Horse Bedding

It is essential for a horse owner to provide his horse with best bedding facility to make it feel comfortable. This will help the horse to sustain good health and will bring enormous changes in his performance. Horses need proper bedding to come over their daily fatigue.

One should keep some imperative things in mind before purchasing horse bedding for the horse like – comforts, cost, safety, allergies, and palatability, urine absorbent, dust absorbent, availability and its drawbacks.

Several types of horse beddings that are accessible in the market are described below with their pros and cons:

1. Straw: It is the most common type of bedding used for horses. It is inexpensive, absorbing, easy to maintain and comfortable. Sometimes it creates respiratory problem for both the horse as well as humans. It is not spongy so usually horses eat them. Straw beddings are of three types that are described below:

   • Wheat straw:
     These types of bedding are cheap, easily available, comfortable and warm but these beddings add risk to the horses with respiratory problem.

   • Barley straw:
     These types of beddings are lengthy and are of better quality than wheat straw but this bedding add risk to the horses that have excess diet.

   • Oat straw:
     It is clean and expensive than other two straw beddings however it is harmful for the horses that eat it as it may cause several problems to them.

2. Wood Shavings and Sawdust: Wood shaving and sawdust are mostly admired for their absorbing feature. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to muck out. However these beddings are not good for horses that are suffering from respiratory problems.

3. Shredded Newspaper/Cardboard: These days’ people have started admiring this type of bedding. The padding quality of this bedding is similar to that of the wood shaving and straw beddings. It is good for allergic horses since it is dust free. It is light as well as easy to store.

4. Shredded paper: It is the cheapest form of horse bedding that has good absorbing quality. It is good for allergic horses since it is dust free. Moreover it is easy to handle and store this type of bedding.

5. Kenaf: Kenaf is a natural plant used for horse bedding and it has more absorbing quality than the wood bedding. Also, it doesn’t get dirty easily as it has more absorbing quality.

6. Corn stalks: Corn stalks are one of the most comfortable as well as inexpensive types of horse bedding, but the main disadvantage of this type of bedding is that they are hardly available in the markets that are nearby your location.

7. Peat moss: People hardly prefer this type of bedding as these are very expensive moreover it is hard to handle and unattractive too.

   Therefore proper bed rest adds to the charm and majesty to your horse. If you want your horse to give the best then give him the proper bed rest. For this you will need to choose appropriate horse bedding.