hay versus sawdust for stalls

[EJB]

Hi guys.

Looking for a recommendation on what is preferable for goats and donkeys stalls floor. Hay versus sawdust? Are there pro's and con's of each? is it just a matter of what is more available?

I have been using hay, the same hay that I feed the animals, but it seems wasteful to me...especially when you clean out the stalls since it sort of forms a mat and you can't easily just remove the dirty areas, so you end up replacing everything. If I used sawdust, it seems you could scoop out the manure much more frequently, and thus not need to replace all the sawdust all the time?

If I go the sawdust route, does it make a difference what kind? I can buy bags of it, roughly the size of a small haybale for aroun d $3, but the local lumberyard will sell it to me by the yard for $5. My estimate is the smallish bags of it are about 1/4 of a yard, so the bulk route would be cheaper.

Thanks

[DUMBDOG]

My guess is that straw would be cheaper than the sawdust.

Definitely sawdust. Sawdust is much more absorbent and as a general rule it costs much less than straw. I would definitely say that buying bulk is much cheaper. I buy a truckload for $40 from the local sawmill.

[Hank]

When I used to be a commercial woodworker, we had a sawdust collection system that went outside to a hopper. We had a deal with a local horse farm, they could have all we made, for free, but they had to come right away when we called (when the hopper was full). Seems sawdust is quite popular for this application. You might find a deal like this in your area. Our small shop's hopper filled a stake body truck with plywood sides, and we could fill it up anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

[JoeR]

I have heard that certain types of sawdust are not as absorbent, and too fine. Some people recommend keeping the dust down, especially in confined areas so that the impact to the animal's respiratory system is minimal. This applies to people who stall their animals for long periods of time.

Joe R.

[MikePA]

EJB, I agree with your observation that hay is too expensive to be used as bedding. Unfortunately, we have no space to store either sawdust or straw so we use bales of wood chips.

With sawdust you need to verify what wood it came from. Some sawdust, like that from black walnut trees, can cause problems for horses (founder?), or so I've been told.

[EJB]

>>With sawdust you need to verify what wood it came from. Some sawdust, like that from black walnut trees, can cause problems for horses (founder?), or so I've been told.

MY local mill is almost all pine and hemlock, my guess is that these would be safe for donkeys/horses and goats?

[Hank]

Mike, when our shop was providing sawdust to a horse farm, we also were told that black walnut was a problem. I, too, forget the exact reason.

When we would mill a lot of black walnut, we'd take the collector tubes off of the machines and gather that sawdust into barrels.

[wingnut]

Sawdust!
Softwood if you can get it, although I've had noproblems with hardwoods ... just not as absorbant as softwaood. Pine seems to work the best for me.
Shavings are even better than sawdust.
I get a pickup load, locally, for $7 (and they load the truck!) of mixed sawdust (soft and harwood) ... or hardwood from a different place for $10 (when the first place is out).
The place that I liked best closed down ... they had only softwaood, mostly shavings and the price had gone from $12 to $15 a load (after 4 years ... can't complain).
Richard, I hope when you say $40 ... you mean a dumptruck? I had an offer here to get one of the huge dump trucks (40 footer?) dump a load for $120 .... but I have nowhere to store that much!

Yes it's a 15 ton dumptruck that I have.