wood pellets...do you bank sides?

[Toffee44]

Still new to wood pellets been using a just over a week now.

Set original bed up with 11x10kg bags. I feel like I want to add another 4/5 bags and bring my bed more than half of the stable if that makes sense.

Added one bag this weekend (6days after initial set up).

Struggling with the depth of the bed, I think I want it thicker and with bigger banks which I can acheive when I do my first half tonne order.

Do you bank up the sides of leave it?
Horse is definately showing her gratification every night, eats feed, digs a hole, rolls and then carries on eating her hay, she obviously lays down in the night too. Have taken lots of photos of how my trial is going if anyone interested I can post them.

How thick is your bed?
And how do you get the little bits of poop out driving me nuts, I think it has made be bed obsessive.


Sorry for stupid questions I have only ever bedded on straw.

 

[whizzer]

I tried pellets but couldn't get proper banks & the teeny bits of poo drove me mad. I ended up keeping the pellets as base & topping it with shavings or hemp. Made a superb deep litter bed that lasted 2 years with minimal maintenance.

 

[tubby1]

I also tried wood pellets recently & although I did like them couldn't cope with the wee bits of poo & also how brown the bed was. I now have a wood pellet base & a shavings top which is brilliant.looks soft & fluffy & very absorbent. X

 

[Clippy]

When I add a new bag (dry), I put half of it where the bed looks a bit thin or dark and the rest I chuck round the sides like a kind of bank. I rake a bit down as I need it during the week until I add another bag.

If you're using rubber mats you don't need a big bed. Are you using premium softwood pellets? The cheap ones are darker than the premium ones. Also, don't forget, they go darker when they're first wet then lighten up a bit as they dry. I only throw any really saturated ones out, literally the centre of where a big wee has hit them!

I've just ordered a fine tined basket fork which is the way to go I reckon. I always level the bed with a plastic garden rake and fork off any odd poo pieces but having watched a video of the fine tine fork, I had to have one. (Sad, I know!)

 

[PucciNPoni]

When I used wood pellets I didn't use them on their own. I mixed them with fine shavings (ie not Bedmax large, but much finer). The reason I did this is that I too like a bigger bed with banks - but the wood pellets were so much more absorbant. So once a week I'd add either pellets or a bag of shavings. When I used shavings alone, I'd have to use a bag every five days. So I got two more days out of it. Also, as pellets were cheaper, it did considerably reduce the bedding cost over the period of a month. But I would not like to use them on their own.

Initially I'd wet them to help create the base, but after I got in to the routine of it, I stopped wetting them, instead just put them in the hole I'd created when digging out the wet. So it was just an isolated wet patch that was easily removed. The shavings ended up on top.