yard owner says no shavings!

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Rosiejazzandpia

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As in title. 2 horses currently on straw in awful stables with poor drainage. Straw is currently being bought from YO and is expensive tat. Silly stables are so oddly shaped that strw is amounting to a small fortune each month and as a result my horses owner has increased cost of loan.
Spoke to YO today about switching to shavings as they are cleaner and smell better and will work out cheaper. YO gave a flat no and said we couldnt use them. Gave me the explanation that they use the rotted straw and poo from the muck heap to fertalise the top fields that they use to cut hay and shavings wouldnt rot fast enough. Im no expert on farming etc and if this true then thats fine, its a valid explanation and its her land etc. I thought straight away that she was just saying that so we would have to spend a small fortune on her crappy straw each month rather than buying shavings. Is this true or is she just saying this??
 
Shavings will take longer to rot down. Offer to buy in the straw from your own source? She will probably say no and if she/ they do then you know its because you are being ripped off.

Saddle up and head on out to a new yard ;)

My mare has a 'reaction' to straw so for me shavings are an absolute. If anyone said i couldnt use them then i wouldnt be on that yard.
 
Would they allow chopped straw instead? I've used that in the past as I got a good price for some and it was as good as shavings for my horse.
I think she's right about shavings taking longer to break down, but you may be able to negotiate something else if thats her only objection.
 
Straw does rot down quicker than shavings so she may be right. Personally I'd be looking for somewhere else as straw is just old fashioned and smelly IME!
 
Thanks, the straw is awful.
Also very messy and smelly, stables with poor drainage and straw does not smell good!
Stable floor is a right mess if they are in overnight and is soaked and disgusting!
Antw23uk- thinking about moving yards anyway due to rude comments, bad feeling and general bullying from horse owners in stable next door to my mare :( really upset me lately
 
What about something like Aubiose?
On a semi deep litter system it works out a similar cost to shavings and rots down extremely quickly with the added benefit of being very quick & easy to muck out.
 
Chopped rape straw - brilliant, rots down very well and is highly absorbent. Only dig it out once a week, but obviously take droppings out daily along with any really soggy wet bits.
 
I think it's true, m,y lovely last YO used to burn shavings, but straw was never an option, my 2 are currently on deep littered straw and I love it, quick muck outs and the horses are warmed by the decomposition of the straw underneath
 
Yes shavings do take a lot longer to rot down. Alot of farmers around here wont take the muck heap if it is all shavings as it takes too long to rot but they will take it if it is mixed with straw. Ask if you can use Aubiose or any other hemp bedding as that rots really quickly and is areally good fertilizer to put back on the fields. If she says no then look for another yard if you aren't happy.
 
My yard is also straw only as they have a farmer who'll take the muck heap but only if it's straw. Thankfully they manage to buy in decent straw for a fair price and don't mark up when selling on to liveries. I was so used to shaving or wood pellets before I moved there that I thought I would hate a straw bed but I don't actually find it that bad and quite like how deep and comfy looking the bed is. They also allow any chopped straw based bedding that liveries buy in so if your YO doesn't allow this then it sounds like they're making the most of the mark up they add on to the price of bales.
 
YO is right about the muck heap. Also if they have already bought in or kept tonnes of strw based on the current rules, it would be fair if requesting rule is changed to agree to work through the current stock first.

Any chopped straw or straw pellets might work or miscanthus, flax or hemp. All rot down very quickly (often quicker than straw) and unlike shavings, dont rob the soil of nitrogen while they do it (muck spreadings is supposed to add nitrogen back!)

I would suggest if you agree to working through the current supplies and use one of the above, then that would be reasonable. Equally, they may equally decide they do only want straw as bedding on the yard to keep things simple, and thats not intrinsically unreasonable, you just need to decide if you are willing to stay with that rule in place.
 
Maria13 said:
Also very messy and smelly, stables with poor drainage and straw does not smell good!
Stable floor is a right mess if they are in overnight and is soaked and disgusting!
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If the drainage in poor not sure that shavings will be better or cheaper. I had a dirty horse on shavings in a poorly draining stable (that yard didn't allow straw), I got through 4 bales of Hunters a week, bed never looked clean and I battled with thrush the whole time.


Moved onto wood pellets which were better and a little cheaper and feet improved though I still got through alot more than normal. I believe they rot down very quickly too.

He then developed an allergy to various woods so pellets and shavings were out and I was allowed straw on vets advice. That worked out cheapest of all even with the yard buying in small bales and selling them with a mark up.
 
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I recently went on a grass management course run by DEFRA and used shavings that
are 3 months old or less are an excellent source of nitrogen, so an excellent fertiliser. They had a few patches of grass that they had spread straw, shavings and fertiliser on and the patch with shavings on had grown just as much as the patch with fertiliser on!
 
Can you use rubber matting to even the floor out a bit? Then semi deep litter, take out just droppings & any wet that's worked its way to the top, then once a week do a full muck out & hose floor & mats thoroughly.
 
Cahill said:
imo straw is only smelly if you do not use enough.you need a good 10 bales to start the bed
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Ten bales! Crikey! I love a good bed, but have never used that much, I don't think.

I have used straw and shavings, and find straw stays smaller in a muckheap, no idea how, but the annual muckheap is way smaller now it it straw. When spread on the field, we have only done it once with shavings, but they sat there for months on top of the land. I also don't understand how shavings would be cheaper, we saved a fortune changing from shavings to straw, unless the YO is charging a fortune.

Different yards I have worked on have got rid of their muck in different ways - a mushroom farm took one, allotments took another, but in both cases they wouldn't take muck with shavings in..

Could you get a cheap little trailer that would go behind your car, and offer to take the shavings muck away yourself - have a muckheap in the corner of your garden if its big, or speak to a local farmer about taking it from you?
 
It is true that shavings take longer to rott down than straw but for 8 years 30+ horses were only on shavings and it still rotted down enough so it was spread on the fields.
Its only been the last year they have given us the choice to use straw if we want.
 
Agree that staw rots down better than shavings. We had someone here who used free shavings from a wood yard, some of them were hard wood and were vile, the dust was awful and if the pony had not been in a seperate stable we would not have been able to let her use them :( I can quite understand why the YO insists in straw. We also find staw cheaper and wish the big girl didn't colic from eating long barley staw, so meaning she has to have shavings.
 
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