Show us your pellet beds...

Mine lies down on his pellet bed (currently on LWP going to they the 5* pro when I've finished this pallet). For 'emergency forage' he always has a net of clean straw available :)
 
Elsbells said:
Do the horses like the beds? Do they lay down and roll etc?

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A picture speaks a thousand words!

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Solomon having a nap on his 'summer' Five Star Premium bed (which looks a little dark as i`d just 'watered' it, but it always dries back nice and light)

Mine both lay down every time they are in and the fat cob will only ever roll in either his pellet bed or snow, never in the mud!!
 
Every horse I have known has laid down on pellets, even a few that never normally laid down at all. I actually think it is becaus the beds are not deep and fluffy.

I refer to my beds as deep and fluffy, but actually, compared to shavings and straw, they are not fluffy at all, it is just that they are loose and not packed. I think that is why horses like them. Horses in the field don't find the softest place to lie down (they usually find the muddiest)...they just lie down on any hard ground and happily stay there for hours.

Wanting a big fluffy bed is a human concept, not a horse one.

To the one person that asked, yes, in my opinion Five star professional, the cheaper option are far better than Verdo. :-)
 
I got Verdo last year and have just changed to Five Star. I have to say I love the ease of mucking out with wood pellets. I was going to try miscanthus but my mare ate it, I decided wood pellets were safer! I make the bed about 4 inches deep and take out wet when it's noticeable.

The only thing I do find is if the poo has got trodden in it can break up really small and I then struggle to pick it all out. I sometimes feel I need a sieve!
 
I wish mine looked liked these when I used it!

I found it cold,dirty, smelly, soggy and dark. It was also back breaking to muck out and after a doing strenuous shift work the thought of mucking out made me want to cry!! :( Was sick of my horse looking like she had spent a day at the beach every morning too!

Now back to straw. Much cheaper and easier to muck out.

ETA: It was 'stovies' pellets i used.
 
GG did you trial the LWP economy or premium? I did a trial of several types a while back and added it to a thread on here. Can't link to it as I'm on my phone but it will be in my post history. I decided to go with LWP in the end but I'd be interested to know how 5* compare on the same basis.
 
I've been using wood pellets for years, started off using Aquamax but finances meant switching to LWP & more recently Verdo.

LWP were ok, they fluff up ok & are reasonably absorbent, but I find they compact down into a hard 'mat' very quickly which can make mucking out back breaking so I tried Verdo.

Don't like Verdo at all, find am using 3 bags a week for stables that are only used 8 hours a day compared to 1-2 a week using LWP. Also the beds look dirty & they don't seem very absorbent :(

Have decided to bite the bullet & get aquamax again, & doing a price/amount used comparison. Have order 40 bags for same price as last Verdo order & will see how long it lasts as sure I used waaaaay less on Aquamax.

Will take pics & do a comparison.

Of the cheaper ones would say LWP over Verdo :)
 
I'm not impressed with Verdo and I'm going to order the Five Star professional.

This is a tack shop local to me brand, think someone said they're from Corleywood originally. First couple of days were fab but now I'm finding I'm taking out loads, I need to put in two bags a week and I prefer it fluffed it with a bale of coarse wood chip type shavings.
 
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I have found 5* professional BETTER than aquamax- was using 3-4 bags of Aquamax a week for my very wet, bed-trashing gelding, and found it really heavy to muck out.

5* Professional however, using 2 bags a week max, sometimes only 1, find it much easier to muck out and much less heavy... in fact the ONLY thing Aquamax has over 5* for me is that Aquamax is lighter in colour and looks 'better'...!

My biggest bug bear with pellet beds is that as my lad likes to play footie with his muck, it gets scattered in little bits and I've yet to find a shavings fork with fine enough tines to get the little bits of muck out.
 
Liath said:
My biggest bug bear with pellet beds is that as my lad likes to play footie with his muck, it gets scattered in little bits and I've yet to find a shavings fork with fine enough tines to get the little bits of muck out.
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Fyna-lite are launching a new pellet fork at BETA next week!! There is details on their FB page :D
 
Iv'e tried aquamax and white horse bedding. Aquamax was terrible for the price, white horse bedding was better but still not great. For my old horse who i don't have anymore it was awful i was using a bag every other day, at £3 a bag i wouldn't have minded. But they were both Heavy,damp and a horrible colour. The worse part of all as I didn't soak the pellets fully leaving some pellets in, so when it came to mucking out there was loads of pellets stuck in the fork that would only come out being pick out by hand. It was cheap i wish i could of liked it to be honest i tried i just hated the stuff.Plus the idea of wetting bedding was weird.
 
How are pellets for making big banks? I have a horse who gets cast even in large boxes. She wears an anti cast roller when stabled but I was thinking of leaving their stables open to use like field shelters so she wouldn't have her roller on. I like the idea of pellets as the bed won't be used for hours every day but I really do need to put big banks in all three stables in case she a different box. Is it ridiculously expensive to make huge banks with pellets?
 
Just looked at the fyna lite website, fork is v similar to the one shires already do, pain £12 for mine from wynstays last winter, not sure how much the fynalite one will be but my shires one is fab, really light, handle is made from alluminium so makes mucking out great and it's still going strong doing four stables daily over 18 months later, great value for money :)
 
Bennions Field it is not on the website yet, its top secret until it is revealed at BETA! They have specifically designed it for pellet beds, yey!
You can pre-order via the FB page tho.
Waiting with baited breath!
 
Milkmaid said:
LynH
I wouldn't use pellets for big banks but you could use pellets as a base & shavings or straw for the banks?
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I tried his with straw. It's ok if you never move them but I found the straw acts lik a candle wick in quicksand and pulled the wet up to the surface. I've not bothered with banks now and the stable seems enormous!
 
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