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 Expert
Posts: 1580
  
Location: Down South | I feel like that I spend a small fortune on shavings. And we muck stalls every day. Typically my horses are staying in for 12 hours at a time at night, turned out during the day (weather permitting). I just feel like that my shavings aren't lasting.. or maybe my horses are just SLOBS. Any ideas what I can do... use more bags of shavings in the stalls.? |
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Meanest Teacher!!!
Posts: 8555
 
Location: sunny california | having bigger stalls helps. mine are 12x16 and that little bit of extra room allows them to pick a corner. I also use pellets under the shavings where they pee. the pee drains right through the shavings and makes pee patty with the pellets for easy removal. just sort of scrape the shaving off the top and get the patty underneath ! |
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  Rebel Without a Cause
Posts: 2758
Location: Adopt a homeless pet - www.petfinder.com! | I think using a finer cut of shavings can help, too. Allows you to shake off quite a bit and you're not dumping a lot of clean shavings. |
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 The Vaccinator
Posts: 3810
Location: Slipping down the slope of old age. Boo hoo. | kwanatha - 2014-12-27 11:21 AM
having bigger stalls helps. mine are 12x16 and that little bit of extra room allows them to pick a corner. I also use pellets under the shavings where they pee. the pee drains right through the shavings and makes pee patty with the pellets for easy removal. just sort of scrape the shaving off the top and get the patty underneath !
Yes - pellets are great! |
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 Sock eating dog owner
Posts: 4557
Location: Where the pavement ends and the West begins Utah | Straw is fairly cheap in some states and can come in large bales for around $30. For what you spend in shavings you can cut your cost. I Know of a thoroughbred farm that uses straw..place smelled good and horses were happy. |
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 Reaching for the stars....
Posts: 12708
| Bring them in only to feed and turn them back out. |
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Tried and True
Posts: 21185
Location: Where I am happiest | cow pie - 2014-12-27 12:22 PM Straw is fairly cheap in some states and can come in large bales for around $30. For what you spend in shavings you can cut your cost. I Know of a thoroughbred farm that uses straw..place smelled good and horses were happy.
We use straw. The cost of shavings is formidable here. Straw is SO much cheaper! We buy the big bales, not the small squares. We have 4 horses here and I clean daily. We spend about $80.00 a month on bedding. I keep my stalls bedded deep. I love straw! It's so much cleaner for the horses then shaving's. |
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My Heelers are Heroes
Posts: 4685
| Same problem here.
i clean daily. Horses out weather permitting. My stalls are always wet. Can they really be peeing that much?
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Veteran
Posts: 146
| I have no recommendations, my horses are stall pigs. I clean stalls twice a day, the horses have 24/7 access to pasture, yet they come in the stalls to do their business. Since mine spend more time out than in, I reduced the amount of bedding, which means I don't have to sift thru so much, hence less waste. My stalls have rubber mats, the horses never lay down in the stalls so I don't feel I need to bed deep, I use fine cut shavings, which absorbs better, that helps reduce the amount of waste. Since your horses stay in their stalls 12 hours a day, you will need to bed deeper, that is going to mean more to clean, I don't think there is much you can do. |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | No ideas either. Mine are on the exact same schedule as yours. I have one that is a total pig, and the other is very neat and only poops in one place, and pees in another. Both are in 10x20 stalls. I think it really depends on the horse. |
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Expert
Posts: 2685
| Mine come in at night. I use pellets on bottom, light layer of flakes on top. I'm thinking or trying straw on top of pellets. I clean a stall at work that is bedded with baled Bermuda hay and it sucks trying to get the poo out of the hay. I just don't want to spend forever on each stall trying to find the poo. Also, my horses are pigs.... One poos everywhere, the other in the middle of the stall and its a mess and the other poos in 2 spots and pees in another- then walks through it. |
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 Having Smokin Bandits
Posts: 4572
Location: Woodstown, NJ | I don't like straw at all. I remember in the old days, especially on the track, that's all we used and when shavings first came out, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! Straw is so hard to sift through to find the manure and doesn't absorb the pee.
I use fine shavings. It's the easiest to sift through. It's probably not the best for them to breathe, but my horses are out most of the time. Mats are great. Then you can really clean fast because the fork won't catch on anything below. |
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 Money Eating Baggage Owner
Posts: 9586
Location: Phoenix | Try the pellets. You wet them down and they turn into a fine shaving. You can fluff them and they dry better because they don't weigh as much and not much sticks to the poop either. |
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Expert
Posts: 1580
Location: Down South | Thanks for all of the replies. My stalls are 12x12. And like some said, varies by the horse on the condition of their shavings. 2 of my stalls have mats and 3 do not. I cannot say that the stalls with mats have shavings that last longer. It's actually opposite for 1 particular horse. However, I do like the mats bcs cleaning the stalls is much easier. Well.... I'm headed to get more shavings.  Have a good day everyone.! |
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