Managing a filthy horse in the stable?

Damnation

Damnation

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How do you cut costs on bedding?

Mare is on rubber matting and shavings with banks and a little sprinking in the middle but she STILL trashes this and drags all the banks down and has a party!

I am thinking of removing the banks and giving her just a sprinking of bed with no banks and putting half a bale down at a time. Does this work for anyone?

I am trying to save winter costs as I could use £30 worth of bedding a week, which is about £120 per month, thats almost my livery bill :eek:
 
I use 'safemix' bedding which is similar to easibed which I always HATED with a fiery burning passion, but tried it with mine who messes him bed up and because it is heavier it doesnt move about as easily and I find he is actually cleaner with a thcker bed.
Mine doesnt have banks, unless Im feeling particularly generous...or equally think he doesnt need that much bedding lol!! ;) he has mats and the bed is probably 2/3 inches thick. works a treat :)

p.s. Im sorry to be the bearer of bad news...but you're never marrying Clive Owen because Iam! Im expecting a call any day to arrange our first date...
 
my horse digs,pees for england and hides poo... the only thing i found that worked was using a heavier type of bedding like easy bed as it doesnt move as easy. i also found that if he has a small bed he is really messy so the deeper the bed the cleaner he was- bizzare i know :o i only use 1 bale a week :)
 
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I have rubber matting and use approx 1/4 of a bale of shavings, sometimes less. I just sweep all the wet/poo out in the morning and start again. I use turnout rugs in the stable and hose them off or turn them out in the rain wearing them. ;)
 
If you only have a small amount of bedding the result will be carnage - but easily swept out, which is the idea for most.

I've always put a full bed on rubber matting, and found the stable to be cleaner as a result.
 
I tried her on a bigger deeper bed and it was just as bad and I was taking just as much bedding out. So I halved it, and she is a bit better but I am still going through shavingsl ike no tomorrow. My problem is she walks her bedding in, I have had her on 3 differant types of bed and she is the same on all of them! :mad:
She pees, then poo's, then paces around and mixes it all in, and digs her banks out :mad: It doesn't help I don't get much turnout either so anything to save on bedding is a godsend.
I think tonight I will go up, dig her banks out and get rid of them! See what happens eh :D
Does mucking out in marigolds actually work?

ETA: I haven't tried her on straw but apparently with her last owners she ate it and coliced so I don't really want to try it because knowing my luck she will colic again!
 
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amy_b said:
I use 'safemix' bedding which is similar to easibed which I always HATED with a fiery burning passion, but tried it with mine who messes him bed up and because it is heavier it doesnt move about as easily and I find he is actually cleaner with a thcker bed.
Mine doesnt have banks, unless Im feeling particularly generous...or equally think he doesnt need that much bedding lol!! ;) he has mats and the bed is probably 2/3 inches thick. works a treat :)
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Word for word totally agree!

Have had mats for years and have tried shavings (not absorbent), easibed (too heavy) and Megazorb which I used for years on a small bed and loved. Then got my new mare who wees for England!! I used to use enough bedding just to soak it up and remove it every day, but the amount of Megazorb I was using was extreme! She also lay down in it and it was not hygienic!

So mid last winter I swopped to Safemix. A think bed did not work, so gave her a good few inches and success!!! It seems a very "solid" bedding so she didn't mash it up and all the wet stuff soaked to the bottom and was dry on top for her to lay in.

Will be using it again this winter for sure!
 
my mare is filthy and does love to trample everything in too. I have been through so many different types of beddings and different amounts! The best I have found is actually giving a decent bed with banks, otherwise everthing is just a wee and poo paste by the morning which is revolting and can't be nice to sleep in at all. We use a mix of chopped straw and shavings which is fab. I get through two bales a week and she always has a good sized clean bed with banks.
 
I use Nedz bedz pro or Bliss and put a full deep bed on top of rubber matting. I work on a deep litter basis through most of the week disturbing the bed as little as possible and taking only the poo out daily, once a week I do a full muck out and take all the wet out, then top up with another bale of bedding to keep the bed thick. I find this works well for my messy mare.
 
I personally wouldnt get rid of the banks - I like mine (horses) big and high.
My mares are filthy - they play games - they dont think im fit enough so play hide and seek with their pooh and wee everywhere - Im on straw rather than shavings.
 
I don't have banks either because my mare kept digging them. Took the banks away and voila ;) I also save as I don't need as much straw without banks.

When I did my work experience at a livery yard. The YO mucked out all the Horses in rubber gloves to save on bedding (bedding was included in the livery price)
 
Hmmm never thought of a deep litter principle on the rubber matting.. If the tiny bed doesn't work I will be trying this for definate :D

And Galaxy, I shall google Safemix and see if anyone near me uses it :D
 
I know a few people that just put a scattering of shavings in a corner or a quarter length of the stable (as they usually don't like to wee if it causes a spray around the legs) this may train her to soil just on the shavings in time, but it depends if you don't mind your horse just on the rubber and without the security of a banking to prevent them from getting cast, I bed on straw so I can't really give you any other suggestions I'm afriad.
 
Kenzo, thats a good idea, almost like potty training :D
I am not fussed about her lack of bed, she will lie down if her bed is up, on the rubber matting and there is an anti cast strip type of thing around her stable on the walls...
That Could be option number two :D
 
Personally wouldn't recommend straw.
My boy is a pig and on straw he stinks the place up to high heaven and I stink too after mucking out! He's no cleaner on shavings tbh but it doesn't smell nearly as bad! :)
 
My last horse was so dirty. 3 bales.of.shavings a week.
I put down a really big bed and deep littered, however he had a full bed on top of the wet, so he was always on the dry. I used to bank up the clean every day and pat down the wet leaving it air in the day
 
Hubbys last horse was a total minger and we used the pellets. The great thing was if you used them with the right type of fork you lost next to no bedding just the wet and the poo.

I didn't like Hovis on it because i'm an idiot and like big fluffy beds but then Hovis isn't THAT bad in terms of filthiness in the stable.

If i had a grim horse i'd use pellets again.
 
I defy any of you to have a dirtier horse than Kali ;).

We tried everything . .. tiny sprinkling with no banks, medium-sized bed, deep litter . . . he's been on shavings, flax, rapasorb, xl and staw. What seemed to work best was a very deep base of flax (b/c it's so absorbent) combined with rapasorb and xl for the banks . . . big banks of clean bedding that I could pull down as needed during the week.

He box walks - so a shallow, easily-moved layer on the floor very quickly became magimixed with his little hooves (for a 16.2hh horse he has tiny little feet that I swear act like egg whisks). Also, when his bed was shallow, he ended up with hock burns - lurvely! A nice stable base meant he couldn't churn up the bottom layer (took a while to do this), while big banks of clean meant I had something with which to top up. Like many of yours, he buries his poo - but over time I learned where they would be. Also, he had two very definite pee spots so it became easy to identify and dig those out - usually once a week or so. The flax was so absorbent that his bed NEVER smelled . . . I would dig out only when the wet patches were becoming obvious. I would dig out as much poo as I could - given that he could flail it into the whole bed that it could pretty much all be a fetching shade of beige and set fair.

Once we had the base established (and I reckon that took a couple of months and enormous self restraint on my part not to keep mucking about with it), I put a clean bale in about once a week.

Now his regime has changed completely - he's out at night (for around 18 hours) and on a relatively deep straw bed which is poo picked every day and mucked out about every other day . . . but as his bedding cost is part of my livery, I'm less worried about it.

Hope that helps.

P
 
My two turn into 'Elephants that party' overnight. They are on rubber matting, hardly any banks and a mixture of Aubiose and elephant grass. Works a treat.
 
Wood pellets.

It's very odd to be hosing the stable when you start the bed but it is ideal from the box walking types because it stays in place and it copes really with the ones who wee rivers :D

Best advice I can give about it is persevere - put down a good base and be patient (about 10 days/two weeks) until the base sets.

I mucked out with a rubber skip and marigolds, it took about 10 minutes even when they were in a lot and dug the wet patches out once a week - that took 20 minutes and it didn't smell :) I topped up about 2 x 10kg bags a fortnight on average. Put it this way, from December to the end of April last year I used a grand total of 50 10kg bags @£2.20 each. Ok, that was a fairly clean pony who was in 20 hours a day (at least :mad:) but no mats...and the time saved was massive. I think that I started the 12 x 12 stable with 15 bags and (tbh if I was doing it again I would use 20 bags) and didn't need to add anymore until after Christmas.
 
My two are seriously so messy!! Takes me an hour to muck them out at least! Although I am quite fussy! Ex army so I think it's just innate! Either that or iv got a serious OCD! Anyway, iv tried so many beddings but am going back onto straw this year! My tb does have a dust allergy but I'm taking the risk, steaming hay, moved them into my timber stables as better ventilation etc etc!! Hoping this year will be easier, unless I have to put him back onto shavings!! Fingers x!
 
I have one disgusting creature too. He was awful on shavings, and it was costing a bomb. We gave in and changed him onto straw, saving a fortune. Even with mats I like fairly deep beds and banks. Two winters ago we were snowed in and were running out of bedding, so I had to pull the banks down and use them - they were fine, and I've not done banks since!

Last year I had to work away Mon-Fri, and hubby had to do the three horses after his work. He used to be still mucking out at 9pm, so we changed them onto deep litter through the week - taking any obvious droppings and putting a few slices of straw on top so that the horse was not standing on dirt. I was amazed how little the dirty horse disturbed his bed after the first two days - as it compacted down it didn't churn...

This year he seems better still, as the straw this year is really short stalks - a bit like chaff, so again it seems to flatten and bed down more..
 
I have a gelding that can out do any mare for filthiness. He's on a thick easibed on a concrete floor. I took his banks away last year and saw an immediate improvement. I deep litter Mon-Fri when I am working and do a full muck out on Saturdays. I tend to top up with half a bale mid week and then a full bale on Saturdays, so a bale and a half a week normally.
 
My mare is stabled at night for approx.13 hours. I deep litter on shavings & have a base of about 3-5". I take the poo out daily & dig out any surface wet patches & refill. I use about 1/2 bag a week ( Softbed, Snowflake or wood merchant shavings). But then I do own the cleanest mare in the whole world!! She only poos in one corner & never stands or lies in it! ;)
 
After going through one bale of shavings a day when my girl came back from the vets and I was told she needed a really deep bed, I gave up and used a sprinkling of shavings on rubber matting. I still have to remove everything every day, but at least its not a whole bale plus poo!
 
Phil is so revoltingly wet that, I kid you not, I was at the stage where I was literally shovelling his pee every day! He would flood his stable (a good inch deep in the bottom corner!), no matter how much he drank or whether he had a big bed or not. I've got him on woodpellets now. Bit more expensive and TBH I don't save any money, but I'm no longer wading through wee, taking 45 minutes to SKIP out and stinking to high heavens all day.

Oh and ETA, when I laid the original bed I didn't wet it half as much as it says. In fact I simply sprayed the hose on it until it looked wet and left it. He's wet enough :rolleyes:
 
I'm picking up some ideas :D

My mare is so, so dirty!

She poos, then it gets covered, then poos again, and it gets covered. This gets layered. She'll wee a few times over it all. Banks get poo'd on, kicked down. She'll happily lie down, but rarely gets stable stains (how?!). She'll have a lightweight stable sheet at least when she's in over the winter - they pop in the washing machine and dry quickly :D

We've tried all sorts of bedding. The only thing that works, for her, is rubber mats with a sprinkling of shavings, with a bank at the back to cover the gap/draught.
 
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