What do you use to dig out pellets once a week, or whenever?

[chrissie1]

I know this is trivial!

Have a foal on a pellet bed, and because he is quite clean I'm not taking wet out daily, but when an area starts to look wetter I want to remove it. I tried the other day and the shovel sort of bounced back at me. The bed isn't 'that' deep, about 5 or 6 inches, I had moved the drier surface stuff to one side.

Is a shavings fork the answer, can you visualise what I mean about it being so firm that I couldn't break through it?

Probably a matter of the right technique, I have the others on pellet bases with deep straw on top and rarely touch the bases.

 

[jenni999]

I use a shovel. If you're taking out the wet, it will be wet through to the floor so you should be able to slide the shovel in easily? I scrape the dry pellets off the top and then it's easy.

 

[Undecided]

I did my dig out today for the first time since starting on wood pellets. I picked all the poo as usual then threw all the bed up at the wall until I hit a wet patch, because it compacts into a solid lump I can scrape all the clean away until just the dark wet stuff is left which I then scoop out with a shavings fork and then re-lay the bed back down

 

[Spyda]

I just use a good quality metal shavings fork. I dig it in and lever the wet up.

 

[Reindeer Rider]

Orange snow shovel for the wet. Shavings fork for taking off droppings.

 

[chrissie1]

Snow shovel, now there's an idea! Today it looked quite good so I added in a bag of lightly soaked and will see how that works.

Thanks all

 

[PennyJ]

I use a plastic spade to scrape and dig out my pellet beds.

 

[Baileyhoss]

I use a snow shovel too. The light cheap ones are the best.

 

[Theresa_F]

I muck out using my shavings fork for the poo and getting any hay out, then I use a snow shovel for the wet and to "sweep" back the bedding from the front mats - really quick and easy and I now only use a broom on the yard. I can do the wet with the shavings fork, but the snow shovel is far quicker.