Pellets bed users - how deep are your beds?

[Casey76]

I've been using wood pellets for almost a year now, and I think I'm finally happy with how everything is working out (apart from the cost)

As I'm on livery my box is skipped out twice a day by either the YM or her helper, though I try to do as much as I can myself with regards to bed maintenance. Every other weekend I'll pull back the loose top bed, dig out the worst of the wet patch, add a bag of dry pellets in the hole, cover with old bedding then add three bags of semi-soaked pellets to the surface of the whole bed.

I've found that it is better to add 4 bags every 2 weeks than 2 bags every week.

This way I can maintain a firm deep (about 4-5ins) bed that a) my mare can't dig to the concrete and b) remains dry on the surface.

I like the bed, I like that my mare isn't eating her bed, but the cost is killing me. At the moment (in summer) the pellets are cheap - 4.19€ a 15kg bag. In the winter they went up to 5.99€ a bag, which is adding an extra 50€ a month to my livery bill.

I can't help think that there must be an easier/cheaper way of doing this... :/

 

[Fides]

Grief! That sounds like a lot of work!

I use wood chips (unsoaked). It took 8 bags to make a 6 inch deep bed. The poo stays on top pretty much and takes 2 minutes to skip out. I shavings fork underneath it, give it a 'bounce' and all the bedding falls leaving just poo. As the bed gets wet the wee will be seen on the top. I pull the bedding back a bit and dig out the wet. I then fill the hole with bedding from a channel I dig at either the side or the back. I then fill the channel with a new bag. I never use more than a bag a week and the bed never smells. Even taking the wet out only takes 10 minutes usually only need to take the wet out once a week. Adding the clean to the side rather than the main bed keeps the bed cleaner a lot longer as you are dirtying semi-dirty bed not clean bed.

When I skipped the wet out every day it was using lots of bedding and it also seemed to get wet mixed in with the clean a little bit more each time. Having a deep enough bed allows it to absorb properly and you can just take a big blob of wet out when needed. But the key is having it deep enough so they don't churn it up.

A £25kg bag of woodchip costs me £5.60 and I use one a week.

 

[swm1hb]

We moved on to wood pellets about a nine months ago as we have a two year old mare who is a bed destroyer. We are lucky as our stables all have mats.

I have found that the best bed for our three year old gelding is approx two inches deep. The bed is skipped out twice in the evenings and in the morning after turnout, the droppings are removed and all wet patches taken up. Borderline wet is blended with dry, and the whole bed is fluffed.

The bed doesn't have any walls and only covers the back half of the mats. On this system we are only adding one bag of pre-soaked pellets per week. I prefer to soak in a cleaned wheel barrow as I find this is easier to blend in to the rest of the bed. Mats are probably the key for us, as we are confident that he cannot get to the concrete floor.

The dirty mare gets a smaller bed but still uses at least a bag of pellets per week sometimes 3 a fortnight.

 

[Baydame]

I worked at a barm that did similar to swm1hb, minus the pre soak. Worked great and cost effective. Maybe look into investing in mats? Save on bedding and time in the long term.