Wood pellet bedding

Charlie007

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I have just started to use this. However I'm finding it dusty. The horse's are covered in a layer of dust in the mornings. Surely it can't help with their breathing? ?
 

milliepops

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I have a very dust sensitive horse and she's been quite happy on her pellet bed for about 3 years. She's always covered in bedding in the mornings because she lies down a lot :D
Are you finding it actually dusty, or is it just the small particles that are annoying you? I think there's a difference between dust (such as you can get in hay) and small bits of bedding.
 

AGray825

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Just put my new girl on this (because she's the wettest pony I've ever come across) and haven't noticed a dust problem... she also gets a lot of particles on her stable sheet because she lays down, but in terms of dust I'm not getting anything. I dunno if the quality changes with the brand... she's on Verdo if that helps?

In fact I've got worse dust from my big lad's Bed Down Excel deep littered bedding (an unfortunate neccesity because of his broken pedal bone), so much so that I've started taking as much out as possible to replace with a shavings and aubiose mix!
 

Annagain

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As others have said, are you sure it's dust or is it just bits of bedding sticking to them or their rugs? It does break down to a very fine product. One of mine has slight breathing issues and we've never had problems with wood pellets (we only use them in winter as horses are out 24/7 in summer)
 

ihatework

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They can be very dusty - very fine wood particles, you notice it on their coat and often get a film on the water. Mostly during the summer, not so bad in winter with dampness in air.
If you are getting that then yes, I wouldn't want a horse breathing it in. Dampen the bed or put different top bed on (which is what I do, I only use wood pellets as a lower absorbency layer)
 

Charlie007

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It does seem like a fine dust layer to me. Have just read that only the start of the bed should be dampened. Any top up bedding should be put in in pellet form, this then absorbs the moisture????

Those of you that put shavings on top, how do you go about mucking it out?
 
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