Types of Bedding For Your Horse

  If you are going to keep your horse in a stable then the type of bedding that you choose for your horse is very important. There are several types of horse bedding that are commonly used. No matter what type of bedding you ultimately choose to use for your horse you should think about adding a heavy rubber mat underneath the bedding. It will be softer on your horse’s feet and it will make cleaning stalls a lot easier because the rubber mat will absorb excess muck.

If you are going to keep your horse at a boarding stable where the stable will be mucking out your horse’s stall you should ask them what type of bedding they use if you have a preference. The most commonly used types of bedding for horses are:

Shavings – Pine or fir wood shavings are probably the most common type of horse bedding that you will see. Shavings are fairly absorbent and it’s easy to clean stalls when you use shavings because the wet shavings tend to clump, sort of like cat litter, making it easy to pick out the wet spots. One of the major drawbacks of using wood shavings for bedding is that the shavings deposit a fine layer of wood dust over everything in sight so the stable needs to be well ventilated if wood shavings are going to be used as bedding.

Shavings come either in loose bulk piles or bagged up in 50 to 100 pound bundles. Buying loose shavings is much cheaper than buying bagged shavings but if you’re going to use loose shavings you will need to have a dry, airtight bin to store the shavings in. Using bagged and bundled shavings is more expensive but also less hassle and using bagged shavings makes it easier to move the shavings into the stalls. If you want to rush home to play online bingo or if you have to go and pick up the kids (etc, etc, etc), loose shavings might not be for you. But you might get lucky and find a wood workshop or factory that will let you have their shavings for free or at a discounted price. It's up to you to judge the price vs convenience factors.

Wood Pellets – Wood pellets are similar to wood shavings but they are more absorbent. The pellets are made from kiln dried wood that is compressed with sawdust to form little hard pellets. As the horse walks around the stall the pellets will break down to sawdust that will absorb moisture.

Wood pellets are very low in dust but cleaning a stall that uses wood pellets is different from cleaning a normal stall and may take some getting used to. If you live somewhere that has very cold winters you might find that the wood pellets aren’t as absorbent in the cold so you might want to use different bedding in the winter.

Peat Moss – Peat moss has a lot of advantages when used as horse bedding. It’s the most absorbent material there is to use as bedding, and there is no dust so that if you or your horse has a respiratory condition there is no dust to aggravate that.

Peat moss also is a great compost material so if you have a garden or compost pile the peat moss can be added straight from your horse’s stall to the garden or compost pile as fertilizer. However, peat moss is very expensive since it usually needs to be imported from somewhere else. Peat moss is visually not very appealing and some horse owners don’t like to use it for that reason.

Straw – Straw has traditionally been used as bedding for horses so lots of people think that straw is the best bedding option for horses but really it isn’t a very good option. Straw is mediocre at best as a bedding material. It’s not very absorbent and you need a lot of straw to keep a stall clean.

It’s hard to clean a stall with straw bedding and the horses will sometimes eat the spoiled straw, which isn’t healthy for them. Straw also can be hard to work with, expensive, and it requires a lot of storage space. Straw also can be dusty and it gets moldy very easily, which can cause a lot of respiratory problems for humans and horses.

There is one instance where straw bedding is the best bedding to use and that is for breeding mares. Breeding mares that are ready to foal should always be bedded in lots of fresh clean straw to give the baby a safe, warm, dry place to be born. Babies can gnaw the straw and play in it without the risk of getting hurt or getting shaving dust up their noses and into their lungs.

Newspaper – Shredded newspaper is a very good bedding option, especially for horses that have respiratory problems. Shredded newspaper bedding is made from recycled or unused newsprint. Ink that is used in newspaper printing is soy based so there is no worry of the ink harming the horse, even if it gets wet. Shredded newspaper is extremely absorbent and comes in large bundles.

It can take a little while to figure out how to clean a stall with newspaper bedding since it’s much different than other types of bedding but experts recommend newspaper bedding for horses. Shredded newspaper bedding also composts very well and is great to use for fertilizer and mulch.

If you are someone that tries to be environmentally conscious and likes to use products that are good for the environment then using recycled and shredded newspaper might be the best bedding for you to use.