Show us your pellet beds...

[_GG_]

Well, there are a lot of threads asking about pellet beds and how different people use them different ways and have different results. I thought I would post up and use pictures/video to show how I use mine as I am 100% happy with them.

My TB mares bed first thing

Lifting the poo and as you can see, light and fluffy bed, but zero bed going into the wheelbarrow...just poo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXq5wbz1U9s
Bed after all poo removed

Bed pulled back to expose the wet. This is 7 days worth of wet for a mare that is only out for 5 hours a day. I pull the bed back by turning the fork over and scraping the dry back into a pile

Here is that wet patch piled at the side of the bed

Note the wheelbarrow is already 3/4full of just poo

And even with that weeks worth of wet in it, the wheelbarrow is still not full

and the bed levelled...no need to add new yet as the bed is still 5 inches thick, light and fluffy

In the babies bed, I am building the bed up, so currently there are no banks, but Just to show, I always soak my pellets when I add them. This is because the beds are always dry anyway so can only break down a certain amount of whole pellets and also, I have found through trial and error that it is the most economical way for me.

5 minutes after having 1/2 standard bucket of water poured in

10 minutes later

30 minutes later

Tipped out and you can see the pellets are a little damp but have taken up all of the water

And levelled over, you can clearly see that despite having had 1/2 bucket of water soaked into the bag, there are still a great deal of whole pellets left.

So, there you have it. That is how I use mine. We have trialed a few makes on the yard and these are the most cost effective and best for us at the moment. They are the Five Star Professional and it works out that it costs me under £10 a week for two horses, a 15.3h WB x and a 16.2h TB.

The beds are thick, fluffy, not bits of poo left in, I take out the wet once a week which means a very quick and easy 3-4 minute skip out 6 days a week and even when taking the wee out, it only adds an extra 5 minutes.

So...how do you do yours?

 

[_GG_]

Oh, and I measured the stables as well and they are 16x16ft foaling boxes, so despite the beds just taking up a corner, they are actually quite big

The first bed (with banks) has been down since the beginning of November when I first bought a pallet of five star professional and I have added on average 6 bags a month since then.

 

[bumblebee_]

I have litterally just (yesterday) started my 2yo on LWP! loved mucking out this morning!

 

[_GG_]

I have litterally just (yesterday) started my 2yo on LWP! loved mucking out this morning!

It is much easier isn't it. Well, I think it is anyway

If any Mod doesn't want me to name the pellets I use, just say...I don't want to advertise them, lol...just want to show them

 

[Paint Me Proud]

These are straw pellets

Starting the bed - 8 bags

Bags all emptied and laid out (note I do not wet my pellets)

Bed after 2 days (it is starting to fluff out)

Unfortunately I dont have a photo of it once it has all fluffed up.

I allow my bed to form a solid under layer that soaks up the wee, with soft fluffy bedding on top.

Love it, wouldnt never go back to shavings now.

Yard is switching to wood pellets now though so will see how those work out, but think most types of pellets are the same

 

[poiuytrewq]

Brilliant Thank you!
Ive been using LWP for a while now but often wonder if im doing it correctly as I seem to use an awful lot!
I do mine exactly the same as you (my horse is cleaner- Id cry if there was poo everywhere!) but I probably take out daily the same wet as your removing in a week.
How deep is your bed? Yours looks a better colour to mine also, Im thinking this is down to a better quality pellet. Have you tried any other brands previous to 5 star that you can compare with?

 

[_GG_]

These are straw pellets

Starting the bed - 8 bags

Bags all emptied and laid out (note I do not wet my pellets)

Bed after 2 days (it is starting to fluff out)

Unfortunately I dont have a photo of it once it has all fluffed up.

I allow my bed to form a solid under layer that soaks up the wee, with soft fluffy bedding on top.

Love it, wouldnt ever go back to shavings now.

Yard is switching to wood pellets now though so will see how those work out, but think most types of pellets are the same

They look really similar. I do the same with the wee and it is so compact. I take it out once a week becausethe TB always wees in the same place so I don't like having that packed patch of wet under the bed for too long. It's more for me than anything...I would like to say like the princess and the pea, but trust me...I am no princess

The baby has had the bed down two weeks tomorrow and I have not removed any wet yet as not needed to

 

[starry94]

watching this thread with great interest. currently using wood pellets (thirsty bed) under my shavings as my horse is really really wet & only have a piece of rubber matting at the front of his stable.
considering changing to a full bed of pellets but am a bit cautious to do so because he is so wet i'm not sure how well they will work.

 

[_GG_]

Brilliant Thank you!
Ive been using LWP for a while now but often wonder if im doing it correctly as I seem to use an awful lot!
I do mine exactly the same as you (my horse is cleaner- Id cry if there was poo everywhere!) but I probably take out daily the same wet as your removing in a week.
How deep is your bed? Yours looks a better colour to mine also, Im thinking this is down to a better quality pellet. Have you tried any other brands previous to 5 star that you can compare with?

I have used Verdo, LWP and also Wadswick Country Stores own type. The five star stays a better colour, stays fluffier and also is more absorbant, but I did trials with all of them.

I have done the same with each and these were the results:-

Trial 1 - Remove wet twice a week as had been recommended by a friend and add unsoaked pellets when topping up.

Verdo - 1/2 barrow of wet twice a week, bed getting deeper brown and remaining damp despite the new bags not being soaked.

LWP - exactly the same as Verdo

Wadswick - Same as above but a darker colour

Five Star Pro - just under 1/4 barrow of wet twice a week, bed needing two new bags a week to maintain thickness. Colour nice and light, bed still dry and fluffy.

Trial 2 - Remove wet every day, add unsoaked pellets when topping up.

Verdo - 1/4 barrow of wet every day, bed damp, not very fluffy, deeper brown colour. New pellets breaking down and becoming same colour overnight.

LWP - Same as Verdo, perhaps a forkful more wet coming out each day.

Wadswick - Same as Verdo, just damper and darker.

Five Star Pro - just under 1/4 barrow a day, bed going a slightly darker colour, losing a little fluffiness and feeling a little more damp to the touch.

All needed at least two new bags a week to try and keep the beds dry and light.


Trial 3 - Remove wet once a week, adding unsoaked pellets when topping up.

Verdo - Removing 3/4 barrow of wet each Sunday. Bed a mid brown colour, a little damp, but still fairly fluffy. Needing 1.5 bags a week to maintain thickness.

LWP - Same as Verdo

Wadswick - 1 barrow a week, 2 new bags needed otherwise, same as above.

Five Star Pro - 1/4 barrow a week, light bed, fairly fluffy and only a teeny bit damp to the touch. 1 bag needed a week, every 3-4 weeks, two bags to maintain thickness.

Trial 4 - Same as trial 3 but soaking the pellets when topping up.

Only tried this with the Five Star Pro, but I have to say I love it. For some reason, the bed is always lovely and dry and fluffy...never dusty, just dry. It maintains thinkness better so I am finding I do not need to add the extra bag every few weeks. By far the best system yet. The horses always lie down on it and I have been able to use thinner rugs on the TB as she has been warmer with this set up

Hope that helps. I always keep the bed a good 4-5 inches thick. It means that the wee can pack down at the bottom (usually about 2 inches thick when removed) and the top of the bed stays nice and dry for the horse to stand/lie on which is great for their feet. I actually find it easier to lift the wet with a shovel as it gets so packed together if you leave it for a week.

I guess the more water they take it, the more absorbant they become....to a point

 

[_GG_]

watching this thread with great interest. currently using wood pellets (thirsty bed) under my shavings as my horse is really really wet & only have a piece of rubber matting at the front of his stable.
considering changing to a full bed of pellets but am a bit cautious to do so because he is so wet i'm not sure how well they will work.

Well, there is a section D on the yard that is the wettest horse I have ever known. On a 4-5 inch bed like I use, he makes it all look like it needs to come out within 2-3 nights as he wees so much and walks it through the bed that it doesn't get a chance to pack down and do its job.

I tried making his bed a foot deep at the front where he wees and it did the trick. The extra wee had extra room to sink down away from his restless feet and it was able to start drawing the wet away from the surface. He would still get through 2, sometimes 3 bags a week, but at the price I pay for a pallet, that is still a max of just over a tenner a week. This horse on shavings was costing over £20 a week before and his bed still didn't look great.

Good luck. I am sure there will be situations/horses for which pellets are not the best option...but so far I have managed to make them work well for all on the yard.

 

[Milkmaid]

I`ve got mine on Five Star too, one on their Premium pellets & one on Professional.

This is my FS Professional bed which I semi deep litter. I`ve had this bed down since November. I take the wet up every few weeks, in fact I took the wet out after 6 weeks at the weekend and got a whole 3 barrels out, genius!!!

Below is my FS Premium bed which I take the wet out daily as pony is a messy minger who churns it all up, git! I don`t have any real recent pics but this one was taken a few months ago, it was quite a few weeks old when it was taken tho

The first horse was on Verdo before but I found it went very dark very quickly & wasn`t nearly as absorbent as the professional.

 

[Beausmate]

I have a very tidy horse, a very messy one and a very wet one. I stopped taking any wet out ages ago and instead I soak some pellets in Micropan solution to get rid of the nasties and add usually pre-soaked pellets, or if the beds squelch they get dry. I'm hoping to dry the bed out and bank it up for re-use next winter. Will get photos tomorrow.

 

[Bennions Field]

I have four stables on corley wp, all v different, one hideously messy boy who poo's for England, I can take a whole 140l barrow of pure muck out each day :0 ! He has a sprinkling of bed and is cleared out each day, then a mare who won't wee in her stable (with any bedding ) she's easy and v tidy, then my two oldies, a 15.2and 17h both v wet but v tidy, I take the wet out 1 or 2 times a week, depending on how much time they've been in, but still only take a barrow of bedding betweent them each day, and a barrow each per week of wet. They've been on pellets for three winters now and it's sooooooo much easier and quicker than either shavings or hemp/rape seed straw. Happily keep using, forgot to say I use 2-3 bags each week per stable and put whole pellets in don't soak anymore, find they soak up the wee better for the two v wet ones, the other two do have soaked pellets down

 

[PuzzlePiece]

What am i doing wrong?
Ive got my two on lwp, have been for a few months.
Mares bed is ok, used to use 2 bales of shavings a week but now can put one bag of pellets down a week, works well taking wet out once a week but not as clean as your bed
then youngsters is a nightmare, its brown and horrible, gets so compacted its a real effort to take the wet out.
Think I might try them on the five star ones

 

[Singing Dawg]

Looks nice, great byproduct of the sawmills. What are they like on the muck heap, how long to break down and how do you get rid of it, are farmers willing to take wood pellet middens which apparently will contain very little wood pellets!

 

[_GG_]

Looks nice, great byproduct of the sawmills. What are they like on the muck heap, how long to break down and how do you get rid of it, are farmers willing to take wood pellet middens which apparently will contain very little wood pellets!

Well, we step and pack our muck heap...much easier to do with pellets, will take a pic later. YO was paying £75 every 6 weeks with one farmer when we were all on either shavings or straw. Now, with it being almost entirely pellets (one old horse on a dusting of shavings) it packs down better. Found a farmer that charges by the hour instead of by the trailer load and YO now pays £30 every 12 weeks

Neither farmer has an issue taking pellet muck heap.

 

[stimpy]

Really interesting thread

I switched one stable to wood pellets at Christmas. It is a standard 12 x 12 box, with eva mats overall the floor area and it is occupied for around 14 hours overnight by a 13.2hh mare and her 8 month old foal. They were on cardboard and as the foal got bigger it became moe and more of a nightmare and I was using a bale of cardboard every 2 days. With the pellets I maintain a 3-4 inch thick bed over the back half, with no banks, and this is taking 2-3 bags of soaked pellets a week.

I seem to be having a different experience to everyone else as it doesn't seem to save me any time, the poos are often buried fairly well into the bed and it takes me a long time to sift through all the bed. I do take the wet out daily, there will be 3-4 pee spots each morning, the foal certainly doesn't have a pee spot, she pees wherever she is standing so I daren't leave them in there as I think the whole bed would be trashed in a matter of days.

I think having the two of them in there must really hammer the bed, they both lie down in there but I reckon the foal must get up and down at least ten times a night (I have cameras so i do watch them ) and the foal just LOVES to roll.

Overall, I like the bed as it does stay really dry, and it is proving more economical. I'm not so keen on the fact that having an unrugged horses on it means that there is a lot of 'powder' caught in their winter coats and it's surprisingly difficult to get it out. I also think it will be pretty dusty over summer.

I originally planned to switch my very dry TB gelding over onto the pellets as we are coming to the end of the cardboard. However, I want to try the straw pellets as I feel they may work better over the summer and will be less dusty so I have an 8 bag trial of the straw pellets on the way.

So, how are people using their straw pellets? Are you soaking first? Do horses try to eat them?

 

[Beausmate]

Photos! All are in for about 14 hours overnight.

14 hand-ish two year old cob, very tidy, likes to wee in the same spot (on his haylage) so his bed is a bit thicker in that area.

Bit smelly, so I got these out, put around 4ltrs of tepid water and some stuff in the bucket, added pellets and..

Then spread pellets on wet and smelly patch...

 

[Beausmate]

20 year old, 15.2 tb, very wet.

And after,

Sorry for the size, but Photobucket won't let me resize on the old site, I've tried several times to do it on the new site, these are 200x150 on there!

 

[Beausmate]

And this is the messiest horse know to man, 17.3hh and a box-walker.

And after..

They all take around 10-15 mins to do.

 

[eggs]

I started using Five Star Professional a few months ago having previously tried Aquamax (very good but more expensive), LWP premium and Verdo (much cheaper but darken quickly and bed goes hard quicker), straw pellets (most of the horse's ate them even when spraying with disinfectant).

So far I am very pleased with them. I tend to skip the droppings out together with any real wet that is at the surface each day. About every 3 weeks I dig the wet out and put in 1 unsoaked bag of pellets in the hole if I have taken out more than one barrow of wet and cover with a thin layer of old bed. Each week I soak one bag of pellets and if the bed looks thin (under 5") I'll put in two soaked bags.

I do 9 stables each day and can do them all in just over an hour. Horses (16.2 + warmbloods) are in from about 5 pm to 7 am.

Forgot to say that other than Aquamax the 5* is the least smelly. I have not had any ammonia whiff since switching over to it.

 

[Beausmate]

I haven't taken any wet out for a couple of months now, don't intend to either. The stuff I add makes it much less smelly, the enzymes in it break down the pathogens in the urine, so it's just wet, no smell. The beds are so firm I can brush the hay off the top too and they can't mix the poos in so much. I love my pellet beds (sad!), they're quick to muck out and not smelly. The horses would prefer straw I think, softer and much more tasty!

 

[poiuytrewq]

I've looked today on the five star site. Which is everyone using? I'd most likely only be able to afford the cheaper (not sure now what each was called ). Is this still significantly better than Verdo?

 

[Milkmaid]

Verdo (much cheaper but darken quickly and bed goes hard quicker)

Verdo are now actually more expensive than Five Star Professional. But I definately agree about the dark/hard beds! I also found I used more as they are less absorbent.

 

[eggs]

I've looked today on the five star site. Which is everyone using? I'd most likely only be able to afford the cheaper (not sure now what each was called ). Is this still significantly better than Verdo?

Yes the cheaper one is better than Verdo IMO

 

[Milkmaid]

I've looked today on the five star site. Which is everyone using? I'd most likely only be able to afford the cheaper (not sure now what each was called ). Is this still significantly better than Verdo?

Five Star Professional, which is the cheaper one.

and yes, significantly better

 

[eggs]

Verdo (much cheaper but darken quickly and bed goes hard quicker)

Verdo are now actually more expensive than Five Star Professional. But I definately agree about the dark/hard beds! I also found I used more as they are less absorbent.

Sorry, wasn't clear - meant much cheaper than Aquamax

 

[Milkmaid]

Verdo (much cheaper but darken quickly and bed goes hard quicker)



Sorry, wasn't clear - meant much cheaper than Aquamax

Ah, that makes sense

 

[Fools Motto]

On Verdo now at the stud. TBH, don't like it. Well, say don't like it, I don't simply because I find it hard work to maintain standards of cleanliness with the amount of boxes (15) in the time I have to do it. (1 1/2hrs) including cleaning out feed and water mangers. I find taking wet out of the mares hard work and heavy, most are untidy 'scatter poo' criminals - and they are wet mares and some boxes leak which is real rubbish! Somehow with shavings I found it lighter to take out wet and quicker as boss wasn't so picky about 'clean beds'. However, on a one owner basis I think they are ok. My old habit of preferring straw beds remains strong!
The boxes that we use are 14x14 or 15x15 and take on average 15 bags of 15kg Verdo to 'start'. So far, only two boxes have needed a top up, so I guess that is money saving good?

 

[Elsbells]

Do the horses like the beds? Do they lay down and roll etc?

I've just gone over to the expensive wood pellets. It's only been three days. I have fully fitted heavy mats in a 12x12 stable and have put down 15 pre soaked bags to start. I've been told by my supplier NOT to remove the wet and tbh, it's that deep a bed that I would have to dig down to find the it anyway.

Although its been a dream to muck out, I feel guilty that I'm not providing her with a big fluffy bed with banks or that there isn't any emergency forage supplies. The only reason I've gone over to pellets, is the lack of decent straw supplies.

My brain says pellets, my heart is saying straw.