What to do for a dirty horse!

TallyHo123

TallyHo123

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Hi guys,
just a quick one (I hope!) Bought my gelding in September, from November they lived in over night and I had him on shavings. He was so dirty but I do like shavings and prefer them for a messy horse. However if I wanted to fully muck him out each day which I like doing he needed a bag a day!
I have never come across a horse so dirty!!
I changed to straw last Monday and I now has 3 slices from a large rectangle bale left. :|
I've tried deep littering the last few days and it looks like he hasn't been mucked out for about amonth!
Is there anything I can try? Or am I just going to have to get a second job to pay for his bed! Lol
:)
 
If you have good drainage why don't you rubber mat him? Then I would also keep him in his outdoor rugs overnight as stable rugs will get vey wet/smelly quickly. Outdoor ones keep going out in rain & getting washed off (& being waterproff muck wont soak through onto him). Not a pretty solution, but it works (owner of a filty girl who also pees for britain...).
 
Thanks for the reply :) He has outdoor rugs on, but they don't get that bad tbh.
He did have half the stable matted when I had shavings but the drainage isn't fab and it smelt horrible! Wee would also sit on them and they got ruined pretty quick. Decent mats too!
 
Rubber mats are the future. I own an absolutely filthy mare who is stabled most of the winter 24/7. I find that putting just enough bed down to soak up the wet and leaving the rest of the bed in the banks is the best solution. But shes on rubber mats :)
 
I have a mare that box walks and by morning everything is mush, I tried all types of bedding but the best by far has been rubber mats and shavings, she still has small banks and a very thin shavings in the middle, every morning I sweep out the whole middle and put fresh down, takes me 10 mins instead of the hour before I had rubber mats, I use 1 bale a week but rugs do get quite messy, I use outdoor rugs in stable too.
 
I feel your pain :-)

Wood pellet bedding! On top of rubber mats.. It absorbs all the urine.. and helps to dry out the droppings. If he can't go out when its icy or snows, you can cut right down to a sprinkle of pellets for them to pee on.
Have gone from 4 bales of shavings a week, to 1 or possibly 2 bags of pellets.
You can order them on a pallet and the price goes right down.

Not great for box walkers, but I've found plenty of hay, a salt lick and a few other distractions and he will stand still. Also make sure they get enough work!

I make shavings banks, then have the wood pellets in the middle and don't add water to them to activate them, I prefer to let him pee on them for activation LOL.

Also second the turnout, I bought a cheap lightweight turn out which he has over the top of his stable rug, when it get smelly you can just hose it off so much cheaper than continuous washing of stable rugs.

hope that helps.
 
Damnation said:
Rubber mats are the future. I own an absolutely filthy mare who is stabled most of the winter 24/7. I find that putting just enough bed down to soak up the wet and leaving the rest of the bed in the banks is the best solution. But shes on rubber mats :)
Click to expand...

This is what I do for my 'poo is a pillow', pooing and peeing for britain grey girl who is also a lover of trapsing it in!! I have tried every combination of deep litter, semi deep litter, just a scattering, different beddings etc.

She has full rubber mats (in her old stable the drainage was v poor so each week I did a full muck out and hosed under the mats) with big shavings/chopped straw banks with a small corner bed put down. All the bed area taken up each morning and chucked each morning. Any damp patches at the base of the banks I leave until I do a full muck out each week.

Keeping her bed in a corner rather than all across the back of the stable seems to restrict how trashed it gets with her walking through everything. I don't put just a scatter down, prob a couple of inches worth (just a scatter results in a grose 'wee paste' bed, urgh!).

Also she comes in as late as poss (prob about 5 or 6 at the mo) and goes out asap in the morning (about 7ish at the mo). She also has enough hay otherwise she trashes her banks too! (as she is a bit of a good doer she has her hay soaked so she can have enough).

As soon as the frosts stop and assuming her field isn't a mud bath then she will be back out 24/7.

This way I get through 2 bales a week and manage to keep her bed nice and clean.
 
Thanks for the replies. He was on rubber mats and he was still disgusting. Might try him again though. I ride around 8am then he goes out straight after and comes in between 4.30pm earliest. He is happy in his stable, doesn't box walk etc. but he is just so messy!
 
Another vote for wood pellets! My gelding is very wet and produces soooo much poo and then just to make matters worse mushes everyhing up together!

He's got mats at the front and a deep litter bed at the back. May not be everyone's cup of tea but works well for us.
 
Mine is on straw and he is quite dirty. I was doing full muck outs everyday and taking 2 wheel barrows out. I tried him on deep litter and like yours, his bed ended up horrid! He was on a smaller bed and one day I got a bit carried away putting straw down :p He now has a huge bed and I only take 1 wheel barrow out (sometimes even 1/2 a wheel barrow!) on a full muck out. Maybe try him on a bigger, thicker bed and see how that goes?
 
I swear by Bed Down Excel.

Its a mix of chopped straw and shavings so its mega absorbant because the gaps between the two are smaller.

I semi-deep litter, taking the wet out once/twice a week and I put in a bale a week. Bed is huge with 3 banks :)

Plus it smells great :D
 
sugarmia said:
Hi guys,
just a quick one (I hope!) Bought my gelding in September, from November they lived in over night and I had him on shavings. He was so dirty but I do like shavings and prefer them for a messy horse. However if I wanted to fully muck him out each day which I like doing he needed a bag a day!
I have never come across a horse so dirty!!
I changed to straw last Monday and I now has 3 slices from a large rectangle bale left. :|
I've tried deep littering the last few days and it looks like he hasn't been mucked out for about amonth!
Is there anything I can try? Or am I just going to have to get a second job to pay for his bed! Lol
:)
Click to expand...

I do feel for you! One of my liveries has a horse like that and he was using 4 times the amount of bedding as all the other horses and I just couldn't sustain the costs. His owner likes his bed to be absolutely pristine and so I had to reduce her livery fee and ask her to provide her own bedding. This suited both of us.

Do you have rubber matting? I find this is the only economical way to maintain such a horse's bed. I use megazorb (4 x as absorbent as shavings), and just a sprinkling on top of the matting to absorb all the wee. Then I take everything out every day and add fresh. It only takes 5 minutes. The horse I mentioned above has more bedding than that on his owners request and still has the whole lot replaced every day. Costs her £35 a week! But if he were mine I would use less than half that amount and he would be absolutely fine.
 
I use shavings mixed with bliss (half and half) and find it great for my pony and horse. It is good whether you are mucking out every day or skipping out during the week and mucking out on a weekend. The secret is to have it really thick (at least 8 inches), the wet absorbs into clumps and doesnt hit the floor so having a dry floor tends to keep your bedding dry. Always been on straw until this winter when a friend recommended this way and wouldnt go back now. I use one bale of shavings per stable one week, then one bale of bliss er stable the next week. For two it costs me on average £50 per month.
 
Just been reading the other replies re rubber mats smelling and needing lifting. If you fit them tightly in your stable and fill the gaps with silicone, then you never have to lift them and they don't smell. It's a difficult job (hubby did mine) but well worth it. Ours have been down 6 years and never smelt or needed lifting.
 
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