How deep is the bedding in your horse’s stall? If you want to provide more variety and relieve boredom in your horse’s stable time, the deep stall bedding method for horses is a great idea to try. Your horse will get more rest and stimulation. And setting up and cleaning deep stall bedding for horses is a breeze! Here’s why a deep bedding system is great for your horse, and how to set it up.
What is Deep Stall Bedding for Horses?
Deep stall bedding for horses is a way to add variety and comfort to your horse’s stable. This enrichment idea couldn’t be simpler. Just choose a stall bedding material and add lots of it to your horse’s stall. To clean, you’ll remove only the bedding that is soiled, and add some fresh material each time.
You can use any horse-approved substrate for your deep bedding activity. Deep stall bedding can be an all-the-time feature of your stalls, or you can vary the depth of your stall substrate for more sensory variety.
Deep stall bedding is also called the deep litter method for horses.
Why is Deep Stall Bedding Good Horse Enrichment?
Extra deep stall bedding is a great way to provide enrichment for stalled horses. Remember, enrichment is all about encouraging your horse’s natural behaviors and providing variety – enrichment isn’t just toys and puzzles!
This strategy is a change of pace from the normal appearance and feel of the stall. This adds variety, relieving the monotony of spending hours in an identical space every day.
Extra deep bedding is a sensory activity and many horses will enjoy the fluffy, soft material. You might see your horse pawing, rolling, and spending more time lying down. It has a completely different feel than the standard few inches of bedding.
Because of this, deep stall bedding also encourages self-maintenance. This is the way your horse takes care of their own body, just like self-care for people.
A surprising number of horses experience sleep deprivation in stalls. It’s more common in older horses or those with chronic pain, because lying down is uncomfortable. Generous stall bedding creates an extra cushion and makes it comfortable for your horse to lie down, encouraging rest and sleep.
The Benefits of Deep Stall Bedding for Horse Owners
It seems like adding deep stall bedding might actually be a downside. More bedding involves more cost in hay, shavings, or other stall bedding material. But the benefits to you may outweigh any extra cost.
Of course, increasing your horse’s comfort and providing enrichment is priceless. But there are tangible benefits too!
Deeper bedding, especially absorbent materials like fine shavings and sawdust, is better at absorbing moisture. When you use extra stall bedding, urine spreads less and it’s easier to scoop up the soiled material after raking back the dry layer at the top.
When the urine pools at the bottom of a your deep stall bedding, the clean material on the top forms a barrier. Ammonia fumes stay at the bottom, away from your horse’s nose, and their hooves stay out of the wet.
If you replace soiled bedding each time you pick out the stall, you’ll be able to go longer between completely stripping down and scrubbing stalls – and that means more time spent with your horse.
You’ll also probably save money overall in bedding since you’ll have to replace less of it each day.
How Much Stall Bedding?
For this stall enrichment strategy, more is better! You’ll want to create a generous layer of shavings or other material.
For wood shavings and other fine textured bedding, create a layer from 6 inches to a foot for a soft, cushy mattress-like effect. When using straw, make your layer even deeper because straw will compress under your horse’s weight.
For best results, use several types of bedding layered like a lasagna. Place the finest and most absorbent material, such as a layer of sawdust, at the bottom. Top with several more inches of cushiony wood shavings or straw.
What behaviors does deep stall bedding encourage?
Enrichment for horses means encouraging their natural behaviors and providing variety. Deep stall bedding provides sensory enrichment, and encourages equine self care.
Whether you use this bedding strategy as an every-day or once-in-a-while activity, you’ll encourage:
- Lying down, sleeping
- Rolling
- Sensory behaviors like touch and proprioception
How to use deep stall bedding for horses
The right stall bedding
This horse enrichment activity works with any stall bedding, but some are more practical and useful than others. Bedding availability varies by region, so use what’s available in your area.
Straw
Straw is a gold standard, age-old horse bedding option. It provides a lot of lift and will squash down into a soft and supportive layer.
Straw doesn’t soak or contain urine very well, so consider using another bedding option like sawdust underneath a thick layer of straw.
Wood shavings
Which shavings are the most common bedding option in many areas. Larger flake shavings are great for a deep bedding setup.
For best results, use a combination of fine shavings on the bottom for absorption and coarser flake shavings on top for loft.
Sawdust
Sawdust is used in some areas for a stall bedding. It’s available in bulk and also in pelleted form, which you can expand with a light spray of water before use.
Sawdust isn’t the best choice for deep stall bedding by itself because you’d need an enormous amount of sawdust, and it’s not especially soft. But sawdust really shines as a base layer underneath other materials.
Other bedding options
You can use any stall bedding available in your area, including paper-based bedding, and shredded corn husks or teff. Experiment and see which one gives you the best results and encourages your horse to lie down or roll the most.
Using Deep Stall Bedding
Setting up a this stable strategy is simple, whether you’re using it as horse enrichment or for normal equine management.
Add bedding to the stall and aim for a total depth of 6 inches to 1 foot. Combinations of bedding are a great idea to maximize performance. Add finer, more absorbent material first, and top with a layer of bedding with more loft such as wood shavings or straw.
Here’s an example of a layered system of bedding with absorbent wood pellets underneath a deep, squashy layer of wood shavings:
Make the bedding thicker at the back, and leave a shallow area near the front for your horse to enter and exit.
The best horse enrichment activities feature choice in control for your equine friend. If you have the space, consider making both a deep bedding and a thin bedding section to your stall or shelter. Your horse will be able to choose where they want to be, and what they want to do.
Don’t be surprised if your horse immediately urinates in the new, clean stall! Many horses prefer to pee on deeper bedding because they don’t like to be splashed with urine. The deep bedding layer will collect and absorb the pee, keeping the top dry if your horse lies down in it.
Cleaning Deep Stall Bedding
Deep stall bedding makes it easy for your horse to pick a single area in which to urinate, and can prevent them from churning soiled bedding and scattering it all over. This makes cleaning a breeze! You’ll spot-clean your horse’s stall with this method.
Just a rake aside the top layer of bedding, which will be dry and clean, and scoop up the soiled bedding underneath. Pick manure from the top. There’s no need to strip the rest of the stall bedding. Just add a little fresh material each time to keep the stall squashy and comfortable.
Because waste is immediately absorbed into the deep and squashy bedding layer, you may find that you need to strip and clean the stall much less frequently. It’s a surprising way economical stall bedding strategy.
Not Just for Stalls
The deep bedding method can also provide enrichment to your horse outside the stall. After all, stalls are sometimes necessary, but turnout is preferred.
If your horse doesn’t spend time in a stall, add deep bedding to their outdoor shelters instead. This is a perfect way to offer them both very deep and shallower bedding options, since most pasture shelters are larger than stalls.