TheBayHorse1210
Member
own a typical 4 year old gelding, and by typical I mean clever, naughty, cheeky and play full. He loves rolling in the muddiest part of the field, likes teasing the other geldings in his field and when in his stable, likes to drag his bedding around. This doesn't really bother me (well, he could be a little cleaner but hey ho). In my old yard he had a smallish stable with straw bedding as we weren't allowed any other. This worked fine, once he was in a routine he was very neat (less than half a wheelbarrow a day!). In the summer we moved yards to a much bigger stable. He was bedded on straw which is £4 per bale. But the stables we are in now were once cow sheds, meaning there is a slight slope towards the muck heap, this means that the wee from the stable next to me seeps into mine, and mine seeps into the stable on the other side. For the sake of not causing arguments we switched to shavings to help with drainage, either Thorowood or Snowflake Supreme, the were very expensive to start a bed (over £100!) but now we only use 1 bale a week at £6.75 per bale. My bed is quite small though, as the stable higher up from me is on straw, it drains all the wee into my bed and soaks it all within a few days, so now I have a small shavings bank, then a gap, and then my bed starts. It is much dryer this way. However, buy the end of the week, a lot of my bed is wet due to my gelding being very messy. He also likes to kick his poo around and hide it under clean shavings A LOT so I'm spending about and hour and a half each day looking for less than a wheelbarrow full of muck. This is what is bothering me. I am a "neat freak" (no crit please, I am who I am), I like the banks to be square, the bed to be deep, straight and flat all over. (By deep I mean deep, my rabbits have about 20cm of straw in their hutch, so you can imagine my horses bed!) I am now considering switching back to straw as I miss having a nice, fluffy, clean bed all week as I hate deep littering, I've had to grow a great sense of willpower not to go through the entire bed of shavings each day looking for the wet. My horse has a good routine, he is out 24/7 in the summer, in the winter he is in at night and out in the day, he is out by 7 every morning and comes in at 5 at the latest. He is ridden most days (4-5 out of 7) with a variety of activities (schooling, hacking, jumping, lunging, loose schooling) and is fed according to nutritionist advice with ad lib haylage in winter and hay in the summer. I also look after a gelding on straw every now and then and he is much messier than mine and takes me about 20 minutes to muck him out the way I like it. If we were to move back onto straw I would have a small bank of shavings on the bottom part of my stable so nothing can seep through to the next stable, I dont mind it seeping through to mine on straw as it dries out during the day when Im not there. And the girl higher up than me does everything she can bless her to stop it going through, she uses pelleted cat litter at the moment which seems to be working very well and I may try if I move to straw.
Ok, life story over (sorry about that), what does everybody suggest? Should I stick to shavings or go back to straw?
Ok, life story over (sorry about that), what does everybody suggest? Should I stick to shavings or go back to straw?
) I would have a bank of shavings each side to stop leakage and then put my (3foot high, 2foot wide) banks in. My banks are usually pretty solid and once in they don't come down for years. And my horse won't touch them or eat them so shouldn't be a problem. Thank You all so much for the help, I guess what you grow up on really does decide what you bed on in the future (I have always used straw, this was my first shavings bed)! I will post on how we get on later 
