Moving from straw to rape bedding...

_MizElz_

_MizElz_

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Has anyone done this? I believe we are all about to change over to rape straw (Bedrap) at our yard, and although some people are already on it and rave about it, I just wanted to canvass some opinions about how best to manage it!

I refuse to have Ellie on a small bed, so I have already negotiated with YO that I may need to buy some extra bales from him. At present, she is on a straw bed that is about 1ft deep with 4ft banks, and I dont intend to do much different when we change over! I have just been on the website for Bedrap and also for NedzBed, and both companies advise that the bedding should only be fully mucked out once a week. Is this true, and is it possible to keep the bed clean whilst managing it in this way? I hate dirty beds :eek:

Any experiences or advice welcome!
 
We used rape straw bedding and yes, you only need to dig it out once a week. If you keep disturbing it, it looses its stability so resist the temptation to poke ! I also had a 6 inch bed with foot "slopes" as banks. The rape straw is very absorbant and locks the wet in at the bottom of the bed. Rubber glove the poo of daily and harvest any bits of wet that have come loose but then put a skip load of fresh bed on top to keep the horse away from the wet bits.

I loved the stuff but couldnt afford to stay with it. Im now back on straw. Much cheaper but much stinkier too !
 
I am a clean freak with OCD, and like my horses to have ginormous, sparkly clean beds!

The BEST bedding I have discovered is a mixture of two bales of Nedzbed to one bale of very fine shavings such as Plospan. My boxes start off with 4 - 6 Nedzbed and 2 - 3 Plospan.

I muck out completely every day (partly because that's how I like my horses to be done and partly because the Nedzebed goes a funny colour if you don't!), and find that this is the fastest bedding to muck out. It's absorbant, clean, good for my chronic box walker, and economical. Ok it costs rather a lot to make your initial bed, but then mine get a maximum of one bale a week top up generally! (The box walking idiot get's about 2 bales a week, but he's a special one :) )

Hope that helps!
 
Thanks guys, definite food for thought!

As I understand it, the reason we are all moving over to it is because of the disposal costs of straw. YO has researched it all summer, and believes it will be cheaper for him to supply us all with Bedrap (5 bales to start, then 1 bale per week) and have minimal disposal costs, than to buy in straw and have to pay a huge amount to move the muckheap each year.

The few people who are on it already have 6 inch beds and 1ft banks - is it possible to build the banks higher? Ellie lies down a hell of a lot so I am paranoid about her getting cast - hence why she has such a massive bed now, and why I wont entertain the idea of small banks!

I dont know whether YO would be happy for us to use shavings as well, that would be something I'd need to ask. But I guess like you say it might make it stay cleaner, so defo something to investigate!
 
Banks cant get much higher than a foot as the stuff slips back down on itself but TBH, shes less likely to cast on it as a) she will be able to see the walls more clearly with less of a bank and b) it slides easier so a cast horse would be able to skid back on it much easier than on a straw bed (if that makes sense).

I wouldnt say 1 bale a week is enough. I used atleast a bale and a half per stable, even with the drier horses. With the big stable I used a good 2 bales a week....
 
I have just changed my dirty mare (she is one of these that will poo and pee in the same place, roll in it and then give it a further stomping for good measur - she is soooo dirty) onto Rapport which I think is the same. Having been on straw in the past, this year due to lack of grass she was eating her whole bed every night. So I switched to shavings - bed was trashed in a week. I am nearly at the end of her first week on the Rapport and it is brill. Not a single wet patch has come through or got churned up yet. She has very wet droppings (not runny, just wet which made shavings look nasty) but this stuff seems to dry them out.
Only problem is it's losing the citronella smell it had to start with so my ned is starting to eat it!
 
Love NedzBed and it takes up half the room on the muckheap/rots down ultrafast and is very easy to maintain as a bed. Put it as thick as you like if you are paying. If you have rubber mats down, this won't be an issue except for aesthetics.
 
I use Rapport as a deep litter bed. Typically the bed is over 1' deep and the banks another 1' deep on top, if you want to make them safer but can't make then higher you will need to project them out into the bed more to keep the horse away form the stable walls, they can then be built up to 18" or 2'
 
Hi have been using rape straw for years, only difference is that we get it in big round bales & put it through straw chopper. Advantages of a livery yard on a dairy farm i suppose. This year is the first year that we have had to pay for it & i think that is due to the price of straw & the fact that the bedding firms have got on the band wagon. Even still it is alot cheaper than starw
 
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