Questions on pelleted bedding

[clanter]

@stb

. I wet them when I put them out, pick stalls daily, and sprinkle the pellets whenever they become dusty.

I use a mixture of pellets and regular medium shaving …and keep some of the fine shaving for just in case one of the horses decides it needs to pee more often (most …2 out of 3 will go to the compost pile to pee before coming into their stalls)

when I pick the stalls, I separate the larger shavings then sweep the dusty stuff into the area where the horses pee

my stalls are rubber matted, to clean the wet spots I use a plastic grain scoop, use PDZ on the area before covering with the dusty shavings

as others have noted I can keep a pallet of 45 bags of pellets in very small area, my feed store matches TSC pricing so I just have them delivered (and they unload and stack where I want them) with the hay which keeps me from having to make that trip and handle that ton of stuff.

[ecileh]

@Willesdon

’m curious about 30 year old muck heaps taller than a person. Aren’t they now huge piles of excellent soil to use in the flower garden or vegetable patch?

Yes, they are. And I wasn’t exaggerating—they really are 30 years old and they really are taller than I am (at 5’9). The folks we bought the farm from never removed any of it–just piled and piled and piled. I am sure that local gardeners (including me) will love it, but there are still a few months before they can come get it–yay mud season–and meanwhile my mares are making more every day.

[Tee]

This is what the messy one’s stall looks like after it’s freshly bedded. I took the pic originally to ask if maybe he might have a toy or two too many. (hey, whatever it takes to keep the 2-year-old entertained).

I find that it can get dusty if they aren’t used much and sit for a long time. I run into that with the easy one. Occasionally I will take his clean bedding out and put it in another stall, so I can rebed his from scratch.

[SharonA1]

@stb

I wish I knew what I am doing wrong with pellets. I have tried them multiple times and my barn invariably becomes a dust bowl when I use them. I wet them when I put them out, pick stalls daily, and sprinkle the pellets whenever they become dusty.

I found that I had to keep re-wetting them, and that I couldn’t skimp on the water. So, each bag got slit open and had a 3-5 gallons of water poured in at the start, and then I found that in summer, at least, I had to dampen the pellets with more than a sprinkle, every day or so (depending on weather). They would dry out and break down to dust really quickly if not kept just barely damp throughout. I love bedding with pellets. My horse is boarded now and the barn uses bagged shavings, but I’d do pellets in a heartbeat if it were up to me.

[Equibrit]

To use on concrete floors with stall mats.
12 x 12 stall start with 5 x 40lb bags.
Spread evenly on to stall mats.
Water with this until the water starts to pool under the pellets.
Leave for 10 mins (will be about 5 times it’s dry height).
Then water lightly again.
The more pellets you use the easier it is to manage.
Remove manure and work urine in to the bed every day.
Only remove wet when it gets really rank, and use seperate pile.
Keep the bed moist to avoid dust by spraying lightly when needed.
For my neatnick I add 1 bag per month. For messy mare 2 bags.
When adding, I just spread the pellets evenly on top of the old and water well.
If you don’t fluff it sporadically it can pack on the stall mats and that’s a PIA to get broken up.
Compost is pure manure. Muckout for 2 horses takes 15 mins.

[TheJenners]

Same, I only soak my one gelding who never pees inside to keep them from getting dusty, everyone else just gets pellets in the wet spots after I muck them out. Barn with four stalls, six equines total, takes about 20 min or less including picture-taking and donkey-dodging.

[Pico_Banana]

@Equibrit

The more pellets you use the easier it is to manage.
Remove manure and work urine in to the bed every day.

Really? I scoop out the urine spots everyday. I guess that’s why I go through four bags a week per horse (same as shavings).

[trubandloki]

@Pico_Banana

I scoop out the urine spots everyday.

I do too. Way too much urine to just swirl it around and hope it does not stink horribly. Yuck.

[Simkie]

@Pico_Banana

I scoop out the urine spots everyday. I guess that’s why I go through four bags a week per horse (same as shavings).

Wow. I remove pee, but only need to add about a bag a week. Are your horses in full time, or do they pee a lot…? If I added four bags a week, there would be no room for the horse!

[Tee]

I take out as much urine every day as I can get to. Typically I go through about 2 bags a week per horse, occasionally I may have to do 3, but it’s rare. They are in overnight, so from 10 - 12 hours.

[Pico_Banana]

I only have one on pellets. My other one is on shavings because she creates too much dust with pellets.

But yes, she pees a TON! She’s in from sunset to about 7:30 am, but she’s one of those horses that tries to hold it all day to pee in her stall. It’s usually the first thing she does when she gets inside. And she’s a good drinker so … lots of pee!

And I don’t even wet them so they are at maximum absorption capacity already!

[TheJenners]

I also take out the pee spot and usually sprinkle with Sweet PDZ granules before adding another bag, but that’s because mare urine

[SugarCubes]

I’ve tried them several times and always end up going back to the smaller flake shavings. Yeah, they’re a little easier to pick than shavings but good god are they dusty. I can’t take it. I’ve tried them every which way (mainly suggestions from COTH) and still can’t stand them.

The kicker was my gelding developing a swollen sheath when his stall was bedded with them. No idea why, but if I bed with pellets he has a swollen sheath, when I switch to shavings it immediately goes away

[Ibex]

My thoughts… you have to use A LOT of them to get a properly bedded stall. I think they’re fine over some kind of cushioned mat, but that’s it. My mare flat out refuses to lay down on them, even if they’ve been wetted and fluffed up. Mixing them with shavings makes it harder to clean (done that too!). They also get really dirty with a messy horse, and then you have to start from scratch. Throwing in pellets without fluffing them is a pet peeve as they’re like marbles underfoot, especially in the winter.

My current preference is bagged cut straw. A single bag fluffs up beautifully, and it composts quickly. Once you get the hang of it, it’s also easy to clean. I can basically scoop out the wet stuff and the poop daily, and fluff it back up. When it gets too grubby (for my messy mare who is in a stall with a run most of the the time, this is every 3-4 days), it’s easy to scoop out and start from scratch

[phantomhorse]

I also gave up on the pellets due to the incredible amount of dust. I tried pre-wetting a little, a lot, moistening periodically after starting wet, moistening periodically after starting dry, and starting dry - the end result was my barn being covered in a constant layer of dust that made me crazy. Perhaps because my horses only come in to eat and then are back outside, the bedding didn’t get turned over enough or maybe it was the brand (didn’t have but one choice locally). I am not sure I thought it was any easier to clean the stalls compared to sawdust (what I am back to using now).

[stb]

@phantomhorse

I also gave up on the pellets due to the incredible amount of dust. I tried pre-wetting a little, a lot, moistening periodically after starting wet, moistening periodically after starting dry, and starting dry - the end result was my barn being covered in a constant layer of dust that made me crazy. Perhaps because my horses only come in to eat and then are back outside, the bedding didn’t get turned over enough or maybe it was the brand (didn’t have but one choice locally). I am not sure I thought it was any easier to clean the stalls compared to sawdust (what I am back to using now).

This is exactly my experience with pellets as well. My horses only come in to the barn to eat or occasionally one of them will sleep in the stall. The other never comes in except for meals. Maybe that is part of my problem.

[clanter]

@Ibex

My current preference is bagged cut straw.

had one horse who was allergic to pine, we used the shredded straw for him… Expensive at three times the cost of pine and he evidently thought I enjoyed hunting for his poop which he buried like he was a cat

[Ibex]

3x the cost??

It’s the same price per bag as pine shavings here, and goes a lot further.

[clanter]

@Ibex

3x the cost??

well not actually 3 times but close enough to make me want to run an allergy test on future horses. A compressed bale started at $10.99 then went to $13.50 … he was going through about 20 bags per month so we ordered 40 to 50 at a time. We could use shredded paper which was near the same cost, this was really difficult to use, at least for me.

(I would need to look at on of the compressed bales’ bag but I think it contains 5 cubic feet, might be 8…two bales would fill the 12by12 stall six to eight inches )

[S1969]

@Ibex

3x the cost??

It’s the same price per bag as pine shavings here, and goes a lot further.

One 3.6 cubic ft bale of compressed chopped stray is $15.00/bale here in NY.
One 8 cubic ft bale of pine shavings is $6.19 (regular), fine is 5.5 cubic ft for the same price

Straw is very expensive here, chopped or otherwise. It would be cheaper to bed with hay.