hay versus sawdust for stalls

What products do you distribute utahmule? PM or email me if you would.

[utahmule]

I wasn't trying to plug anything, that's why I didn't mention anything by name. I hope no one was offended [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] , if so I apologize. I'm too far from most all of you to be able to providew any of this stuff without shipping killing it.

Thanks,

[weedsportpete]

Any comments on Woody Pet? We started with that, so I can't compare it to sawdust or shavings.

We have three horses here. The first is an easy keeper - he poops in one corner and never spreads it around the stall. With the Woody Pet I'm in and out of there in less than 10 minutes, closer to 5. A real joy. The bedding lasts about 2 1/2 weeks.

The second horse uses the whole back of the stall, and sometimes spreads it around a little. It takes a good 10, sometimes 15 minutes for her stall, and we have to replace the Woody Pet sooner, around 2 weeks.

The third horse is new here and sometimes still scatters poop around. He does that the most just when we strip out the stall and put in new pellets. After three or four days, it gets to more like sawdust and he is a lot less messy. Takes about 10 minutes.

As you can probably tell, we are interested in saving time and effort. I'm not sure we are saving money; if every horse was an easy keeper, and we could make the bedding last three weeks, then its a better deal. We don't push it and wait until its really bad before we change it. We usually wait until it is mostly damp or smells bad.

We don't have cheap labor either.. though we're hoping for someone to come along to work in place of paying board.. but now there is just the two of us and we want to avoid stripping out stalls every day, or working with a lot of sawdust. I think we are paying $3.90 a 30lb bag.

Has anyone used this and compared it to sawdust or shavings?

[wingnut]

I could easily be corrected, but based on my experience ... the 3 guys always go in one spot (and don't go stomping thru it) ... while the 3 "ladies" crap anywhere and everywhere and wander thru it.
It's easy to clean the stalls with the males in them and time consuming to do the gals.
No experience with anything but shavings and sawdust ... I did try straw but that was much worse. We clean the stalls every morning and replace the majority of the bedding weekly, unless it's extremely dirty.

[Justaplain]

Canadian shavings are about $3/bag here in Saratoga. Sawdust is scarce. Bedding can become your biggest overhead cost. bcs

[utahmule]

Disclaimer: We distribute this product. This is Not a sales pitch. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]

We've had good luck with it personally, and the large majority of people we sell to. The key to economy is following the directions from WP. Don't scoop out the wet spots until the entire bedding is too damp to absorb. Stir the wet into the surrounding dry mat'l. When the wet spot looks slightly reddish in color, it's time to get it out and replace.

We've had people who've gone 3 months or more before they strip stalls. This is where it becomes cheaper than shavings. You don't have to go that long to realize a savings.

There's a manure fork with loosely spaced tines that helps get the little pieces out without the bedding. Fine Tines fork.

There's several very similar products. Magnum, etc. We prefer Woody, but they're all in the same ball park.

A lot of our customers go the the pelleted stuff to cut down on the ammonia smell.

Hope this helps,