You are here: Home / Articles / Horse care
Different bedding and stable dust
2 July, 2009
Find your nearest horse bedding supplier
More articles on managing equine respiratory problems
Most materials used for bedding produce a stable dust that is an irritant to horses' airways.
You only need to be mucking out and turning over a stable bed, with the sun streaming in through the door, to see the amazing amount of miniscule particles filling the air.
The perceived wisdom is that paper and shavings beds are better for horses with allergic airway disease, but there has been little objective assessment on the subject.
Vets in Germany recently took five different commercially-produced horse bedding products and analysed them.
They tested wheat straw, softwood shavings, hemp/flax fibre, straw pellets and shredded paper.
The results surprised them; the hemp/flax bed, which was specifically marketed for horses with irritable airways, produced the most particles.
Next was the wood shavings sample.
Paper and pelleted straw produced the least particles and wheat straw was somewhere in between.
The vets then studied horses in real bedding situations. They used straw, wood shavings and straw pellets.
Straw pellets performed the best and straw was the worst, even though in the lab, shavings had performed worse than the straw.
The vets believed that the difference in air quality between straw and shavings was a reflection of the fact that the straw bed was mucked out and replenished every day, while the shavings were just skipped out.
Further complications were discovered because the straw yielded more moulds than other beds.
For more of the latest veterinary research and developments, see the current issue of Horse & Hound (2 July, '09)
Looking for a horse bedding supplier near you?
Read more articles on managing equine respiratory problems
Related articles:
- Online feed company is back in business
- New "eco-friendly" horse bedding Equibright launched
- New pallet system for animal bedding designed
- Super-absorbent and easy-to-store horse bedding launched
- Where to buy alternative bedding
- Bedmax introduces Littlemax — a high quality, finer sized shaving
- Straw shortage? Try an alternative bedding
- Cheaper wood pellet product offered by bedding company
- New cardboard bedding launches
- Event rider launches White Horse Bedding company
Subscribe to Horse & Hound and Save
Enjoy all the latest equestrian news and competition reports delivered straight to your door every week.
Click here to subscribe now