Major wood pellet problems

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princess_jay

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Hello,
I've been reading through previous threads about wood pellets but haven't found an answer to my problems so here's another thread!
Last year my mare was on straw and I was taking out 2 big barrows a day as she is very wet. My friend had her horse on wood pellets (first time i'd ever seen them) and at first I thought they looked horrible and uncomfy but I slowly changed my mind and after seeing how quick she mucked out so I changed to pellets this winter.
I'm really struggling with it - it's not the easy ride I thought it would be! I pick out the poo which is easy enough with my wood pellet bucket fork. I'm struggling with the depth - when it was too thinly spread out she would be standing in sodden puddles by morning so I've now got it so it's about half a foot deep. I'm trying to do as my friend does and mix the wet bit in with the dry, pull down the banks as they stay dry and spread that over the top and try and put the wetter bits up as banks so they dry out. BUT its all compacting together and it's literally like a solid lump - i put my fork in, flip it over and it comes out in a giant square chunk! I don't know if its because my mare is so wet so its not drying and fluffing out, or if its too cold for it to dry (my friend says this year due to the weather is so different compared to last year but hers is still fluffier than mine!) also our stables get rained in through the slatted walls and condensation from the roof...
At the min I'm flipping the whole bed around every day, forking out all the lumps and it looks lovely and fluffy afterwards - but it takes me over an hour and 1) its knackering 2) Im back at work on tues so no way have I got time to spend an hour mucking out before work and 3) I'm just upset its not working out like I hoped.. :S
SORRY for the long rant!!! It's just upsetting and annoying that it's taking me so long so I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong or if any one has any tips or ideas whats happening to it? THANK YOU xxx
 
when you add fresh pellets in, do you put them in dry or wet them? I add them dry and it helps keep the bed dry as they break down.
I think with pellets it takes a while to get used to them, I feel I have them sussed tho one of my ponies is so tidy in her stable I feel her bed gets too dry, a bit wary of adding water in case the bed freezes.
 
As already said, add the new bedding dry and mix it in. With a very wet horse, I'd try setting up a good deep bed like you have then leaving it semi deep litter, only lifting the poohs. Once a week, or less often if the bed looks ok, carefully scrape and brush the top dry bedding away to leave the solid wet bedding underneath. I know it sounds silly but the dry bedding brushes off the top of the solid wet underneath, just don't brush too hard! Then lift then solid wet bedding out and relay the bed adding one or two more bags of dry pellets. I've found this works best if you have a tidy horse that doesn't disturb the bed too much even if they are very wet. It should only take you 5-10 mins to remove the poohs before work then lift the bed at the weekend/you day off, or leave it longer if you can! Trial and error with how long you can leave it. Even if you are not lifting the bed, I'd pull the banks all flat into the bed, add another bag, then re-establish the banks and level the bed. I did this mid week and lifted the wet at weekends with one of my horses and added a bag one weekend then lifted the bed the next weekend with my other horse.
 
Right, here is a thread I can relate to 100%.

Before I changed over to 24/7 turnout, my big 17.2hh very messy and very wet mare was on wood pellets. Before I changed her over to them, she was on straw, and like you, used to take on average 2 heaped wheelbarrows out per day.

Here is what I used to do with her wood pellet bed. Hope it helps.

Firstly, I gave her a thicker bed than what they recommended. Her bed was about a foot thick. (Yes it did cost a bit to lay, but was worth it.)
Then for the 1st few days, I would mix all the wet in with the dry.
After the 1st few days, alll I would take out was the droppings, and then tidy it up. Once a week I would add a dry bag of new pellets to the top of the bed and very, very lightly, mix them in with the surface.
I did not dig her bed out until the wet patches came to the surface or it started to smell. This was normally about once every 6-8 weeks at the weekend.
Yes it did take a very long time, but I would allocate one day at the weekend to do so.
Also, I found her droppings sometimes broke up due to the pellets absorbing all their moisture, so to overcome this, I would sprinkle a medium sized tub trug of shavings very thinly over the top of her bed. One bale of shavings would last me 6 weeks.
It used to take me about 10 minutes to muck out in the mornings once I got the hang of it, but it did take me a while.

Where abouts are you?

I hope this has been some help to you. Good luck.

Oh, also forgot to say, I found it better using a normal plastic pronged shavings fork than their special bucket fork. I only used it twice and hated it. But thats just my opinion.
 
Agree with this completely and also agree with friend who says it's very different this year.
The weather has a lot to do with this, it doesn't matter what bedding you use but it will all feel the effect of the damp atmosphere. After this freeze, there will still be a lot of frost in the walls, floors and rooves, you can almost see it sweating out with drops of water on the walls and the damp atmosphere has to go somewhere; pellet bedding is a grand soaking up tool when this happens but even straw and shavings change and become damp too. The passage floor in my boxes hasn't been dry for a month now but today, it actually started to dry out a bit which tells me the atmosphere is changing a bit, about time too. Once the atmosphere changes and warmer air comes in, you'll notice that the beds go back to normal service. Be patient.
 
Thanks for all the advice so far!!

I've done a bit of both with new bags - put some in pre-fluffed up and some in whole and dry... I think by the sounds of it I'm doing the wrong thing by flipping the whole bed every day? I think I'll try doing a semi-deep bed and just pick out the poo and worse bits mid week whilst I'm at work then do a big churn around at the weekend..

Will it be ok though to leave it solid underneath? I just worry that it will feel too hard for her :S but I suppose it's softer than the field! Would investing in rubber matts underneath help the situation?? Thanks again for your comments keep em coming ;)
 
I tried them with and without rubber matting.

TBH I found it more hassle with the rubber matting as occassionally, she would really dig about and would disturb the mats underneath, so I would have to lift the whole bed in order to rearange the matting.

It was much beter without and because the bed made a solid base, she very rarely, if at all, went through to the floor.

With regards to laying down, she will be fine. Think how hard the fields are in the summer and they still lay down dont they?

She will be fine.
 
It's much better to leave the beds solid, that way the bed won't shift when horse is getting up.
The one thing I do insist on doing is raking any dropped hay out of the bed every day as it seems to make a bed damper if you don't. I scoop off any droppings, rake the hay out and rake level the bed which fluffs it up a bit but doesn't disturb it too much.
The advantage of having mats is if you want, you can just bed down half the box which makes mucking out easier.
 
My bed IS a solid lump, hurrah! That's how I want it, the pellets at the bottom are still relatively dry but have broken down so much that they are compacted into a really firm, 8 inches high bed. The top of the bed is still moveable with plenty of pellets still to break down. I rarely take out the wet as it is right at the bottom and doesn't smell. My horse lies down every night and her feet are in excellent condition. Her bed is on rubber mats, just over half the stable is bedding.
 
My horse was on wood pellets, however he is so wet I was using 5 bags a week and the bed although 8 inches thick was still often sodden in places, he ended up with an abscess in the end despite being mucked out and also skipped out twice over night when he's in.

He's now soley on rubber matting and although his rugs are sometimes a bit damp this is working well.

To give you an idea of how messy he is I take out and barrow and a half of poo in the mornings and before the drainage was improved I'd scoop out a whole large tub trug of wee from the drain at the back each morning. BTW he's only 15.1hh.

Although pellets are great in many ways, they still aren't absorbant enough in some cases.
 
There seems to be several ways of managing a pellet bed depending on the horse. I deep litter mine which works well for me. My boy is really wet but also walks about and tramples all his poo into the bed. I like that having a solid base means the bed doesn't move around.

He has mats at the front of his stable and pellets on a concrete floor at the back. Monday to Saturday I remove the droppings, and don't touch the bed apart from to scoop some extra bedding out from the banks to cover wet patches if needed. Mid week I add 2x 10kg bags of dry pellets into the corners - these then get rotated long the banks and into the main bed over time. Then on a Sunday I take out poo, chuck the top dry layer of the bed onto the banks and then level the solid base out as I get a mound in his pee patch! I then chuck the dry bedding back down so there's a good 3-4 inches of dry bedding ontop of the base and add 2 more bags of dry pellets.

I would say it take less than 10 mins in the week and no more than 15 or 20 mins on a Sunday.
 
i have been using wp for the last 3 years and have tried all different methods but i think what works best for me is to use a mixture of wp and shavings. i put a bag of wp down every week on my horses wee patch and then use 1 bale of shavings once a fortnight to top up the bed and this makes it fluffier than just using pellets. I take out droppings every day and then the wet around every 4 days when the wet patch comes to the top of the bed.

I add new pellets dry and then just put some of the old bedding over the top, he also has rubber mats underneath and i bed 3/4 of the stable down with the mixture of pellets and shavings.
 
I'm not a fan of deep litter, in which case you need to take out the clumped bits. By the time the wood pellets have clumped they are no longer absorbent. You then mix the rest with new stuff. She may just go through a lot of bedding if she is very wet (could she be very hot and drinking loads?).
 
We have 4 geldings. 2 are 16H 3in & 2 are 15H 2. Our stables are 15 ft x 12 ft. We have top quality rubber mats. We have used wood pellets for a year now. We use about one bag per stable a week.

Our practice is based on the fact that good quality rubber stable matting is suitable for horses without anything else BUT, to sop up the wet we use the pellets. One bag is opened on the floor and a large watering can - without the rose - is poured over the pile of pellets. This is left for about 3 - 4 hours. The pellets then turn mostly to 'dust'. This is then raked out to a square area in the middle so that the horses do not 'splash'. The dung is easy to pick up, but shake the pellet dust out. The very wet pellet dust can be 'dug' out and the fresher 'dust' shaken over it. To make the stable tidy brush in the edges towards the middle and re-spread.

What to do for mares??? That seems a good idea to keep geldings!?!

Hopee I have been of some help.
 
I recently moved to pellets and know what you mean about the base clumping, even when dry...I leave it all week, taking out the poo, and the main pee spot, then rake out the hay....and then at weekends I spend longer and flip it all over and break down the compacted but dry bits, and mix it wit the rest and at seems to keep it all nice and clean and dry.

I have mine about six inches thick..one horse has a small strip at the back, which works well for him, but the other has nearly a full bed even though they are both on mats. Just works best for each of them that way.
 
I'ved used wp for coming on 2 years now and have tried every method to muck out and add pellets.
I have found the best way for a dirty gelding and my new mare is to remove the poo everyday and scrap the bed back around the pee spot and remove the solid clump daily. Mix the rest of the wet bedding through with the clean bedding. Every couple days I take a bank down and mix the bedding through entire bed and put bank back up. Then once a week I add 1 15kg bag of pellets (in pellet form) through entire bed and put banks back up.
 
We use mostly shavings in the banks and wood pellets on mats. Just pick out the poo and dig out v wet patches using a sharp shavings fork. Throw dry stuff in where the wet patch was - then add a bag of wp, mix in with the top layer and level. Simples!:D
 
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