Legacy's Bedroom

For anyone who's been reading my blog a while will know that I've struggled with bedding for Legacy in the past. She's a very wet and messy mare, and since having her I've always said that people need to write how horses are in the stable when advertising them. The only time she's been somewhat clean in the stable was in her second stable which was about the length of 2 stables but narrower. She had her hay nets by the top by the door then her bed was down the bottom. She was quite clean in this stable as she poo's where she is standing eating so all her poo was going on the concrete and would make it easier to clean up, the worst that would happen back then would be that she'd poo in her water but that's nothing compared to how she's been in other stables since then.

Last winter she was in the typical 12 x 12 stable, and I've done a blog post on this before when I wrote about her first going onto straw but she was so wet on just shavings she was having a new bale of shavings put down everyday. It was costing a fortune and we weren't able to keep up with it, even when we managed to find bales at £5 a bale it was still adding up each month. If I let 2 months roll by like that I could've bought a pallet of shavings for that amount. She'd been on wood pellets and they worked for a little then she got bad on them too, even with pellets mixed in with shavings.

One day I decided to try out straw and although that doesn't have any absorbency, I had to try something. To begin with I sprinkled some shavings under the straw to absorb some of the wet up and that started to work. That's how I kept her for the rest of last winter.

Onto this winter, her stable from last winter was unavailable due to the last set of storms destroying the roof. Both her and Cloudy had to move stables, luckily they are still able to be next to each other and keep each other happy. Both stables are much bigger than their 12 x 12 stables from last year so they are able to be much cleaner.

Legacy's stable is much wider and longer than her previous stable, she now has her bed which is a 3 horizontal rubber matting's wide and long. So due to the size of the stable is now able to have a much bigger and better bed. She's able to have a bed this big as where she stands to eat her hay-net is just where the bed ends. This means that when she poo's where she's standing to eat most of the poo is either just going on the edges of the bed or onto the rubber matting, meaning there's much less to clean up the next morning. She will still go to her bed to have a wee and the odd poos, but the maximum amount of poo's on her bed will be about 3. This means that I'm able to somewhat deep litter her to keep the bedding costs down. What I've found works great for her now is to put down half a bale of shavings then a large amount of straw on top to keep the bed fluffy and warm. The first 3-4 days after putting down a new bed I can just take out the poo's, this is great as it now takes a maximum for 5-10 minutes to muck her out. I like to try and keep the bed down until I'm off work on the Monday, then take everything out and redo her bed fresh again. By Friday or Saturday she's created a little wet patch and I scoop and this out and even out her bed. By Saturday or Sunday she's created a lot more mess and instead of giving her a new bed then I will just make her bed a little smaller or thinner. I can get away with this as she's got rubber matting. 

Hopefully she'll stay this clean for the rest of winter for me. What bedding do you use on your very wet horse?