Sawdust

[Miriam]

Went to have a look at what I hoped were going to be cheap shaving but it has turned out to be sawdust. They are very clean and can be baged by yourself or by them. Also delivered if necessary. Rhianna is very wet at times and she is on shaving at the moment, but I was wondering about other opinions on sawdust.

[Bebe]

Some of the shavings at the yard (owner buys in bulk and quality varies) are more dust than shavings. I got a bag of it once and found that they were very absorbant but blew around in the wind and were incredibly dusty, to the point where I was coughing and had a runny nose (I get hayfever, etc so dust bothers me) after being in there for 10 minutes. I ended up chucking the whole lot out.

I dread to think what it would do to the lungs of a horse that was in there for hours at a time.

Amanda

[Piaffe]

Don't ever buy standard sawdust or chips from a timber/builders merchants. These have not been dust extracted and contain all sorts of horrors from having been swept up and bagged!!

I take it that these 'woodchips' are from a reputable supplier? I have to agree with Bebe, the sawdusty woodchips do tend to be too dusty and make your bed go really disgusting! I made the mistake of putting a couple of bales of more dusty woodchips in my horses bed - never again! I think the smaller flaked bales tend to soak up more and therefore turn brown much quicker than larger flakes.

[Miriam]

Piaffe these are not woodchips. It is very fine almost sand like if you know what I mean. I did buy a couple and put one under Rhis shavings and there was no dust flying around at all. Not like when I put the shavings down. Like bebe I suffer from hayfever and normally spluttering and coughing when I put anything dusty down. But these were rather nice. I am sure that I read somewhere that they wre more absorbant than shavings which is why I have put them on the bottom. Will find out tomorrow what they are like.

[Bebe]

I should imagine if you just put them as a thin layer on the bottom of the bed they'll be okay, I've heard of people doing this with deep litter shavings beds. I definitely would want a good layer of normal shavings on top though.

Amanda

[Miriam]

Mucked out this morning and she had a lovely dry floor again. The only real wetness I found was the shavings. The wet sawdust just looked like wet sand. It was much easier to pick the poo off though as the dry sawdust just filtered through the fork.