Deep Litter - How long?

Alexa&Tess

Alexa&Tess

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Sep 2, 2008
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How long are you meant to leave deep litter down for?

I decided to deep litter Tess's bedding because otherwide she scrapes right down to the concrete and makes a delightful bedding and poo mush for me every morning.

She's got a base of aubiose now with shavings in the banks and some on the top of the bed to make it look fluffy and nice. I've had it down since early December and it is going well. The base is nice a solid and the top is staying dry but i dont know how long to leave it for?
 
I used to deep litter Shavings and only dug it out if the wet came to the top. Apart from this, I used to leave it.
If you do have to dig it out it is very heavy work. Perfect for weather like we have been having cos you get very very warm!
 
Before I moved yards in November Tia's was down for 18 months, and didn't get smelly or dirty. When it came to digging it out when we moved it took a while, but I only took about 20 barrows out. Most of it was clean enough to bag up and take to start her new bed.
 
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Snowyboy said:
can I ask a related question!


but how do you deep litter a straw bed??
Click to expand...

I used to have Arthur on deep litter straw -I did the same as with shavings - skip out every day and sprinkle half a bale on every 3 or 4 days. I couldn't leave it as long though - I used to dig it out every 3 or 4 months. Again, it was always clean and dry on top.
 
I would invest in some rubber mats for a mucky pup like that. Saves you hours of time, effort and mucky bedding.
 
You can get some quite reasonable ones, and the savings over the years will pay you back.

My mats have been down for about 15 years now, not a sign of wear, and that's with cows stood on them all day too.
 
I once dug out a 5 year old deep littered bed taht was 3 foot off teh floor-lets just say there were things living in there that shouldnt have been & the smell-well it smelt like something(s) had died in there!!!! (It wasnt my bed but an old RS I used to work at just kept adding more & more bedding to one of teh ponies beds & decided actually we should really dig this out-5 years later!!!!!!)
I wouldnt deep litter but go for the rubber matting-that experience put me off for life!!!!!!
 
deep litter can be left for a long as you like as long as the top bed remains dry. the longer you leave it the more you have to muck out eventually and the harder it will be.
most people leave it a month or two but not much more than that.

i personally wouldn't recommend only rubber mats as horses become extremly smelly on them, all urine just sits on top waiting to be soaked up by you horses rug, or worse coat.
a small bit of bedding on top doesnt really help matters on that front.

to answer another question straw is very hard to deep litter as it isnt really very absorbent and so the bed gets soaked quickly, so can only be deep littered for a short time, semi-deep littered really.
 
I deep littered for a couple of years and I changed the bed once a year - marathon muck out! Other than that I only took out the wet bits when they came to the top. Trouble is the wee pony could almost climb over his door come May:D

I'm now on rubber matting with sawdust over half the bed to a depth of about 2 or 3 inches. Its much much easier and keeps really clean. No smell and horses are as clean as they are on any other bed. I used shavings with the mats originally and only went onto sawdust as I was having trouble getting shavings. I wont go back to shavings now:). The sawdust is far more absorbent.
 
I worked at a RS where the horses were on mats only, but they had an excellent drainage system. It never smelt, and the mats didn't stay covered in urine. Every three months, the mats got power hosed. It made my job so much easier - I literally went in with rubber gloves and a skip and took out the droppings.
Some horses really don't like to pee on rubber mats - my lad is on mats but needs some kind of bedding to pee on, otherwise he hangs on to it until he's somewhere with a softer surface.

I've never tried deep littering, but to be honest I so rarely stable that it just wouldn't be worth it. I've seen many people who "deep litter" on a small scale and take out the wet at the weekends, but skip out the droppings every day.
 
I have no drainage and no sloping floors but its not a problem. I take the mats out once a year and pressure wash them - yep its a manky job but it doesnt take long.

As I have enough bedding down to soak up urine there is no problem with smell. Apparently the urine doesnt smell till the air gets to it so there is no problem till you actually lift the mats (and then it does stink;))
 
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