Which type of bedding is easiest to muck out?

Holly Hocks

Holly Hocks

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I might be moving my two horses to a DIY yard soon. Which sort of bedding would be easiest and quickest to muck out. I don't want to do a full muck out every day as I work full-time and often long hours, so want something which can be skipped out and then a full muck out done at weekend, or deep litter as I also have a bad back! It will be on a concrete floor with rubber matting at the front of the box. I have used straw in the past and done a full muck out, but my hair always stunk when I got home and I don't have time to start washing my hair before work! If cost isn't an issue, which bedding do you think would be easiest and quickest? I am currently considering easibed or aubiose.....
 
If cost isn't an issue, I've always preferred mucking out and keeping shavings clean. You can also deep litter (I think it's called that?!) with shavings, I find they smell better and soak up a bit more than straw, and it's just so much easier! My opinion anyway, it may have something to do with the first time I ever learnt to muck out was with shavings, but have since mucked out several times with straw, and deffo prefer the shavings xx
 
Rebelzmum said:
I might be moving my two horses to a DIY yard soon. Which sort of bedding would be easiest and quickest to muck out. I don't want to do a full muck out every day as I work full-time and often long hours, so want something which can be skipped out and then a full muck out done at weekend, or deep litter as I also have a bad back! It will be on a concrete floor with rubber matting at the front of the box. I have used straw in the past and done a full muck out, but my hair always stunk when I got home and I don't have time to start washing my hair before work! If cost isn't an issue, which bedding do you think would be easiest and quickest? I am currently considering easibed or aubiose.....
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Definitely Aubiose, 6x more absorbant than shavings AND doesnt bloomin well stick to everything like shavings!!

To save ££ I use a mix of Aubiose and wood pellets. Lovely bed that the horses love (you can tell cos they will lie on any bit of it, whereas old bed had damp and poo patches everywhere. It used to take me 2 hrs+ to get my messy mare and horrific gelding beds clean when on shavings, and that was using 3 bales each a week (4 bales a week of which I had to pay extra for on top of part livery). Now I can do the lot in 20 mins each, and the beds are cleaner.
 
After having mucked out horses at the yard and just about every bedding under the sun, i'm afraid its good old fashioned straw for me!!
Its very quick to skip out if bedded in properly (unlike shavings they just end up all over the bed and buried I find)!
Although it can be a little tedious, and this winter straw prices will shoot up due to poor wheat growth.
If you ask me though nothing like seeing a nice deep straw bed! I'd sleep in it myself :) x
 
Shavings would be the easiest/quickest I would think.

I use a mixture of easibed and normal shavings (non-branded from feed/bedding merchant). The easibed helps it stay clean and the shavings are nice and fluffy :)

Its probably not the cheapest but I only skip out during the week then do a full muckout at weekend and use one bale a week.
 
I use Easibed for my horse...its a lot easier to muck out than shavings and no where near as dusty. My horse is sensitive to dust and used to cough a lot on shavings but he is much better now.... I also only go through 1 bale a week and skip off during the week and remove all the wet on the weekend.....it makes life so much easier and gives me more time to enjoy riding!

My last horse was on straw but he was so disgustingly dirty and having to remove 4 barrows a day I had no option but to go on shavings.....I wish I had known about easibed then as it would have been so much easier than the shavings were.....
 
JoJo_ said:
Shavings would be the easiest/quickest I would think.

I use a mixture of easibed and normal shavings (non-branded from feed/bedding merchant). The easibed helps it stay clean and the shavings are nice and fluffy :)

Its probably not the cheapest but I only skip out during the week then do a full muckout at weekend and use one bale a week.
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Sorry OP for hijacking...

But JoJo - do you just mix them together or put easibed down first then shavings?

also - is that one bale of each per week?
 
Quickest and easiest I have found to be wood pellets (two horses, DIY & fulltime job working 13.5 hour shifts). I can't deep litter (my OCD) tho and cost is an option.

For you I would say hemp is the best choice. So Auboise.
 
I use Aubiose and love it. 5 mins a stable for a quick skip out, although I'm fussy about my beds so it takes me another 5 to get them as tidy as I want! I deep litter in the week, and take the wet out once a week - fab! It saves me money as well - on shavings Genie was a 2 bale a week girl, on Aubiose she's one bale a week.
 
I use Aubiose on top of rubber matting, I don't deep litter it as much as they suggest as I take out the wet everyday. I find it much more absorbent than shavings and it more or less stays put, also doesn't get stuck in horse's mane or tail too much. I'm lucky in that I have a very tidy gelding who doesn't trash his bed which helps and he also very helpfully does his droppings at the edge of the front of the bed so I lose very little bedding every day when I muck out.
 
Woodpellets every time.

Cheap, easy to manage, suitable to semi deep litter without having to remove an entire stables worth at the weekend :)

Take a bit of getting used too but I'll never use anything else now!
 
I find straw the easiest but shavings the quickest - straw is light to chuck about and easier to sort what's good from what needs to go (IMHO) but I use shavings as I find them quicker to do in the week and the pony doesn't eat shavings where he'll gobble a bed of straw in a couple of hours.


Blitz
 
I hate shavings, I just got fed up with paying through the nose for rubbish, so about five years ago I trialled several types of bedding;

I have rubber floors and initially loved loved loved Megazorb but it worked out too pricey, tried Aquamax wood pellets, loathed them, Easibed, loathed even more and then found chopped rape straw, I do have quite a deep bed and semi deep litter it - I pick the poos out daily and the wet every other day, I use a bale a week for each horse. I was using Bliss but there started to be too much wheat straw in it so I swapped to Unibed.
 
cbmcts said:
Woodpellets every time.

Cheap, easy to manage, suitable to semi deep litter without having to remove an entire stables worth at the weekend :)

Take a bit of getting used too but I'll never use anything else now!
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Me too, I've been using them for three years now, wouldn't go back to shavings at any price. If I had to change it would be to straw (which I do for foaling down but I can't wait to get back to pellets and the horses seem very comfy on them).
 
shavings bed is easiest. Had my horse on straw last year, I didnt like it. Its not quick to muck out at all especially with a messy mare. Not tried auboise though the initial price of setting up a bed put me off.
 
We have Equisorb (flax), Easibed and Straw here. And flax is by far my fav bedding! I've had shavings, cardboard and wood pellets in the past and flax is the best, most absorbant, doesn't smell and the quickest to muck out. Takes me 5 mins per stable :D
 
Cadburys_addict said:
I use Easibed for my horse...its a lot easier to muck out than shavings and no where near as dusty. My horse is sensitive to dust and used to cough a lot on shavings but he is much better now.... I also only go through 1 bale a week and skip off during the week and remove all the wet on the weekend.....it makes life so much easier and gives me more time to enjoy riding!

My last horse was on straw but he was so disgustingly dirty and having to remove 4 barrows a day I had no option but to go on shavings.....I wish I had known about easibed then as it would have been so much easier than the shavings were.....
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Yup I'm another Easibed fan. Its not the cheapest stuff in the world but my pony is so clean on it compared to straw - which I don't like him to have cos he has had a nasty bout of Laminitis in the past. I muck out every day and lift rubber mats on a Sunday morning and leave to dry all day and we only go through 3/4 of a bale a week. It was 1 - 1.5 during the Winter when he was in more because of snow but its brilliant, really absorbent and easy to muck out. I can do Sketch's bed in 5-10 mins!
 
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