New yard only allows straw - help...

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3 questions. I'd really appreciate some advice.

1) The new yard I am moving to will only let you bed horses on straw. I hate straw. it smells and my mare eats it and I end up stinking of horse wee. Does anyone have any tips to help me stop this happening?

2) The new yard won't let us use shavings because they are too difficult to get rid of. The straw muck heap goes back on the fields. How do you get rid of a shavings muck heap?

3) Can anyone think of any alternatives that aren't too expensive that couls go on the muck heap with the straw and be spread onthe fields?

Thanks!
 
You can get an item called Stablezone with you put down under the straw. It neutralises the smell of the wee and makes the whole stable easier to deal with. It is granules and comes in a tub. Many farmers will bury straw as it rots down quickly, and they can use it on fields, while they can't do that with shavings.

Unless your mare is seriously underweight I wouldn't worry about her eating straw; it won't do her any harm.
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Ask if they will accept hemp bedding - I only put one barrow of wet on the muck heap per week and the poos obviously. It rots down way faster than straw. I think you should find it a cheap bed to run (set up is a bit pricey I admit) and it saves hours of hard labour every day/week. If you gave me free straw or shavings I'd still buy aubiose or hemcore.
 
Dixons dustless - chopped straw and is more absorbant and easy to muck out. I used this with rubber mats at one yard which charged a fortune to have shavings removed and you had to put it in dustbin bags too.

Would they accept megazorb - this breaks down quicker than straw and shavings, though is wood based, is suitable for compost.
 
I'd ask if they accept flax- two yards I've been on don't allow shavings as its difficult to get rid of but they do allow flax which decomposes in the same way as straw. Alternatively you can get a medicated chopped straw which is sprayed so the horses don;t eat it and it smells lovely, not sure what it's called though
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I find that really strange of the YO.
The last livery i was at allowed shavings and the YO was a farmer as well and he took it all away to a different field to sit and rot and then put it all back into the land.
I'm lucky enough now to have the horses where i live and we have a local farmer take both our shavings and straw muck heap away to sit and rot and then put back into his land. Yes it has to sit and rot and may take a bit longer but it all turns out alright in the end otherwise they wouldn't do it.
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I have to keep my horses on straw and yes I stink and they eat it!
Stalason stops the smell but we can't use that either as it also stops the straw rotting as it inhibits bacterial action.
I'd do hemp, I did it with an old pony with COPD and it was great, it is expensive to start up but cheap and easy to maintain.
I keep my horses at home but my OH is the farmer and shavings just take too long to rot down.
 
If you have got rubber matting down you don't need to use much bedding at all...

I have in the past used easy bed.....shavings...and currently using straw.

I don't see what the problem is straw is fine....
 
Livery next door to me swiped some of my wood pellets to put under the straw as her mare was so wet she would have a river of wee running out of the stable.The pellets have done the job ,it doesn't smell anymore and there are less flies in her stable.
 
Our yard doesn't allow woodshavings for this very reason,
We are allowed alternatives though - things to consider:
Shredded rape straw (trade names such as Bliss, Sundown)
Hemp (eg Aubiose, hemocore)
Flax (eg Jopack, Equisorb)
or even just chopped staw - most manufacturers coat it in smelly stuff to stop horse eating it and you ponging
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There is a brand of chopped straw that smells yummy and the horses dont eat. I think its nedbed or something like that I used to use it- it cost £5.65 per bag - same size as shavings and was really good with a very wet, and boxwalking stressy TB
 
We had all sorts of bedding at the yard, but I have to say, I never had a problem with straw beds smelling of wee! The horses were fully mucked out each morning, the beds were left up all day for the floor to dry, and then pulled down and the banks levelled off in the evenings. A couple of the mares were stinky in their own right, so we used a dilute antiseptic (cannot for the life of me think of the name, but similar to dettol) which killed off any odour and made sure the beds didn't smell - we had it in a spray bottle and it took 20 seconds to spritz the floor). Ours only ate the beds when the hay was of poor quality - but again, you can buy various different things that you can sprtiz on the straw once you have laid the bed so they don't eat it (which is cheaper than treated straw).
 
All good suggestions above. If they still wont allow the others though, you may have to look at another option. Dispose of the shavings yourself?
When i was on a yard with a 'straw only' rule in the 90's, if i wanted to be on shavings, i had to get rid of them myself - hence i used to drop it all off at the allotments - well - my mum did as i was too young to drive!
Maybe if you bagged it up you could get someone with an allotment to collect it?
 
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