Bedding: Make the Right Choice for Your Situation, Part 1 of 4

by Alayne Blickle, Horses for Clean Water

Have you often wondered about bedding options for your horse? Or perhaps you’re new at keeping horses on your property and would just like to know what options are available. Would you like to try something that’s less dusty or easier to store? Maybe you’re interested in perfecting your compost pile and would like to know how your choice of bedding plays into that.

Looking around most feed stores these days shows us there are dozens of bedding products available to horse owners, many of which offer a variety of benefits including odor control, low dust, quick composting, and easy storage. In this series, we will help you determine your needs and your horse’s needs, and we will review some of the bedding choices available. Plus, we will provide you with a set of criteria for choosing the bedding that will work best for your situation.
The primary purpose of bedding is to absorb urine and moisture

Let’s start with assessing your needs.

First, let’s determine your horse’s need for bedding. The word “bedding” is a bit of a misnomer in the horse world. Many of us horse owners think we need to bed our stalls as we would have our own beds--soft and fluffy. But horses by nature don’t need a soft, fluffy bed. The primary purpose of bedding is to absorb urine and moisture. Examine your situation. Does your horse have 24-hour access to a paddock? Is the stall primarily for feeding and to provide protection from severe weather? If so, you may not need as much--or any--bedding. However, if your horse is primarily confined in a stall, then it may require a bit more bedding in order to absorb urine and moisture.

Second, what are your particular needs for bedding? This may include ease of storage and use, dust concerns, and your plans for managing stall waste. Any bedding you choose should be absorbent, as this is the primary purpose for the material. Beyond that, do you have a horse with heaves or other respiratory issues? Or do you or a family member have allergies or asthma? If so, you’ll want to look for an absorbent bedding with low dust, mold, and foreign object count.

The greater the absorbency, the lower the ammonia level in your barn will be. You also may want to look for a product containing zeolite, a mineral which helps absorb ammonia. Breathing ammonia is damaging to lung tissue--for you and your horse.

If you run a breeding and foaling operation, check with your veterinarian for their recommendation on bedding type. There are additional bedding considerations for newborn foals. For example, you don’t want bedding that could get sucked into their delicate nasal passages, or that might carry bacteria or other disease organisms that are particular dangers for a newborn.

Where do you plan to store your bedding? Do you already have a shavings bin you could use? Do you have a small place with storage issues? If so, then storage is an important consideration. One of the bagged beddings might be the best choice. With the aid of a tarp cover for protection, these can often be stored outside the barn with great space (and dust!) savings.

What is your current manure management plan? If you give away or plan to give away your stall waste, you may want to investigate this a bit more. In some parts of the country, gardeners and farmers prefer stall waste with straw bedding. In other areas, herbicides associated with straw can cause problems, so growers (and commercial composters) steer clear of stall waste containing straw bedding, as well as grass hay. Are you composting your stall waste or applying it straight to your land? In either situation, you have some other important considerations. Some bedding materials will compost faster and more completely then others. If you apply your stall waste straight to your land, you will need to look at reducing the amount of carbon (in the form of bedding) in your stall waste. Too much carbon dumped onto pastures robs soils of nitrogen, turning pasture plants yellow.

Take some time to think through these points on bedding needs for your situation. Next month, we will discuss the selection criteria for beddings available in your area.

Happy Horsekeeping!
~Alayne