What do we bed our horses on?

Farm management

The benefits of paper bedding

Paper or cardboard based bedding is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to wood shavings, sawdust or straw bedding. There are a number of benefits of paper bedding which can not only help the health of your horse, but the health of the environment.

Healthy for horses

-       Wood based bedding is prone to forming a lot of dust – a dusty box or stable can cause or exacerbate respiratory illness in some horses. If you have a horse that is asthmatic, has allergies or is prone to developing coughs, paper bedding generates very little dust, which greatly reduces the risk of asthmatic or allergic flare ups.

-       Paper based bedding is capable of absorbing large amounts of moisture – liquids travel straight to the bottom layer of bedding where they are absorbed, keeping the top layer dry. By quickly absorbing any moisture present, paper bedding is much less prone to mould growth, which is capable of causing respiratory illness in horses.

-       Not only is paper bedding good for the health of your horse, it’s also warm and comfortable! As previously mentioned, the bedding’s absorbent nature keeps the top layer dry to sleep on, and the corrugated shape of cardboard is good at trapping warm air, meaning your horse’s bed is cosy and comfortable during the cooler months.

Kind to the environment

-       Sawdust and wood shavings disposal can be difficult – when disposed of on the land, shavings can degrade the quality of the surrounding soil, can affect the quality of surrounding pasture and take a very long time to fully break down.
Paper based bedding can be spread immediately back onto the land when soiled and will completely break down within 2-3 months.

Easy to clean

-       A more absorbent bedding material means that liquids are contained within a much smaller area – less soiled bedding equals less work mucking out boxes! Soiled bedding also clumps together easily, making removal easy.