Foaling bedding

[Holly]

Well its starting to get HOT and Fly season is here, doing my best to keep the stall clean and dry.
I use the pelleted equine bedding, and its nice but have always thrown hay over it for the mares to foal on. I am thinking that it might be terrible in the stall being hot and full of hay...( giving the flys a place to breed)  I was thinking of trying to foal her out on the pelleted bedding... What are yalls thoughts?

[Rocklone]

The reason for the hay/straw is to protect the nasal passages of the foal and the umbilical chords, as i'm sure you know.

That being said, i have a horse that was foaled on shavings and has no health problems but the flakes were large. The particles in a wetted down pellet bed may be smaller though. If you don't wet the pellets down my main worry would be choking though

[Holly]

What about something in the stall to help with the flies? I am trying NOT to use much chemicals, so any natural products that work? I keep poo picked up and the compost pile is over an acre away...
I have a barn fan on for her, hoping that will help keep her cooler....
I do live near a wood mill and the "shavings" they sell are more like mulch....that may be a good option over this pelleted bedding

[dcwolcott]

I usually used a thick bed of hay, because straw was very hard to get here.  My stalls had Florida sand bottoms, so everything liquid soaked into the ground, and I could easily pick out the manure.  I didn't use a fancy hay, I used the cheapest I could find here, and the horses would turn up their noses at it, because I always fed alfalfa hay for feed, so it worked just perfectly.

[Holly]

I usually buy some straw stuff from tractor supply... But it makes me itchy!
So I really think I am going to try the pine chips I can get from our mill... they arent very absorbent, but the pelleted bedding will be underneath, semi easy to pick out, but should be a lot better on fly control, and I thing the foal will be safe too.....

Only 2 weeks til foal watch starts!!

[dcwolcott]

YEAH!!!!

[Renée]

I usually foaled on straw which isn't hard to get here in Italy other than that they were on large flake shavings during the year so I am afraid I can't really advice on using pellets. I think covering them with hay would be safer though.