what bedding for an earth floor

Bosworth

Bosworth

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A friend is wanting to overwinter her brood mares with me - I have loads of grazing so no problem there and I have a 3 bay barn that we are gating to keep them in should the weather turn bad. The problem is the barns have an earth floor and I am not sure what bedding to use for them. I use wood pellet for all my normal stables which have concrete with rubber matting and I wondered if that would work. I don't really want to use straw as we spread our muck heaps on the fields every 6 months as the pellets rot down quickly but obviously straw wouldn't.

I am not sure if I even need to put bedding down. In effect the earth will absorb the wet and the ground is just as comfortable to sleep on as the grass in the field so not sure.
 
If the floor will always stay dry then I think I would use some kind of bedding as bone dry earth will be just like concrete.

The problem we found with our shed was that the wet came UP through the ground and we ended up with a boggy mess around the inside few feet of the shed - we ended up having to stone the floors and then lay down bedding.
 
Do you think it will stay dry through the winter? It might work better staying as earth or maybe using something like peat. I would be worried that by putting a bed down it may upset the natural drainage especially something like straw which will work its way into the top surface quite quickly.

Given the choice of bedding Id go with the pellets i think and see what happens.

Buggers probably wont ever go in their anyway!
 
Hi there

I have earth floor on 2 of my stables and i use shavings and have no problems.
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My stable floors are all just earth, I just sling a barrowload of shavings down on it if they are in for the night.
 
Our stables are earth floor, a wonderful system IMO, we use shavings as bedding, I wouoldn't want to go down the route of no bedding, as there is very little cushioning, with a compacted beaten earth floor, also cuts down on draughts at ground level. For actual stables also means that you can have banks. Ours drains very well and was also ok when we used straw.
 
Not quite the same but I have a field shelter with earth floor in. It is very hard ground but find that if I put bedding down then thats where they wee rather than out in the field. because they have access to the field then thats where they lie anyway. I think however if I was actually using the shelter as a stable I would put something down as the smell of neat wee /poo is bad and the ground retains the smell and the moisture and would become horribly slimy and churned up in a short sapce of time. Plus it wont be nice for them to lie in as they have no other choice, let alone stand inso the shavings (or hemp) absorbs the worst.

Also maybe sand would work as long as they dont eat it! Moisture would drain through and keep top layer relatively dry. Horribly heavy though....

Hmm bit of a dilemma really. I think I actually wouldnt bring them in faced with that decision. Does the barn immediately access the field or even a small turnout area which you could use, that way they would have the choice to lie outside on damp soft ground?
 
I've used DL straw on compacted earth on an old barn floor over the winter. I've been impressed by the invention of those grass mat things too which are a godsend for stabilising the busy areas outside and keeping the mud situation to a minimum.
 
I have a stable which opens up to the field, so I use it as a shelter, with the door kept open. The earth inside really does compact down, so if I were keeping them in, I'd use shavings/similar. I find it does mix with dirt very quickly, but otherwise no problems. Judging by the amount they get on their backs, they DO sleep on it sometimes and my mare loves a good roll in there (it's a big stable, luckily!).
 
We have a vey large barn which our youngsters have access to. It used to flood so we had a couple of inches scraped off the top and then stone well temped down and dry earth packed down over that. We also had french drains put in the length of the barn just outside the entrance side in the field (the field slopes down very slightly to the barn and the water runs off the roof over the entrance) with stone over the top of them. Four years on we still have a lovely dry barn. I put straw down when they were foals but now I don't put any bedding down - just scrape the top inch out each spring.
 
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