Which gets your vote? Shavings, Wood Pellets or Hemp?

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Nofilter

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Hello,

Moved into my first equestrian property a few weeks ago. Have used straw on my last livery yard and on Carrs shavings at present. However been researching the pros and cons of various materials. If I can cut down on mucking out and the expense balances out overall I’d really like to find the right bedding for us...

Please could you post which you prefer so I can gage a direction to go in?

TIA
 
I like pellets over shavings but haven't used hemp. Wood pellets are a bit of an acquired taste in terms of mucking out though, it depends how you manage your beds really. If you have a horse who tramples all their poo to a mush then wood pellets will be very annoying
 
Have used all these bedding. Hate hemp, love shavings but they're too expensive ^ am currently on pellets but they have increased price tremendously over the last 12 months & the companies selling them all come up with different reasons to why they've gone up in price by around £70 per ton.
 
I won't have wood products, they are always softwood and so if you spread the rotted muck heap on your land they make the soil acid - just like the land under softwood plantations and you will end up spending a fortune on lime. For me it is either chopped rape straw or, preferably, chopped miscanthus. Both are absorbent and both biodegrade well, and both are reasonably priced.
I use miscanthus mostly, either over EVA matting or even as deep littler, it works well either way
 
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Was just going to post about what bedding to use for my horse. He does the most poos of any horse Ive ever had. He is a hand bigger than my old lad so I thought "that's not much difference in poo, feed etc" wrong ! He does smaller piles of poos but loads of them. I think he will be buried under them when stabled at night! I used pellets last year but wondered about the dust as they turn into a sort of sandy stuff when they break down, is this a respiratory risk ?
 
I’ve tried all plus more and for ease and lowest cost for messy horses wood pellets are best. I prefer the look of shavings beds but they’re just too expensive now.
 
I now use straw pellets on a rubber base. I changed from wood pellets as get rid of my muck heap in the garden and the straw pellets make a better compost. they have recently gone up in price but I like them as they break down more easily than the wood pellets(don't really need any water) and I think they are less dusty. Both of my horses are pretty tidy in the stable but generally they are very quick to muck out. I use a stable with shavings when i go away and it takes much longer to muck out and sticks to the tail.
 
I use wood pellets. My preference is straw but I can’t cope with the smell.

I find pellets easy to muck out, especially for my cob who mixes everything in. I was spending ages trying to sort it all out with shavings and a wood pellet bed doesn’t move around so much so it stays on the top better. . I semi deep litter,’just taking out wet when it comes to the top. I also love that I can muck out two stables and only have one wheelbarrow full.
 
I've found hemp beds work the best for me, my boy has been known to box walk and can be very wet and the hemp is what I've found works the best for this. I also find it less dusty than many which again is good for us as mine has COPD.
 
Bliss bedding is brilliant stuff - it’s chopped rape straw I think, we use the eucalyptus version and the stables smell lovely! Our horses are at home and we don’t have room for an enormous straw muck heap, this is so quick to muck out and you hardly use any, we use it with mats and it’s incredibly absorbent and doesn’t move around either
 
I love pellets, so quick and easy. I'll go back to them for winter but at the moment I'm on chopped rape straw which I much prefer to shavings, doesn't seem to pick up a smell the same as long straw and it's really absorbent. As soon as I can afford another pallet of pellets I'll be swapping back though, tiny muck heap and super fast to do.
 
I didn't get on with pellets at all as my mare is stupidly wet and the bed turned dark brown very quickly - I ended up using a whole pallet in 5 months!
Shavings were fine if I was happy to put in 3-4 bales a week. When I taught her to pee in a bucket this dropped to 2-3 bales a week.
ProBed (chopped rape straw) worked really well, but Burlybed (miscanthus) was the best by far. With Burlybed she was having 1 bale a week and then an extra bale every month. Tbf the biggest improvement was teaching her to pee in a bucket first thing in the morning and again in the evening!
 
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