So, I’m not super happy with our current bedding (fine flake shavings from TSC). It’s dusty, heavy, and a pain in my rear end to pick out, especially with a messy horse, so I’m looking into some different bedding options. Guardian Horse mini flake, sawdust, hemp bedding, and Iron Horse ultra fine flake are my four options at the moment. If anyone has any other suggestions or any experience with the four options listed above, I’d love to hear!
Not a typical bedding choice these days, but a high quality straw is another option. Often available at garden centers and farms that grow other hays/grains. And I’ve heard others on COTH mention peat moss (also at garden centers). I’ve personally not tried either at my farm. I use the big flake shavings from TSC in the clear/white bags.
I am a convert from shavings to pelleted bedding.
TSC carries it for around $5/40# bag.
If I strip a (12X12) stall I can refill with 3 bags, then add a bag every other week or so.
My horses are turned out 24/7 but have access to stalls & do come in to nap, pee :rolleyes: & for me to feed hay & grain.
So if yours are kept stalled you may need to refresh more often.
Pellets are incredibly easy to pick, they fall though the fork & compost quickly in the pile.
Pee spots are absorbed & as they become saturated the pellets darken so easy to locate.
I slit a bag open at the top in the stall, pour in a bucket of water & let sit while I pick the stall, feed, do other chores.
After about 10min I dump the bag - now mostly dissolved to sawdust consistency.
Any pellets not broken down by wetting are quickly broken down by horses’ weight as they walk in & out.
I can store a pallet of 50 bags on pallets in an area about 6’X3’
For my 3 - horse, pony, mini - that lasts about 3mos.
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I’m also a fan of pellets, for all the reasons 2Dogs lists.
I add the bag dry to my stalls (I do wet them when first starting a stall) and the pellets break up on their own, no need to add water first here.
Some people find them dusty. I don’t, but dialing in how you use them makes a big difference–what works for one person in a humid climate probably won’t work for someone else in a dry, windy one.
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Straw is not very absorbent when first bedding a stall.
As horses walk around, they trample the straw into small soft pieces that become fairly absorbent.
Growing up with straw bedding, you learned to flip good straw to the sides and clean the soiled straw and wet at the bottom, then cover with the still good straw and add more if necessary.
Some horses will eat some of the straw if it is palatable and they are bored, some more than others, but there is no harm done as long as horses have all the water they want,
Straw doesn’t add to their nutrition any other than fiber.
Have also used shavings and sawdust and peat moss.
Shavings are not absorbent, sawdust is.
Peat moss is great, other than the dust from it hangs around way more than any other out there.
Not sure that is good for anyone in the barn too long, human or horse.
A local trainer uses pellets and some shavings and it seems to work for him.
After growing up with straw, most anything else for bedding seems so … sparse, like the stall doesn’t really has enough bedding.
Not sure the horses care that much.
They like to lay on fairly hard ground outside and in their soft sand pile also.Some are not very particular where they pick for that.
Our overhang where they come to eat and stand around is 28’ deep.
14’ is matted on the back, where we feed.
14’ is soft dirt and they tend to stand on the mats snoozing, then lay down on the soft dirt to stretch out to sleep, if not walking out to their sand pile for their naps.
Give your horses choices then watch them and see what they do.
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I’ve actually used pellets before and while I love them for summer bedding, I’m looking for something a bit more cushiony and deeper for the winter, as our horses come in a lot more often, and often overnight. All three of them seem to prefer sleeping on softer bedding and will often choose the spots in the pasture they’ve torn up for naps. I’ve actually never been at a barn that used straw, but I am concerned about one of mine eating all his bedding, were I to go that route! The last barn I boarded at used hemp and I loved it, but it’s rather expensive to have delivered here, unfortunately 
I’ve also never used peat moss, but it sounds like an interesting bedding choice. I’ve no idea how you would pick that out though.
Addendum:
Wood chips are also an option, after having done a bit more digging.
Horses lie down and sleep flat out the most in straw, if you’re looking for the best “bed.” You could do straw on top of pellets–straw for cushion, pellet for absorbancy.
An alternative would be large flake shavings for the cushion on top of pellets for absorbancy.
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I use bagged sawdust. It’s clean, dry, and smells good. It’s very absorbent of wet and they will still lie down in it. It’s also super easy to pick. Although, spoiled as mine are, I do put fine shavings where they tend to lay down.
I had no problem picking out peat moss bedding when I used it. The urine soaks right in and stays in one area, easy to see and easy to pick up. The manure tends to stay on top, again super easy to pick out.
However if you do not clean the stall religiously I imagine it could end up a mess.
I live in a humid climate (NC) and I did not have much problem with dust. If I had I would have sprinkled water on the bed or wetted the peat moss before I spread it out.
Peat moss makes a marvelous, soft, yielding surface, very comfortable for lying down. Do be religious about cleaning out your horse’s hooves.
How many bags (or cubic/square feet) of peat moss do you typically use per stall? At the moment, I’m using about 5-6 bags of shavings at 5.5 cubic feet each to bed one stall.
Thank you for all the information!
Another vote for pellets. I have found that Rural King is MUCH cheaper than TSC for both pellets and shavings.
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The barn I worked at used pelleted bedding on rubber mats. The broken down pellets are pretty dense, and make a decent bed. I’d step where someone had been laying
over night, and it wouldn’t be bare mat, but packed and yielding bedding. It felt, to my feet, as soft or softer than where most of them would sleep in their fields.
I like the look of fluffy shavings but cleaning pellets is SO much easier. Last year I switched back to shavings for winter but thinking about keeping up with pellets this year. I’m thinking if I use less water they won’t freeze into a solid block??
I saw this at Equine Affair this weekend and I liked it. Really absorbs liquid and not dusty at all.
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Just a word about the ecological aspects of peat moss- mining peat bogs is very destructive to that unique environment, and it is not a renewable resource. At least not in the next several hundred years! There are lots of better sustainable options.
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The pelleted bedding makes a very nice soft bedding, the key is using a lot and wetting it down thoroughly so the pellets expand into sawdust.
I tried mini flakes over pellets and didn’t like it. The pellets are easy to clean, but break down and get too dusty. The mini flakes I got locally were also not uniform, some too big and also dusty. I finally found the Marth Easy pick bedding. I LOVE it. Uniform small size so easy to pick and not dusty at all…
My horse has never laid down in his stall before with sawdust or shavings. This has caused some issues with him being extra tired when turn out schedules changes. He would fall asleep in the cross ties, drop his head all the way to the ground, leaning on the cross ties. Sometimes I was worried he would fall over.
Ever since moving him to a barn that uses straw, he sleeps every night. He has been on some part time stall rest and doesn’t seem to mind it at all now. At the last barn, he was anxious.
If I had a barn, I would probably do straw with some sawdust on the mats to be a bit more absorbent.
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You only need to wet the pellets if you are starting from a stripped stall on mats. Mostly due to the marbles on tile factor. As long as there is 1/4 left I toss the new pellets on top. You lose some absorbancy by wetting them all the time.
