at 70%+ most of the year (i do in west ireland) there’s no ‘barn drying/curing’ possible as the bales absorb the air moisture and quickly go mouldy as they get damper and damper with every passing month.
In a drier climate the outer stem can be very dry but the inner stem remain damp and if you split the stem apart to reveal the inner straw-hole membrane of the stem you’ll sometimes find mould growing within the stalk, thats not visually seen externally (but the hay has a musty smell despite looking clean on the outside)
In the USA they have a new tech which is fabulous to over-come this problem of stem uneven drying. During cutting they have a roller-type attachment which the hay
passes over and get crimped - a bit like that hair-crimping fad of the 80’s that creates a zig-zag pattern! This crimping of the stems breaks the stems every inch along the length allowing the moisture to escape, and the whole stem to evenly dry-out. The hay is tedded as usual for a few days and then baled.
This machinery was developed to overcome the issue of mould in hay which is more common than not - especially if you were to send any sample for a mould spore count test. Even the most glorious smelling hay we can find will have a mould spore count - its the nature of a dried leaf product that isnt dried fully throughout at 12% and below. 10% max is preferable though to guarantee a very negligible spore count!
It will be great if all major hay makers would include these crimping rollers into their hay-making machinery set-up.
So the truth is, because horses eat kilo’s of hay per day, they are also eating thousands of mould spores imperceptible to our nose and eyes.
I didn’t realise the impact of minimal imperceptible mould on my horses until i switched fully to haylage. One had occasional coughs, both had mild gut disturbances: texture of poops change sometimes, bloating considered a ‘haybelly’ but is excess size even considering hay amount fed, one had more tender soles no matter what the hell i did - the other brewed abscesses as often as i do tea, they were behaviourally inconsistent, moody and ‘skittish’.
All these symptoms subsided when i switched fully to haylage and finally gave-up on hay. I’d spent a fortune of time and money literally searching for years for the best hay in europe. Importing from countries as far as latvia! I threw away more hay than i fed - for years! I wasnt going to give-up my search for glorious hay
The reason i eventually refused to feed musty forage was because sniffing it to check it for freshness, an hour later caused my nose to produce excess mucus, i got headaches, and later stomachaches with bloating. Initially i didnt make the connection that my symptoms were due to hay sniffing sessions earlier, i thought i had allergies to MY diet daily! It was only when i eventually realised i was absolutely fine on days i didnt breathe in hay, that i made the link with hay mould spores.
I’d really take in a large sniff, shove my nose into the hay, just like they do. Every flake i’d check, and after a ‘hay sorting session’ thought, if i get so bloody ill sniffing it, what effect does it have on them sniffing and eating it?
Their behavioural grumpiness/skittishness was easier to understand if theyve got inflamed sinuses, a headache, belly-ache and just want to be left alone. Their general stoic nature means these issues arent really seen overtly, and just seep through as behavioural, reluctance to wanting their belly groomed, reluctance to want to be fussed with due to headache. If we couldnt speak that we have a headache how would we behave? Non-comittal, try to keep to ourselves in the quiet, not be eager to play, but if forced to interact would be grumpy and not in a good mood generally.
So i started soaking, then steaming, but got fed-up with still throwing away lots of hay with visual outer mould on the bales, which i wasnt going to steam and feed. They preferred the steamed hay but dead spores are still something the body and immune system have to react to and filter as junk and not nutrition.
So i then switched to 100% haylage, purely for mould spore reasons.
I’m so glad i switched to (proper made 40-55% moisture) haylage, as i never knew the mould spores were the true cause of so many issues. They were on mixed meadow grass hays. Not GM supercrack-ryegrass-only cow-farm bales of hay - but traditional mixed hays. Sugar wasnt an issue, neither were weeds as i sifted each flake checking for quality. The few years of soaking hay and leaching sugars, nor steaming didnt fully resolve their issues.
I can now even feed 100% ryegrass haylage if i have to and they have no issues, because the fructans get broken down by the fermenting process. All excess sugars gets ‘digested’ by fermentation. Its just principally i wont mono-diet them on just ryegrass, and prefer they have a mix of grasses, but i know there’s wiggle room with ryegrass % if feeding as haylage verses hay.
(for photosensitive horses even ryegrass haylage has to be cautiously fed)
Here’s the kicker - mould spore ingestion causes the liver to be busy sorting out the ‘mould toxins’ so its functions for filtering other stuff becomes compromised, including filtering-out photosensitising compounds. Photosensitation symptoms have an effect themselves, including mainly not wanting their skin to be handled or touched, wanting to stay in the dark and becoming hard to handle in daylight as UV light reacts with the photosensitising compounds in their bloodstream, just beneath their skin layer. Ryegrass contains photosensitising compounds. If we feed musty hay and introduce some ryegrass haylage as ‘clean forage’, and the horse behaviourally acts skittish, its not necessarily ‘rich’ high sugar haylage doing that, but photosensitising compounds in ryegrass affecting them, because their liver is currently dealing with hay mould toxins, or the liver has been damaged in the past.
This is not a sugar issue, and could easily be assumed to be. Yet it should never high sugar from proper made haylage as that is always much less sugar than any of the equivelent hay counterparts, measurably, if fermented correctly.
The answer is to get rid of all hay (if you cant steam it to death) as it WILL have a spore count to some degree, and let their livers recover from the daily mould toxicity - THEN ryegrass haylage can be tolerated without ill effect. (Only IF the liver does not have past liver damage from ragwort, or other major toxic event - avoid ryegrass hay and haylage with all liver-weak horses)
Because well-made haylage doesnt have a chance to even grow any spores due to the nature of its production methods, it is literally as mould-free as we can find for forage-stuff (i keep saying well-made because there’s plenty out there that is horrid haylage, just like with hay)
So many niggly health issues were unexpectantly resolved with mine by switching to haylage. Also my symptoms went too - especially the chronic ‘farmers lung’ cough i had developed.
I’ve always given them balancer minerals to top-up deficits in forage when they were on hay, as i thought back then it was mineral/vitamin deficit or imbalance issues primarily causing their problems.
Only when i got rid of mould completely in their feed did their overall repetitive symptoms resolve.
If good haylage is hard to source or too expensive, the next best thing to provide the cleanest forage is to steam the hell out of good hay, making sure it gets to at least 100C in the middle of the net/bale for at least half hour.
But we can’t expect steaming hay to be a cure-all for any type of mouldy hay, as their body still has to process the dead mould spores they’ll definitely be eating, so we want the hay to be steamed to be visually free of mould at least.
If i had a horse with chronic lung/gut/hoof/behavioural issues i’d try a trial of haylage only diet, if steaming average hay hasnt helped.
There’s a uk supplier of various big bale haylages that you will likely fit into your barn catembi, as theyre not as wide as wrapped rounds. They do ryegrass/timothy/mixed meadow haylage. So there’s plenty of choice.
Just a word of warning about mixed meadowgrass haylage - if its from traditional meadows without herbicide treatment there will likely be buttercup leaves and flowers in the crop, and their toxin is only neutralised when fully dried-out, so is still an active toxin in haylage as it’s a damp forage. If considering a mixed meadow haylage buy a ‘test bale’ at first and check for buttercup leaves/stems/flowers. They are short and dark and are still toxic. Ask the supplier if there is buttercup in their mixed meadows they cut for haylage. (IME what is said and what is received is often 2 different things so i generally now disregard ‘sales speak’ and just buy a test bale to inspect/test myself before making a large pallet order. Some suppliers will send you smaller samples of their various haylages if asked)
Haylage for Sale
Writtle Hay and Straw offer top quality haylage for sale. Our grass products are tailored to give a range to suit different nutrition requirements, feeding situations and of course budgets.
www.writtlehayandstraw.com
Crikey, my ‘quick haylage supplier link’ reply has become an essay, i hope its helpful if you made it through!
Ditchjumper2
Well-Known Member
Haygains really are worth their money. Mine stopped ours coughing immediately. You can pick them up secondhand too.
catembi
Well-Known Member
Gosh, PSB, thank you for typing all that…very helpful!
I would genuinely say that my hay is good quality and my supplier actually makes it himself, however… The pony in question has coughed for 5 years despite seeing four different vets and now five, the first four of which weren’t concerned or interested. I have one with a ‘grass belly’ despite not being on grass and one who has had 8+ abscesses in less than two years.
Also, o/h and I both cough after doing nets and neither of us have respiratory issues.
I think I am going to swap to big bale haylage when I have run out of hay and it will be interesting to see how it affects everyone’s health. I am currently investigating getting the hay barn door widened. I don’t think it will be possible but I am going to check with the builder next door. Would be so great if I could get round bales into the hay barn but the door is 1 m 10 wide
I would genuinely say that my hay is good quality and my supplier actually makes it himself, however… The pony in question has coughed for 5 years despite seeing four different vets and now five, the first four of which weren’t concerned or interested. I have one with a ‘grass belly’ despite not being on grass and one who has had 8+ abscesses in less than two years.
Also, o/h and I both cough after doing nets and neither of us have respiratory issues.
I think I am going to swap to big bale haylage when I have run out of hay and it will be interesting to see how it affects everyone’s health. I am currently investigating getting the hay barn door widened. I don’t think it will be possible but I am going to check with the builder next door. Would be so great if I could get round bales into the hay barn but the door is 1 m 10 wide
maya2008
Well-Known Member
Gosh, PSB, thank you for typing all that…very helpful!
I would genuinely say that my hay is good quality and my supplier actually makes it himself, however… The pony in question has coughed for 5 years despite seeing four different vets and now five, the first four of which weren’t concerned or interested. I have one with a ‘grass belly’ despite not being on grass and one who has had 8+ abscesses in less than two years.
Also, o/h and I both cough after doing nets and neither of us have respiratory issues.
I think I am going to swap to big bale haylage when I have run out of hay and it will be interesting to see how it affects everyone’s health. I am currently investigating getting the hay barn door widened. I don’t think it will be possible but I am going to check with the builder next door. Would be so great if I could get round bales into the hay barn but the door is 1 m 10 wide
We store our hay outside under tarpaulins. Works fine. You could do that?
catembi
Well-Known Member
I could, but it would be on the yard as there is nowhere else that’s feasible, and then I would have to surround it with Heras panels or it would become an all you can eat buffet…! 
That’s my option 2 if the hay barn can’t be modified
That’s my option 2 if the hay barn can’t be modified
meesha
Well-Known Member
Hope the haylage sorts it and u can get door widened or get 4 string rectangular bales (2 people can move them but they r heavy).
catembi
Well-Known Member
Well, I swapped just the pony to haylage today. Only since about midday. She is still coughing but has already stopped wheezing. She was properly heaving.
There is a limestoned bit of yard about 1/4 of the size of an arena with the trough in it which is self contained so I put her in there with the Sh*tland & tied a net of haylage to the tree. Then o/h swept & vacuumed the stable furthest away from the hay barn & put up plastic sheeting in the eaves to stop the dust from the next door stable from floating over. I put her in there tonight with more haylage. I hope that's dust free enough. It's really good to hear her not wheezing & not heaving.
I am not sure what to do re bedding! I have thick rubber mats and am aware that I need something down for her to wee, but I don't want to replace one source of dust with another. I honestly can't think of any bedding that's not dusty. The chap in the tack room was telling me that the less dusty beddings such as BedMax aren't absorbent... I have previously used miscanthus, but it isn't dust free and I can't think of a bedding that is... Except maybe cardboard & I don't think that's absorbent & I don't think I would be able to get my poo trailer taken away...
Oh well, one problem solved and lots more to sort. I still want to move everyone to haylage once I've used up my hay.
There is a limestoned bit of yard about 1/4 of the size of an arena with the trough in it which is self contained so I put her in there with the Sh*tland & tied a net of haylage to the tree. Then o/h swept & vacuumed the stable furthest away from the hay barn & put up plastic sheeting in the eaves to stop the dust from the next door stable from floating over. I put her in there tonight with more haylage. I hope that's dust free enough. It's really good to hear her not wheezing & not heaving.
I am not sure what to do re bedding! I have thick rubber mats and am aware that I need something down for her to wee, but I don't want to replace one source of dust with another. I honestly can't think of any bedding that's not dusty. The chap in the tack room was telling me that the less dusty beddings such as BedMax aren't absorbent... I have previously used miscanthus, but it isn't dust free and I can't think of a bedding that is... Except maybe cardboard & I don't think that's absorbent & I don't think I would be able to get my poo trailer taken away...
Oh well, one problem solved and lots more to sort. I still want to move everyone to haylage once I've used up my hay.
meesha
Well-Known Member
Fantastic news theres such an immediate improvement !! I use dust extracted shavings (woodpecker) baggins face is covered in them in the morning as he does like his sleep but he never coughs. Then don't make me cough either not even when first put down ,!
maya2008
Well-Known Member
Pellets - you dampen them to make them swell and break down, so there is never, ever any dust.
tda
Well-Known Member
I would go with pellets too, you can always dampen them down a bit more if you think they are getting dry
JenJ
Well-Known Member
Have you tried aubiose? It's the least dusty I've ever tried, and brilliantly absorbent.