To each their own, stall.

 Whether you want to use straw or shavings depends on a number of factors, the first of which is probably cost. For various reasons, pine shaving prices have been going through the roof lately! Although shavings are the cleanest, easiest to manage, and nicest smelling for horses; there are lots of reasons why you might want to pick straw instead.

One of which is a horse who likes to churn up his stall. Maddie has a little trouble settling down at night, this isn't overly surprising, I've found the same with most "hot" blooded horses. As a result his stall become a miserable mess of manure and shavings. Either we can go through bags & bags of shavings and his stall will always be a mess, or you switch him to straw. I'm using the dry, chopped old straw from the loft in his stall. Every night that he stays in there, I'll go in and pick out any stray poops, and add some more fluffy straw to the top. This gives him a lovely warm bed to lie in, and I don't have to toss out half a stall of shavings every day.

Maddie's Domain

Plus once it's time to clean out the whole stall it goes straight out to the manure pile in a glorious steaming heat of near-compost!





Meg is the complete opposite, she is very tidy, and although she frequently lies in it (oh the joys of light coloured horses!!) she rarely steps in her manure. So for her we have shavings over mats, I can easily pick up the few poops; and every day I move the dirtiest shavings into her "pee spot". I've also swept back the front to keep her hay clean when she eats, I do the same thing for Maddie's stall.

Meg's Home

The horses are rarely in for very long, we've got the liberty of keeping them out as much as possible. Both healthier for the horses, and less money and work for me!