Opinions please,to deep litter or not??

S

scazza

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 December 2010
Messages
83
Visit site
Hi everyone,just thinking about the dreaded winter coming,as the title says i am thinking of deep littering on shavings to try and save time/money as i have 2 mares who are getting through 2 bales each a week and are only in at night:( i know it will save time but how many bales of shavings do you think i would use per week deep littering??
many thanks :)
 
If they just stand and eat their hay all night and only move to look over the door or lie down I'd highly recommend it!! We had my section A on deep litter and it was fantastic saved us lots of time and the bed just got thicker and thicker as more bales we added gradually because he was unbelievably clean! :)
 
hhmmm,stables are 12x12 so if i put a good size bed down initially hopefully may get away with putting 1 bale a week in,another question how long do you leave it b4 a full muck out and does it get smelly??
thanks for the replies:)
 
I wouldn't, yes it does smell and when you have to do a full muck out it takes forever and its really really hard work.

You might be better with rubber matting with a smaller shavings bed
 
my fella was very clean and his didnt smell at all, but emptying the stable was extremely hard work (which i developed blisters :D so i just couldnt do it - husband actually had to break a sweat - i supervised!)
Also it takes forever to decompose on the muck heap in comparison to straw.
 
I have my boy on a semi deep-litter system where I just remove droppings 6 days a week - on the 7th day I flick all dry bedding up to banks to expose the wet base, then I scrape the base with a shovel and remove about a barrow to 2 barrow loads of wet. I then pull the banks down to make the bed and add a new bale as new banks. Throughout the week I can then get some clean from the banks if needed. I put 1 bale a week in and then every couple of months I top it up with 2 bales in 1 go. By scraping the base weekly it keep it at a reasonable depth.
 
I deep litter mine. She's quite clean though (unless I get to the yard late...) so she doesn't trash it and ruin the base of it. I add a new bale every couple of weeks and then dig out when it needs it. I don't find that it smells until you start disturbing the base. Well worth deep littering esp over the winter as long as your mares will stand still enough to allow the base to stay put.
 
I woudln't!! I don't like deep litter. My vet and several others I know think it can cause breathing problems as while the bed may not appear that smelly, imagine a horse lying on it heating up the urine means horse is breathing in amonia :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top