alpaca bedding – Dutch Hollow Acres

Recently we purchased a Wallenstein BXM Chipper Shredder to help with chipping all the trees and scrub brush we took down in our soon to be new orchard area. When considering buying a chipper we thought about going all out and getting the shredder to see if we could make our own livestock bedding.

If you’ve read my past posts about my experiences with different types of bedding you’ll know my distain for straw. I just hate picking through traditional straw bedding. The waste is just awful, it takes me much longer to muck a stall and once I get it out to the manure pile it takes forever and a day to compost. The price of straw vs. the wood pellet bedding I’m using now is night and day and right now I need to bring down the cost of doing business.

In comes the shredder. I’ve read about how shredded straw composts faster and is used at some dairy farms and also by mushroom farmers. So I decided to give it a try. I purchased a 500lb bale of straw for $40 and fired up the shredder. We aimed the shoot into our little red TSC dump trailer, stood up wind from the shredding and let her rip. 3.5 of the big flakes of straw filled the dump trailer really quickly and it filled one of our 11×11 stalls. 1 trailer full gave a great 4-6” deep bedding and covered the whole stall evenly. For comparison 4 ($7) bags of wood pellets gave me the same results. That’s $28 for pellets vs $8 for shredded straw. At this point I have a really big smile on my face.

With pellet bedding I have to add 1-2 bags per week for a stall with a mare and foal. There’s very little waste and I only have to take out the soiled areas. I know from past experience that with traditional straw bedding 3 flakes of straw would give me nice bedding but I had to strip the bed every day and add another 3 flakes. How would the shredded straw do?

Shredding the straw brought down the stalk size to 2-3 inches in length and even broke the stalk open so it no longer was a tube. The result is a very light fluffy bedding that sifts right through my favorite Dura stall fork just like wood shavings would. It doesn’t fall though like pellet bedding but with a few shakes of the fork the horse apples remain and the clean bedding falls through. Pee areas are sucked up nicely and are easy to spot and scoop up with minimal waste. I managed to pick through 3 stalls using just 1 wheelbarrow! Try that with traditional straw bedding!

Shredded_Straw — Handful of Shredded Straw Bedding

When I brought home my horses, I quickly learned that finding the right bedding made all the difference in how long it took to do chores.

I started out with dirt floors alone. Yeah that turned into mud instantly. Next I dug out the dirt floors, filled in with 4-6” of stone dust and then added rubber mats on top for a nice level floor. Awesome! Rubber mats when installed properly so they don’t buckle are the best. At first I opted to use no bedding, shoveling up whatever the horse left behind. This was great until I got a pee-er who would flood me out.

Right off the bat I eliminated straw from my bedding list. I always hated mucking out straw stalls when I worked on other farms. Bulky, heavy, stinky, and one scoop would fill my muck bucket or wheelbarrow. Straw is out!

The next course of action was shavings. They came in easy to stack bags, smelled great, and made the stall look so pretty when it was new and fresh. Clean up was easy, just scoop and toss. I did notice a few things I didn’t like; I was throwing away a lot of “good” bedding that was mixed in with the bad and pee areas were still puddles for quite a while before the shavings could suck it up. I did like the fluffy nature of shavings though, when laid deep offered warmth in winter like straw.

I don’t remember what I was watching one day but I came across pellet bedding. I think it was on Youtube to be honest. Since one of my stalls needed a total strip down anyway I opted to give the bedding a try. I bought (4) 40lbs bags for my 11×11 stall, cut open the tops and filled each bag with 2.5 gallons of water and let them sit. WOAH, the bags swelled right up and over flowed with sawdust. I dumped the bags and used my trusty fork to spread the bedding around evenly. I was surprised on how much bedding there was, it filled up the whole stall 2-4” deep which is way more than I’d usually put in a stall.

The first time I picked out the stall after using this bedding was amazing. The sawdust just fell right through the fork leaving me with only “apples” to toss. Pee areas clumped together so picking up only the wet stuff was easy leaving the dry to mix in. I wasted hardly any bedding.

I’m in my 2nd year of using pellet bedding and have found for me the best use is 1-2 bags per stall initially adding 1(dry) bag a week and concentrate the bedding to pee areas.

I have also started using this bedding in my alpaca stalls. I found it best to lay a deep bedding here since they all pee/poo in the same spot. That way I can just scoop in one shovel full and back fill the spot easily.

I did initially freak out using this bedding with my alpacas. They loved it so much and all of them rolled in it covering them in the fine sawdust. My mind went straight to shearing season and how much work I just created for myself having to figure out how to get that fine dust out of their fleece. It turns out the sawdust is nothing like shavings in alpaca fleece. Dry sawdust rests on top of the fleece and when they shake it all falls off. I skirted 8 fleeces and didn’t have a sawdust problem in any of them.

My only complaint about sawdust bedding is the dust. If disturbed by wind the bedding creates a fine dust in the air. I can’t imagine it’s good to breathe in but using a hose on “mist” wets down the bedding keeping it from floating away. Unfortunately, winter = no misting = dry bedding.

I’m now searching for a stall fork that will sift out the sawdust but let me pick the alpaca beans. I haven’t found one yet. I’ll keep you updated.

Tag: alpaca bedding

Shredded Straw Bedding

Wood Pellet Bedding