Question for those of you that put the pellets in without soaking them. Do you have mats as well? Because I have found them to be so slippery when put on top of mats, I have almost landed on my butt going from one end of the stall to the other to get the hose!
[QUOTE=LuvMyRide;7940745]
Question for those of you that put the pellets in without soaking them. Do you have mats as well? Because I have found them to be so slippery when put on top of mats, I have almost landed on my butt going from one end of the stall to the other to get the hose![/QUOTE]
I do have mats, and I don’t find them slippery. But to be fair, I always wet down the first batch when starting a stall.
So I am never dumping dry pellets right on the mat, there is already an existing base of broken down pellets that those pellets are being mixed into/laid on top of. But I’ve never had any slippage, from me or the horses.
Well.
I have added some dry pellets, and they have broken down a little and I have added some more, since we last spoke. Yesterday and last night were particularly cold, so I was curious to see what would happen.
Bedding totally froze. This time from the bottom up instead of the top down. Really threw me for a loop. Total PITA to clean, although cathartic for the beating it took to fix.
And I have the bonus of having super dusty bedding now, so I do think that I’ve been successful in keeping it quite dry.
Winter sucks 
:mad:
Once you have a good base of fluffed pelleted bedding started, just add them dry, no need to soak them, they will break up on their own. For those that asked, yes to matted stalls and no never had a problem with slipping or slidding on them as long as there was already some bedding down.
I actually loved the pelleted bedding in the winter. the pee spots wouldn’t completely freeze but would clump up really nice and make it easy to scoop out of the stall.
Frozen clumps of pelleted bedding is actually pretty easy to break up or at least I found it to be. I would just kind of mush down on the clump of bedding with the fork and it usually would break right apart. If it didn’t I knew it was a turd-scicle 
Simkie, I have had the pee soaked bedding freeze to the mats with any type of bedding. It sucks. One of the joys of winter.
This morning I had to use a hammer to break off the manure balls that froze to the door threshold so I could close the stall door after I put the horses out. Who knew his new habit of manuring half in and half out of his stall would lead to me needing a hammer.
Even the pelleted bedding gets dusty. I wet it down right before I bring the horses in. The body heat of the horses keeps the barn from freezing overnight. I use less water this time of year than the summer, but always wet the stalls down just before the horses come in.
I find that in the summer, the wet bedding tends to get musty, and in the winter, it freezes if it sits all day/night. But if I wet it down just before the horses come in, they move around enough and generate enough body heat that it doesn’t freeze or get musty.
trub, sounds like we are dealing with similar temps I had to get the garden shovel a few days ago to chip the frozen pee off the mats. Even with it, sometimes it’s just too adhered and I have to wait until it’s warmer. Seven surprised me this AM with a pee spot in front of/under her bucket…she never pees there. I sweep bedding back from under the buckets, so it was pee on basically bare mats. Ugh. I think a pick axe with that flat end would be a nice tool to have…
LoriO, yeah, I like that temp where the pee spots sort of gel and stick together, too. That’s about 10-15 degrees warmer than where it’s been. The bedding freezes into a sheet when we get double digit below zero temps, with -20s windchill. I can break it apart, sort of, by beating it with a shovel. Pee spots come up as frisbees when I can pry them off the mats, which is sort of cool, I guess. Makes it tough to pack the manure cart since everything is in big sheets.
The -2 we have right now feels practically balmy. Wind at 11 mph, and the sun it out. Tomorrow is supposed to be really cold again (it’s insane that my definition of “really cold” is now < -10 degrees) and I think after that I’ll go back to adding some water to the bedding. If it’s going to freeze like that, I at least want it not to be dusty. :sigh: If we go down to bitter cold for a spell again, I’ll try the salt. I can’t even imagine what it was like here last year…
84 days to April 1!
-crosses Minnesota off list of acceptable places to live-
[QUOTE=GoForAGallop;7942570]
-crosses Minnesota off list of acceptable places to live-[/QUOTE]
Me too :lol:
[QUOTE=Simkie;7933711]
It is COLD here and my bedding is freezing. I use pellets, rehydrated with about oh…2-3 gallons of water/bag? Stalls are cleaned daily with all wet and poop removed. It seems that enough moisture from the rehydrating and from any missed pee hangs out in the bedding. The top 2 or so inches of the entire stall froze into a particle board like sheet a few days ago when it dipped into below zero temps and has stayed that way.
Any tips? I’m considering switching to shavings for the winter because this is such a pain. It’s nearly impossible to clean the stalls and it seems like it can’t possibly be a comfortable surface for the horses.[/QUOTE]
THis is what I do. In winter I add shavings for this exact reason, and it really helps. I use about a three shavings to one pelleted bedding and it stops the freezing.
Edited to add - jeez simkie STAY WARM!!
I will now slink off, since this morning I was complaining because it was 17 degrees.
Above zero.
I’m thinking of using pelleted bedding, but have concerns about winter use as well. No hot water or heat in the barn, but we do have a large heated garage (no water in the garage though). What are your thoughts on preparing muck buckets with some watered pellets and then letting them sit in the heated garage a day or two before using them, so the water really gets absorbed before they are out in the cold??
God help you if the bag of pellets was a little bit wet when you set it down in your barn. I had a bag that was frozen into a bag shaped bricked. I think it took weeks to thaw in a room temperature home.
I have given up getting pee spots off of mats and I’m just throwing down a new load of sawdust after I get up what I THINK is poop. It might be little bedding blobs. Who knows.
etr, I found the perfect tool for frozen pee at HD:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Razor-Back-7-in-D-Handle-Forged-Scraper-Chopper-2672200/204476157
Doesn’t that look awesome? I didn’t buy it, though…I feel like that might be letting winter win.
April 1 is in 80 days. I’m counting down.
[QUOTE=Simkie;7950300]
etr, I found the perfect tool for frozen pee at HD:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Razor-Back-7-in-D-Handle-Forged-Scraper-Chopper-2672200/204476157
Doesn’t that look awesome? I didn’t buy it, though…I feel like that might be letting winter win.
April 1 is in 80 days. I’m counting down.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, not worth my effort! As soon as it gets above freezing every single frozen bit is going to liquify necessitating stripping the entire stall anyway. Boo Hiss winter.
After last winter, our barn owner switched to shavings/ sawdust for the winter. Much better. Stay warm!
