For those of you who like the pellets and are spraying them everyday, how wet do you make them? I started using pellets this winter, and didn’t have problems until the stall fans went on. By the end of 8 hours, my stall walker is coated in dust. And I usually spray the stalls every morning, but I guess I’m not spraying enough.
So…do you spray just the layer on top? Or do you give it a thorough dousing?
MistyBlue you answered many questions. Here’s a couple more.
s it recommended,as bag instructions state to start with a base of 5-6 bags? In other words don’t skimp on start up?
Also when it reaches the very fine talcum powder stage should it be removed? Pretty much the whole stall is in a fine granular state. No pellets to be seen.
Our B/O is “trying” pellets out. She always went light on shavings because the stalls had full rubber mats.
Today picked out plugs of packed pellet dust out of all our horses. I seems to pack in and stick to hooves.
I do believe it works best if bedded deeply. :yes:
The premise of the pellets is that they’re dried and dehydrated so that they’re super absorbant. They work by absorbing urine at a very high and fast rate, clumping it into one spot and preventing it spreading. They do this best when it’s laid down thickly, they hold the urine to a much smaller spot. The dry bedding around the urine soaked spot then works by removing the fumes/smells of the ammonia in the urine.
I have 10x12 stalls and keep it an average of anywhere from 6-8" deep most of the year and in the coldest winter months sometimes deeper; up to 10" deep. I make it deeper in winter because the horses are in more hours each day and it provides more support and helps keeps stalls cleaner due to extra hours inside.
Now I realize that’s pretty darned deep and it probably doesn’t need to be that deep to work correctly, but I like deep deep bedding. It’s dense when broken down so it’s not like deep shavings where manure balls get hidden deep. They stay on top, the urine forms a small tight clump. When I finish cleaning stalls the wheelbarrow has a few small clumps of urine soaked bedding and manure balls, no other bedding at all. Which means my manure pile stays small and breaks down a lot faster because it’s not breaking down bedding, just organic manure.
When it gets like talcum powder around the edges, I usually just mix it in to the center of the stall. If there’s a lot of powdery bedding, I mist it quick. Just enough to keep the dust from floating around, not enough to soak the bedding. The mist/sprinkling of water keeps the dust down and wets from of the less activated pellet pieces and gets them working again towards keeping the dust down.
When I start a stall, I don’t soak as much as the directions say to. I open 5-6 bags onto bare mats and then spread them around. (careful walking on new pellets on bare mats, it’s like marbles, LOL) I then either use a hose with a spray attachment or a watering can and sprinkle the bedding. About 1/2 gallon per 30# bag. The sprinkling hits more bedding than dumping water on them and after sprinkling I mix them a bit and leave them alone. Within a few ours they turn from pellets to 50/50 pellets and sawdust like texture. Not dusty sawdust, just not pellets anymore.
When I add bedding…if the bedding in the stall is really dry then I dump a new bag in, spray it and mix it in. If the bedding is starting to look/feel a bit damp (it darkens when damp) then I just dump a new bag in and mix it in…the slightly damp bedding activates the new dry bedding and the combo of the 2 beddings works great because the damp breaks down the dry and the dry dries out the damp.
I haven’t stripped a stall in years. Haven’t needed to and yet when folks come over they think I just started new stalls.
The bedding will support the hooves well, but it shouldn’t pack. Maybe it’s too damp? Or else maybe the pellets you’re using are a different texture than the Woody Pet? (I use WP) I do know if the weather is wet and the horses come in with muddy packed hooves, I don’t need to pick the hooves. I just wait until they’re done with dinner and then walk into the stalls and pick up the hard dried chunks of mud that dried right oout and fell out of the feet from the Woody Pet sucking the moisture out. They look like hoof shaped fossils, LOL! Then I check feet and they’re always clean and dry. yet I don’t have issues with overly dry feet ever either.
if you’re having issues with the pelleted bedding…try either adding a lot more (A thin layer on mats won’t last at all, Mats are more for stopping urine from sinking into soft floors than support. Horses much prefer deeper bedding for support, comfort and staying dry from their own urine) or else try mixing pellets and shavings. Like Jawa described in their post…about a 1/3 shaving to 2/3 pellet mixture works great! :yes: I’ve used the same and still would if I could get my hands on the very fine cut shavings. The mix doesn’t work as well with large cut shavings.
I don’t have to water mine daily…I usually only water mine when adding new or once in a while during a hot spell a quick spritz with watering can or hose sprayer across the surface of the stall does the trick. I do have auto waterers…but also have buckets in the stalls too.
Hate’m…
Started two of my guys on the pellets about a month ago (both barns I previously boarded at used pellets) and I’m in heaven. One horse is an absolute piglet and his stall was a HORROR with shavings. It took forever to clean and tons of bedding was wasted. While he still gets lots of “poop chips” that are harder to clean out without taking bedding out with it, his stall is way cleaner now and I think it smells really nice 
The other horse used to be a little messy and now is stall is incredibly easy to clean. My third guy is only still on shavings because I’d feel ridiculous stripping his stall to start new with pellets. He poops in one pile against the back wall of his stall and only pees in one location, so his stall is very neat anyway! I don’t find I have any issues with bedding clumping in the hooves.
I use Guardian or Cozy’n Fresh that I get at Tractor Supply. What I like about the Cozy n Fresh is that they offer a Frequent Buyer Program where you purchase 6 bags, send in the UPC symbols, and get a coupon for a free bag. I have found the only time my pelleted bedding gets dusty seems to be when it’s dry in the summer and I remedy it by sprinkling a little water on it and it seems to take care of the problem. Otherwise, I absolutely love using the pelleted bedding. It saves time and money with taking care of the stalls. Here is the link for the Frequent Buyer Program. Hope this helps.
I think its really interesting how ‘love em or hate em’ the responses are.
I guess, this would be better directed to the ‘love em’ group…
Bedding is one of the things I’m stressing over, in regard to when I maintain/horsekeep on the little farmette. Storage for bulk sawdust is something I doubt we’ll have. My guy has always been on sawdust…and its all I know. I can say that when we travel/bed by shavings bag…I LOVE how ‘fluffly’ and nice it is for horsey…but I HATE how difficult it is to clean vs. the finer sawdust. (And, OMG, DDB…I take my hat off to you for appreciating the qualitys of STRAW bedding. … No way, no how…what a big MESS to maintain, pick, clean, spread…urine goes right thru…almost impossible to pick…/distinguish poop piles/urine spots from the stringy straw, and almost impossible to separate ‘good’ hay in stall from straw…attended one small schooling show where they insisted on only straw bedding…vowed not to return just because of the difficulty of cleaning show stall!)
Have come to believe its value is in broodmare’s stall for foaling, and after that…no thank a yew!)
Anyway! … Do you who DO like the pellets…feel its a better way to go/store/keep for only a small farmette and only two stalls? Or, in that case do you think buying/storing shavings by the bag?
This wouldn’t be more than 2 horses/one mini or goat TOPS.
TIA!
I love them, they have made my life sooo much easier! I’m not a deep bedder since mine aren’t in all that much, but they keep the stalls so nice and dry. Easier on my shoveling shoulder which is getting very old and tired. :yes:
I sometimes use shavings or straw over the top, but I’ve found nothing that beats their absorption.
Pellets & Shavings
I have finally switched to mostly pellets due to cost & cleaning and because of two “pig-like” mares…:eek: I do top with some shavings for = additional comfort = sometimes and some stalls ~easier to store pellets - IMHO * you can always pick up a big amount of either *to save $ and store on the flatbed with a tarp…especaily when purchasing pallets of pellets 50 bags ~ usually they will take off .50 a bag if you buy a full pallet …you should never have to pay FULL price if you buy a full pallet— I never tht I would switch to pellets But basically I have… and I have bedded with straw, bulk sawdust, bagged shavings and pellets -Now pellets and some stalls topped with a bag of shavings occassionally ~ hope this helps. I put pellets down in my run=in sheds also -keeps them neat and tidy = easy to clean… I do clean stalls and sheds daily and pick throughout the day…moved to down-size = from a thirty stalls ( two big barns) to smaller property with seven stalls and run-in shed ~ hope this helps. Final answer= Pellets ~for reasons of comfort for my horses and for comfort in cost, storage, and cleaning for me ~
I have 2 horses and 4.5 acres. I find the pellets very easy to keep stocked up on/stored and the extra benefit is they make managing a manure pile on small acreage very easy to do. Mine composts fast as heck, I have no need to have it removed or hauled off or spread or whatever. And manure management can be a pita on small acreage.
You can stack and store the bags almost anywhere. They’re smaller and easier to handle than huge rectangle plastic covered bales of shavings. I can store 5-6 bags of Woody pet where 1 bag of shavings would fit.
If you buy by the pallet, you can keep them on a pallet and store that outside. Toss a tarp over it (the bags have a couple small holes in each one) and there’s no worries about them getting damp or ruined. Or you can put the bags and/or pallet under one of those garage tent things and not worry about condensation, humidity or blowing snow/rain ruining them.
very easy to store, use and manage your manure with. My manure pile has been the same exact size for 6 years straight now. Can’t beat that with a stick. 
I used pellets for over 7 years and loved them. I’ve used EquinePine, Equine Fresh, Boreal, other brands, whatever I could get. I usually went for the cheapest.
The cost got out of hand. It used to be $4 for a 40 lb. bag. So that’s 10 cents/lb. Now it’s over $6.50 for a 30 lb. bag. That’s 22 cents/lb. That’s an increase of over 100% or more than double.
They also come in plastic bags that my trash company won’t recycle.
It took me over 6 months to get it right so that I liked the results and could tolerate the rest. I used 3 bags per stall per week. Not exactly any savings over shavings.
I have a bank barn in SE PA. I’ve never had a dust problem. And I never wet them first. I always mixed in with what I didn’t take out.
I used to get a full pallet delivered by Beam’s farm.
At $6.50/bag times 3 bags per stall per week, that’s $19.50 per stall per week, or nearly $80/mo. for each stall. I have three stalls/horses. That’s $240/mo. for bedding.
With total dislike for straw, I’ve switched over to straw anyway. It took a couple of weeks to adjust.
I think I go through 1 bale of straw per stall per week at $5 per bale. That’s $15/week or $60/mo. for three stalls, compared to $240/mo. for pelleted bedding. I think that’s a huge savings.
AND there are no plastic bags to fill up the landfills with.
I still love pelleted bedding. I just can’t afford it anymore.
There is a very definite and different way to clean a straw stall than a shavings or sawdust stall. If you try to “pick” straw like shavings it will make you crazy. You can’t do it that way.
I really do find it faster to clean straw and I have no problems with excessive wetness with 90% of the horses I’ve had on it. I do occasionally get a heavy urinator and I might put a few pellets in the wet spot area but most of the time just opening the stall, using Stall Dry and letting it air overnight (or over the day they are out) is plenty to keep the stalls dry and fresh.
I also “grew up” cleaning straw years ago as a working student at Potomac Horse Center with 10 stalls to do in the morning. There were a handful of shavings stalls for boarder horses and no one wanted to do them as they took twice as long to clean as straw. Funny how times change and people’s perceptions change.
I use both pellets, currently Boreal (we tell Borealis that they just couldn’t fit his name :lol:) and a medium to fine flake shavings, depending on the horse.
I found a guy who will sell them for around $4.40 per bag, if you take 100 of either, or both. Can’t beat it.
If you bed the pellets deep- you had better really like rotating the bedding around the stall, because the areas you do not move often enough will get dusty as hell.
I hate, loathe, and despise straw in the summer. I just don’t like it, the rest of the year. Consequently, I have to work with a wood product, or pellet, of some kind, pretty much. I am not going to use peat moss! In any event, every type of bedding has something-- you just figure out what you can live with the best!
They are very expensive here. Don’t know why since we are less than 100 miles from the factory and in the middle of a forest. As Misty says, you really get the best result when you bed deeply with them. Attempts to skimp just mean you soak your pellets in urine and end up removing the soaked bedding rather than mixing it in with the deep bedded dry pellets and being able to make it last.
But at $8 a bag, using 6 bags to start is $50, plus I needed to add at least 2 more bags to each stall per week, and we stripped the stalls after a month, so my monthly bedding costs were MORE than what I paid for monthly feed- over $100!
If I could get them for $4 a bag, it would be worth doing. But my bulk shavings are still only about $400 for a load that lasts 4 months, and beds 3 horses- about a third of the cost of pellets.
Don’t get me started on straw- its going for $12 a bale here, while local hay is $6…
A few years back we changed over to pellets during the winter. We really thought we were on to something until the summer came and the dust alone took me out. So back to shavings we went and haven’t changed since.
Straw, as a by product of wheat, is grown here in our area. It’s less expensive than hay locally. I guess every area will have it’s ups and downs for availability. A bale of nice straw is about $4 to 4.50 and hay will run you $5 to 7 a bale depending on what kind it is.
The pellets cost me about $6.00 a bag and that was buying by the pallet. A load of bulk shavings costs me $400 and lasts several months. The bulk shavings work out to be somewhat cheaper and less dusty.
Straw, if you have horses that can bed on it, is the least expensive of the options.
Yes, our straw is also around $6-$7 per bale. Hay runs $5-$8 per bale, so around the same cost.
Plus for a small property it takes up a ton of storage room to buy it in bulk and makes for an enormous manure pile.
But I do like the looks of a straw bed. Just doesn’t work for me for storage, manure management, cost and that trying to clean it is like trying to get gum out of your hair. :lol:
Pellets here are $7.80 per 30# bag of Woody Pet. When I started buying it only 6.5 years ago it was $4.85 per bag and $4.25 per bag if you bought a pallet. It’s gone up enormously in 6 years. However at one bag per stall pr week it’s still very cost efficient for me.
Like MistyBlue, I use Woody Pet. I don’t bed quite as deep as my horse is in/out 24/7. I also do not wet them down. About once a week I add a bag, sometimes more often. I also bank most of the bedding to the back of the stall during the day and unbank at night. Works great. Not too dusty unless we have a dry spell, and my heavy horse has done great on them.
I tried some of the other brands–TSC brand (Equine Fresh), Boreal- and they started to smell nasty after a bit. The TSC stuff also aggravated my asthma. No problems with WP.
Straw is actually a product of any grain that is grown. My favorite straw, when I used it, was barley- bright white, and more absorbent than wheat, which is generally more golden in color, and longer stemmed, but less absorbent. Oat straw and horses do not work well together, generally speaking. :lol: Rye straw tends to be gray-ish in color- not pretty, and not plentiful.
One of the issues I have with sraw, particularly in the Summer is that it stinks, unless you use shavings or wood pellets under it. You cannot make it too deep, as you can in the winter, because it is really, really hot. And, it is just not that absorbent. When I had 32 stalls, we did them with shavings in the wet areas under barley straw. Smelled fine, and easy to clean.
…just a note on those using straw.
A friend of mine, uses straw in his facility and sells the straw and manure to a mushroom producer. He needs to keep it in an accessible pile, because they come and pick it up from his facility. With manure management in our area being an issue, he gets paid and it’s removed from his property. To sell it it can only be straw manure mix, no shavings or pellets.
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