Worried and planning ahead......

You Wont Forget Me

You Wont Forget Me

Well-Known Member
Joined
5 April 2011
Messages
762
Location
Sunny Scotland
Visit site
After last years winter i am already starting to worry! My horse is stabled in winter and gets out during the day when i feel its safe, He was on a straw bed last year and 2 haynets at night, however he started to eat his straw and we have had to put him on shavings for the summer as it was giving him a cough as it was really dusty so was getting worried about gettin copd. Anyway we are going to have to put him back on straw for the winter as he will prob be in alot more and is really filthy so cant afford to keep him on shavings but i am worried about him eating it. I refuse to put disinfectant or whatever on it to stop him eating as i wont take the risk of him eating it with that on and causing his inside damage, so i plan to have A boredum buster ball, a tounge twister, a hanging likit, a naff salt lick and a respitory paddock lick thing on offer to him all the time and plan on giving him 3 haynets at night (he currently gets 2 although leaves some) and 2 in the day if he's kept in, should this be enough to discourage him from eating the straw?? If not what else can i do? I really dont want him eating it?:confused:
 
Use the time now to search around for decent straw and consider keeping him deep littered on it as that will reduce the palatability and dust. Also make sure that when you do his bed you take him out of the stable and make sure that he stays out until any dust has settled.
 
AshTay said:
What do you mean by "safe"?

What about alternatives such as bliss which can be deep littered?
Click to expand...




As in when the snow or ice isnt too bad.

We cant deep litter him as he is so messy, my friend in the stable next to us deep litters and what she takes out her horses bed in a week (after deep litering) i take out in one day!! So its a no no for deep littering although it would prob work if he wasnt so messy
 
Aaah! Had visions of you being on the side of a wild scottish mountain with high winds threatening to blow him away...

So long as he prefers hay over straw then he'll probably be fine with all those haynets (use small-holed nets to slow him down). But if he's one of those strange neddies that just likes straw then not much you can do about it if you can't use something else.

I've used bliss without deep littering it (on matting) and it's been easy to deal with - just take the lot out. If you have rubber matting that could be a way to reduce the amount of bedding you need therefore enabling you to afford an alternative to straw?
 
Can't you invest in some rubber mats? Some people manage to get away with using very small amounts of shavings with them.
 
We have rubber matts and were only giving him a small amount of shavings but he was just gettin it filthy and getting himself filthy. The reason we want straw for winter is a- to keep him clean b- to keep him warm and c- we cant afford to use shaving in winter as we will get through so much of it. Hopefully the extra haynet and boredum toys should help this year
 
My mare is truely filthy, everyone on the yard says she is the dirtiest they have ever met...... we use shavings and normally manage with the two bales a week that are included in our livery without too much bother.

It helps that we have mats at the front for her to stand on so she only needs a half bed. But what we do is a sort of semi deep litter. We take out the poos every day and the worst of the ground in horribleness but we don't dig down and remover all the wet. The shavings get topped up a couple of times a week.

Works well for us, we'd get through loads if we took all the wet and dirty out every time. We also find that her bed is better when there is a good deep litter base down as it holds together better so she can't stir it up quite so much, where as the first few days after we have dug it out are awful as she just mashes the whole lot up and spreads it around....... honestly you have never see a stable like it, oh calls it the monkey cage, in fact just typing this is making me dread winter as she is out 24/7 now and it is such a relief.

At her old yard she had full rubber matting and just a small sprinkle of shavings to soak up the wet, but they wuld have got through two bales a week doing that too.

Or you could try wood pellets, bliss or auboise. The school ponies on our yard have pellets and the person who uses bliss swears by it....
 
KristmasKatt said:
My mare is truely filthy, everyone on the yard says she is the dirtiest they have ever met...... we use shavings and normally manage with the two bales a week that are included in our livery without too much bother.

It helps that we have mats at the front for her to stand on so she only needs a half bed. But what we do is a sort of semi deep litter. We take out the poos every day and the worst of the ground in horribleness but we don't dig down and remover all the wet. The shavings get topped up a couple of times a week.

Works well for us, we'd get through loads if we took all the wet and dirty out every time. We also find that her bed is better when there is a good deep litter base down as it holds together better so she can't stir it up quite so much, where as the first few days after we have dug it out are awful as she just mashes the whole lot up and spreads it around....... honestly you have never see a stable like it, oh calls it the monkey cage, in fact just typing this is making me dread winter as she is out 24/7 now and it is such a relief.

At her old yard she had full rubber matting and just a small sprinkle of shavings to soak up the wet, but they wuld have got through two bales a week doing that too.

Or you could try wood pellets, bliss or auboise. The school ponies on our yard have pellets and the person who uses bliss swears by it....
Click to expand...



Sounds like what we do, i give him a really thick deep bed and try compact it down so he cant scatter it as much yet he still scatters all his poo and wet everywhere. The state of his stable after being in for not even 10 hours is ridiculas therefore having shavings when he could be in 24 hours isnt even worth thinking about! We dont really want to change his shavings for anything as we get them really cheap but obv straw is included in our livery anyway so dont mind for winter as long as he doesnt eat it lol
 
I'd definately up the hay available, and consider using barley straw or oat straw if you can get it to bed him down on it is better quality and cleaner than wheat straw. Most wheat straw which is used for bedding is dusty and has been treated with a chemical stiffener to stop it lodgeing in the field prior to combining.

Barley straw and oat straw will do no harm, maybe some good for a horse which gets fat, it is more expensive than wheat straw but worth it.
 
Pale Rider said:
I'd definately up the hay available, and consider using barley straw or oat straw if you can get it to bed him down on it is better quality and cleaner than wheat straw. Most wheat straw which is used for bedding is dusty and has been treated with a chemical stiffener to stop it lodgeing in the field prior to combining.

Barley straw and oat straw will do no harm, maybe some good for a horse which gets fat, it is more expensive than wheat straw but worth it.
Click to expand...


Thanks, its the YO who crops his own straw so doesnt allow anyone to buy other stuff in so we are stuck with wheat straw..... Im just hoping up up in hay will be enough to stop him
 
The key is to build it up, so you have a good compact base and then don't disturb it until it gets so thick that the head room becomes an issue ;)

Seriously we only get through two bales a week normally doing this, and she would be in for 12 hours or more. How much are you using? Perhaps you are taking to much out in an effort to have a pristine white bed? Are you making your banks really huge?

We have found that you have to relax a bit and accept that you won't have one of those pristine beds.....

We also didn't find our horse was getting dirty like she would in a minimal bed. In fact people used to marvel at the fact her stable looked like a poo bomb had gone off and yet she'd come out looking cleaner than most of the other horses, complete with a look of innocence on her face as if someone else had been in and ground poo into the shavings, scattered bed and straw everywhere, moved the mats around, up ended her water bucket, pooed in her feed bucket and pulled down the banks........

Oh and we found bedmax shavings were a bit better too as you don't take as much out.
 
We have a filthy mare too. Her stable used to look like a cow shed and she seemsed to always be laying/covered in poo. We changed from straw to Beddown last winter. Laid a nice deep bed on rubber matting and picked poo out during the week and lifed out the wet and relaid it at the weekend and bingo! No more problems and we only use 1 bag a week with the occasional extra bag to top it up every 5-6 weeks :)
 
What about trying rubber mats and woodpellet bedding? Woodpellets are cheaper than shavings, and although they'd hardly be considered a 'luxurious' bedding, it sounds to me as though woodpellets might be better than having him on straw which is making him cough.
- We pay £3.06 a bag. A very clean horse will use 1 bag a week. A very dirty horse will use around 4 bags a week. How does that compare to the cost of what you'd spend on shavings and straw?
 
KristmasKatt said:
The key is to build it up, so you have a good compact base and then don't disturb it until it gets so thick that the head room becomes an issue ;)

Seriously we only get through two bales a week normally doing this, and she would be in for 12 hours or more. How much are you using? Perhaps you are taking to much out in an effort to have a pristine white bed? Are you making your banks really huge?

We have found that you have to relax a bit and accept that you won't have one of those pristine beds.....

We also didn't find our horse was getting dirty like she would in a minimal bed. In fact people used to marvel at the fact her stable looked like a poo bomb had gone off and yet she'd come out looking cleaner than most of the other horses, complete with a look of innocence on her face as if someone else had been in and ground poo into the shavings, scattered bed and straw everywhere, moved the mats around, up ended her water bucket, pooed in her feed bucket and pulled down the banks........

Oh and we found bedmax shavings were a bit better too as you don't take as much out.
Click to expand...

Just now im getting through 2 and a half bags a week and that with him hardly in!! His bed never looks clean the firts day a new bale goes in - perfect! next day-pig sti and not a flake of sclen shavings!! Bankings are tiny too. Yea the shavings im getting pretty much match bedmax theyre great!
 
Misinterpreted said:
What about trying rubber mats and woodpellet bedding? Woodpellets are cheaper than shavings, and although they'd hardly be considered a 'luxurious' bedding, it sounds to me as though woodpellets might be better than having him on straw which is making him cough.
- We pay £3.06 a bag. A very clean horse will use 1 bag a week. A very dirty horse will use around 4 bags a week. How does that compare to the cost of what you'd spend on shavings and straw?
Click to expand...


I dont know if my mum would be up for that as we are only paying £2 for a big huge bag of shavings and he's getting through 2 and a half a week, so it would work out more expensive with wood pellets :/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top