Start With the Horse, Not the Bale

Bedding is one of the few purchases you make month after month that touches almost everything: your horse's lungs, hooves, hocks and willingness to lie down, your own back, and the size of the muck heap at the end of the yard. A dusty bed can set off a cough that takes weeks to settle. A thin, wet bed leaves a horse standing in ammonia overnight, which is bad news for hooves and for the skin on the lower legs.

Before you compare prices per bale, take note of three things about your own horse. How wet is the bed in a morning, and how much does your horse trample and walk about? Does he lie down properly, or does he stand in the same corner all night? And does he have any history of cough, nasal discharge or respiratory allergy? The answers will usually point you towards one material quite firmly.

Straw: Cheap, Traditional and Best Kept Dry

Straw is the bedding most of us grew up with, and it still has plenty going for it. Barley or wheat straw, bought in conventional bales or large square Hesston bales, is inexpensive, warm-looking and quick to muck out. It gives lovely deep banks, and a straw muck heap rots down well, so arable farmers are often glad to take it away.

• Absorbency: modest. Urine tends to pass through, so you need a generous depth and daily removal of wet patches.
• Dust and spores: variable, and the main reason people move away from it. Barley straw carries awns that irritate eyes and skin, and a mouldy bale is a real risk for a horse with respiratory disease.
• Eating it: many horses nibble straw, and hungry ones will eat a great deal of it. That is fine in moderation, but it is no substitute for proper forage.
• Cost: cheapest to buy, though you will use more of it.

If you choose straw, buy from a supplier who stores it under cover, and reject any bale that smells fusty or feels damp in the middle.

Wood Shavings: The Low-Dust All-Rounder

Dust-extracted shavings, sold in compressed bales, are the middle ground that suits a great many horses. They are far more absorbent than straw, they knit together into a firm bed that stays where you put it, and good-quality shavings are low in dust. For a horse with a cough, or one whose stable is small and poorly ventilated, they are often the sensible first choice.

The trade-offs are cost and volume. Shavings are dearer per bale and you need a fair depth to start with, perhaps six to eight bales for a 12ft by 12ft box. Many owners run a semi-deep-litter system: skip out droppings daily, lift the wet patches once or twice a week, and top up as needed. That keeps the bed dry and the weekly cost reasonable.

Quality varies enormously. Look for untreated, dust-extracted softwood shavings, and avoid anything mixed with fine sawdust, which is dusty, slippery underfoot and poor at draining. A sharp resinous smell usually means the wood has not been properly dried.

Wood Pellets: Small, Heavy and Remarkably Absorbent

Wood pellets arrive in 15kg bags or by the pallet, and they behave quite differently from anything else. Most people tip a bag into a wheelbarrow, add water, and leave it for ten to twenty minutes until it fluffs up into a soft, crumbly bed. Others lay dry pellets as a base layer under an existing bed, letting the horse's own urine break them down.

Their great strength is absorbency. A pellet bed will soak up many times its own volume, which makes it excellent for wet mares, box-walkers, horses on box rest and anyone fighting ammonia smells in a stable with little airflow. Dust levels are very low, storage is tidy, and although a bag looks expensive, you use so little that the weekly cost is often comparable to shavings.

Bear in mind the practicalities: the bags are heavy, you need somewhere to soak them, and dry pellets left within reach may be eaten. Keep them under cover, because a damp bag swells and sets solid.

Storage, Muck Heaps and the Practicalities

Think about where bedding lives before you commit to a pallet load.

• Straw: needs dry, airy storage, and takes up the most space per week of use.
• Shavings: stack neatly, keep well if dry, and expand dramatically once opened.
• Pellets: the tidiest option, but must stay dry or they set in the bag.

Disposal matters just as much. Ask whether your yard has room on the muck heap, and whether a local farmer will take it. Straw rots down quickly, shavings can take years unless mixed with manure, and pellets break down reasonably fast. If your muck is spread on grazing land, check that the heap is kept well away from watercourses and that nothing has been added that could harm the soil.

Working Out What Suits Your Yard

For a horse with any respiratory history, choose dust-extracted shavings or pellets and never straw. For a horse that eats his bedding, shavings or pellets are safer, alongside plenty of good hay or haylage. For a wet mare or a box-walker, pellets will save you time and bedding. For a youngster who trashes everything, cheap straw and a sense of humour may be the pragmatic answer.

Whichever you choose, judge it by the weekly cost rather than the price per bale, and give it a fair fortnight before you decide. Aim for a bed deep enough that your horse can lie down comfortably, with banks around the walls as a cushion against casting. A clean, dry, generous bed is money well spent – it protects legs, lungs, hooves and, on a cold wet morning, your own enthusiasm for the job.