What type of bedding are you on and why?

Spit That Out

Spit That Out

Well-Known Member
Joined
27 April 2010
Messages
1,364
Location
Cheshire
Visit site
I'm on straw and i hate it...I'm on it because it's cheap (£20) for a large rectangle bale which lasts me nearly a month.
I deep litter it which means i take out the poop everyday , re-fluff the bed and then if needed add a bit of fresh on the top. I take out the wet on a weekend and leave the floor to dry out.
I like a deep bed...my banks are 2ft high and the bed is 1ft deep and covers the whole of the stable floor. My horse has never got a wet hoof in the morning and likes to snuggle down!!! I'm quite lucky that my horse is quite clean and poops and wee's in the same place.

I used to be on Easibed but it went up to over £8 a bale and i was using a bale a week so it was a bit pricey. However if money was no object i would go back on to this.
I also was on Nedz Original which i loved but i was using 2 bags a week and at over £6 a bag, this was also getting pricey.
I don't like shavings, i find i chuck too much good stuff out along with the poop and i find even the dust extracted stuff is dusty. The cheapest shavings are £6.65 a bale.
I also don't like rubber matting as i find it's slippy when wet and i hate having to try and lift out heavy smelly mats to clean underneath them.

***These are my opinions and don't want to offend anyone who uses the bedding i don't like!!!***

I have however been looking at Hemp bedding. I've never used it so if anyone has any experience with it (good or bad), how much you use and how much you pay for a bag, please let me know. Same goes for "Elephant Grass" as this apparently is become more popular and is meant to be quite cheap (£4.50 a bale!!!)

What bedding are you on and why...Is it because it's the cheapest, readily available, absorbent, easy to muck out or you've always been on it and never considered changing?
 
Im on shavings, lovely thick bed with all the dirty taken out everyday because he insists on trashing his bed.
Takes me 10 mins to muck out once a day and I just put fresh shavings on when I need them, could be 3 bags a week could be 1 at £5 a bag. So I use it because its relatively cheap and easy to maintain :)
 
Last edited:
Straw for Kelly - on shavings she's much too messy every day needs a new bale down and it costs a fortune!! - when she got lami, we had to mix straw and shavings :)
I find cushionbed quite hard (we used to sell it), but that's just me xD never looked at anything else, I find straw easiest
K x
 
im on rubber mats & small shavings beds because...
-only £4.50-£5/bale when bought in bulk.
-only use 2bales a wk for 6horses
-fast to muck out
-keeps muck heap small

I dont move my mats, just powerwash stables out & water flows underneath & cleans out under them. I find shifting them makes it smell more & they have been well fitted so would be hell to get out.
I hate straw with a passion (as i nicely rediscovered this morning at my new job!) Its smells, isnt absorbant, takes me forever to muck out (can do 6beds of shavings in around 45mins) & seems to get everywhere.
Have used hemp before, but unless you bed it down it seems to move a lot. Its also pricey!

Obviously these are just my views & everyone is different!
 
I'm on rubber matting and full straw bed

Rubber matting - because she has slightly capped hocks and I like the extra protection anyway
Straw - because I like it, find it easy to muck out, is very cheap, gives a nice thick warm bed and Lacey obviously likes it, she spends most the time fast asleep curled up in it!
 
I'm on rubber mats and straw, my boy likes his straw to lie down in and occasionally chew a little, I think it reminds him of what grass tasted like in Spain :) he's just really cosy in straw and there's no problem with it, so why change :)
 
Maybe i should go back to mucking out fully everyday instead of a dig out once a week.

Even on the deep litter i don't find that the straw smells until i lift it out at the weekend, it just seems hard work...although i should look at it that it's saving me going to the gym!!! :D

I find that the quality of the straw changes from one bale to another. The last one i had was light, golden and fluffy. This one is dull and heavy...the one before that had mud and stones in it because the farmer cut too close to the ground.

Thats one thing i miss about bagged bedding...the consistency :rolleyes:

To be honest i think straw is the cheapest option for me at the moment and maybe review it if the farmer puts his prices up?
 
Miscanthus (elephant grass) because it's cheap, readily available here, very easy to muck out and doesn't move around like shavings can do. I do love a nice thick straw bed but it's not been that easy to get around here lately and also i can do without the smell
 
I use shavings as i like them although they are quite dusty. I muck out properly everyday and hes a complete stinker so 1-2 wheel barrow fuls later its clean!! I work with straw and cant stand the stuff because it doesnt absorb the pee and smells and my horse likes to eat it lol
 
Galisgirl10 said:
Miscanthus (elephant grass) because it's cheap, readily available here, very easy to muck out and doesn't move around like shavings can do. I do love a nice thick straw bed but it's not been that easy to get around here lately and also i can do without the smell
Click to expand...

I've been quoted £4.50 a bale so if i only need one bag a week would be even cheaper than the straw?!!?
Is it soft or hard? Can you deep litter it? How absorbent is it? How many bags a week do you use? How many bags did it take to set your be up?
Sorry for all the questions but it's one of the beddings I'm looking at :D
 
Rubber mats & shavings...............& £1 per bag from the local sawmill !!

Rubber mats for ease & savings on bedding. Straw would be my 1st choice, but shavings are cheaper - I use 3 bags per stable per week.
 
I'm on bedsoft, between £6.50-£7.00 per bale. Like straw but chopped up and therefore hardly any waste. Used to be on shavings and although this is a little smellier the waste is less and it's a lot easier to muck out. Nice thick beds as well. Boys are always lying down so they must like it too. Using a bale a week on the messy one (digs, churns etc) and a bale every week and a half to two weeks for the tidy boy.
 
Always kept Jack on straw where he was before, loved it and farmer used to deliver big bales for us with tractor.

Now I'm on a livery yard, we have to source our own bedding, therefore I am limited to stuff that comes in plastic bags as we have limited storage space and I have to collect it in the car!

Currently trying Rapport, which I believe is chopped rapeseed stalks and quite similar to hemp. It's about £5 a bale if memory serves. The jury's out at the moment, haven't used my stable much as he's mostly been living out, only spent a couple of nights in pre-show and pre-cubbing. But I'd say it's probably similar to shavings (although less dusty I think). 3 bales made an acceptable starter bed (I don't bother with banks tho).
 
My horse is on straw, primarily because it's included in my livery bill! If the straw is of good quality, I do like it. It isn't difficult to muckout and does make a nice comfy bed. Mine can boxwalk so would wreck a shavings bed and the cost would be astonomical. What would be lovely is if someone else mucked out for me!
 
Ecobed cardboard on top of mayomat cowmats (foam-rubber.)
I tried wood pellets all summer but the dust just really got me down. Tried shavings again too and although they look lovely, again I hate the dust they created.
the cardboard is lovely. really really clean, absorbent, mulches down quickly and easily, warm for the horses to sleep on. Really quick to muck out too, just love it.
 
I have 6 ponies on straw and 2 on shavings. If money was no object they would all be on shavings but straw works out considerably cheaper for me. The 2 on shavings are both terrible bed eaters on straw and one of them manages to get colic from eating straw :(
 
We changed to straw last year as we realised that we could keep four on straw for the same cost as one on shavings. The muckier ones seem cleaner on straw, and I like that you don't have to bandage cuts to legs to stop shavings getting in them. I've also felt that we've had less mud rash problems on shavings, as the legs are in straw, which dries them better.. I will admit that the beds smell more on straw, but the muckheap seems to rot quicker.

We've got rubber mats underneath. When the snow was really bad last year we nearly ran out of snow, and just put a couple of slices in a day, which we took out daily - that worked well.

This year we're doing semi-deep litter mon-fri as I'm injured and won't be able to muck out all winter, so DH is left with it all to do. It seems to be working great, and doesn't take much shovelling out at weekend!

Sorry - bit of an essay!
 
Rubber mats and Aubiose. I'm very lucky in that I have a very tidy pony (dungs in the same place in a nice neat pile all night, just in front of the edge of the bed with maybe one pile in his bed, which he doesn't trash. Also I find it soaks up the wet really well and so each day I don't have to take out much at all. So although it is expensive (£9+ per bale), I only have to put in one bale about once every 2 weeks or so. Though this will increase from November when they are in for longer at night.
 
Huge straw beds with banks. I use a semi-deep litter system and take out all the poo and any wet that comes to the surface, every day and a 'proper' muck out at weekend. Two very clean girls use a huge bale in around five to six weeks and they are always warm, dry and very comfortable. Yes, it smells when I take it all out, but thats a small price to pay for having them so warm and safe.
 
I am rubber mats and easibed.....my horse is sensitive to dust and shavings are just too dusty these days....go through currently about 1 bale a week...I find easibed easier to muck out than shavings and I throw less of the clean stuff away when clearing the poop....however, if I could I think I would put him on straw cos easibed is not the cheapest and shavings is just not an option :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top