Horse bedding is used in stalls to absorb urine and moisture, and is a necessary part of properly maintaining clean stalls. Ideal bedding material makes cleaning up messes easy, is easy to store, and is the least wasteful.
Straw and wood shavings are commonly used, but using softwood wood pellets as horse bedding is becoming popular among experienced horse and stable owners.
Pellet bedding is perfect for stables with tight space constraints, because storing wood pellets takes up significantly less space than other alternatives. One bag of wood pellets takes up only 1.5 cubic feet of space in storage, but expands after proper wetting to nearly 4 cubic feet of bedding.
Because wood pellets are made of densely compacted, kiln-dried wood fibers – they are twice as absorbent as shavings, and hold four times the odor elimination power!
How to Make Horse Bedding from Softwood Pellets
You’ll need a bucket of water, a pair of scissors, and a bag of premium softwood pellets. To get started, lay the bags spaced out on the floor where you need your horse bedding. (This video shows the process on just one bag. Just repeat these steps for however many bags you’re using.)
Use scissors to carefully cut a cross shape in the plastic, then tuck the flaps inside the bag.
Pour a bucket of water into the opening. Warm water will speed the process up a bit, but cold water works just as well.(Warm water takes about 20 minutes to fully change the pellets into bedding, and cold water will take approximately 60 minutes.)
Wait for the water to fully absorb into the pellets. You’ll see them expand to about 4 times the original size! Once the pellets have completed the absorption – just flip the bag, dump out the fluffy sawdust, and rake it into even bedding.
A standard 40 pound bag of softwood pellets will cover a space about 5.5 feet by 5.5 feet, with a depth of about 1.5 inches. Use however many bags you need to cover your horse stall, and to reach the depth you desire.
