* wood pellets no good for wet horse - anyone changed from them? *

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shiresrus123

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the pellets are rubbish for wet horses that wak about, so has anyone changed from pellets for this reason and if so, what did you change to and how are you finding it?

or has anyone got a really, emphasis on REALLY, wet horse and found a good bedding thats dealt with it ?

is megazorb more absorbent than pellets? or shavings?
 
I have a serial box walker who is just about the most dirty horse ive ever met, love him to bits though. I swapped to wood pellets 2 years ago & i have found them great until winter when there in for longer.

So in winter i use the Pellets on the bottom on top of mats & then shavings over the top. Works a treat. I actually do this with all my horses now over winter.
 
I found it the opposite - pellets far better than shavings for a wet messy horse that moves. Stinky has been on them six weeks and I would not want to go back to shavings with him.

I have just transferred Farra the filthy clydesdale from megazorb to LWP and whilst it is only been a week, they are so far proving better than megazorb for the wet and are fraction of the price - I am saving at least £10 a week by using them with her and about £4 on Stinky with them.

I have about a 3 - 4" deep bed on mats and cover the back half of the stable. I started the stable with 5 bags and I take out poo each day and the wet spot if it rises to the surface mid week. Weekends, I dig out the wet area and then top up with two 15 k bags. I do use more than they say but mine are large dirty horses that in winter are in three days a week and only out 9 - 4 the other days.

Very quick and easy to use - mucking out is a 5 minute job as the bedding falls off the droppings. Even the weekend dig out and top up is only 15 minutes.

I found that having a bit deeper bed and not turning it over during the week is the trick.
 
A deeper bed is better than a lesser bed. My mare was filthy on the wood pellets and matting. Have moved her over to straw when I moved yards, and she is SO much cleaner.
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So I think its just the fuill bed approach is so much better
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I don't have any pics but if you really want some, I could do this.

My mats are the type that allows the pee to go through which I think also helps as the clydesdales happily do a gallon a go - yes I am sad and have caught it in a bucket. Actually if you can get a horse to pee when they come in and catch it, it makes a difference to the wet. Cairo would pee on a whistle, but Farra and Chancer are proving more difficult to train.

When I do the weekend dig out, I scrape back any dry stuff and the pellets have formed a solid wet area. Chancer is very good and tends to pee in one area, but Farra has two/three spots. I then take this out down to the mats. I then put the old bedding from the outside into the wet area so constantly rotate the older stuff and it does not stay round for ages. I then put clean bedding in one side of the stable where they don't pee and this is then raked over the whole bed so there is a top dry clean layer.

In the week, I will take out any area that the wet has got to the very top, but normally just the top half and then put surrounding bedding over it. This actually works better than taking all the wet out and disturbing the base. This also applies to a megazorb bed - don't keep moving the base.

For a normal horse, taking the wet out every other week works, but Farra is very wet, hence taking a bit out midweek and the all the wet at the weekends is better for her.

Finally make sure that there is no hay in the bed - this seems to make the wet worse. I have a fine metal shavings fork and rake the bed over to get any hay out and level it and make sure there is a dry top layer.

Again I do the same on the megazorb bed as I do with the pellets. Both pellets and megazorb are far better than shavings on a big wet and dirty horse.
 
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