Sand for coolroom bedding-UPDATE

[TMJ Show Cattle]

Next to Cedar Fibre, sand is used in Oklahoma and Texas more than anything. Been doing it for years with no complaints. Hell of a lot cheaper, hell of a lot cooler and easier to maintain. Get your cattle clean befor clipping and there won't be any clipper problems. Some shavings are used, but most of those people are always complaining,and you would get laughed out of the county if your use of straw leaked out.

 

[stangs13]

Sand is awesome! It blows out of the animals very easy, keeps them cool, and it drys very quickly, and is easy to clean.

Sand is terrible for hair.  Talk to anyone who does this for a living or better yet go look at show barns of succesful outfits and let me know how many bed their cattle with sand.  There is a good reason you wont find any. It is way to abrasive and it will eat the hair right off a lot of cattle.  The good haired ones will have some hair regardless but they will have less volume and less quality if kept on sand.

Now that I think of it I have not seen many with sand. I have thought of switching to mulch since i have very easy access to a lot of it, but I love the absorbancy(sp) of sand, and how easy it is to clean. I never even thought it would take the hair off, and every time I rinse I rinse a lot of sand out, and i can see how it rubs on the skin. I have heard to build up the pens with sand, put rubber mats down to keep them from pawing it up, then putting shavings or mulch.

 

[DLD]

Prob'ly there's quite a bit of difference in the "sand" that some of us have experience with.  I expect that alot of the sand used in this part of the world (as TMJ said) maybe alot finer than in some other places - maybe even too fine to really officially be called sand.  I don't know, I stunk really bad at soils judging, but it's usually more of a sandy loam I think, dug up along some creek bottom with a front end loader.  Still not maybe the very best for hair, but not nearly as rough on it as a coarser grained sand.

I still like my cedar mulch - catch it on sale for a buck fifty for a forty pound bag and stock up.  We might use 100 bags a year max keeping 4 - 8 head on it most days - pretty tough to beat for price and convenience, imho...

 

[6M Ranch]

That's the way we do it.  Sand on the bottom, rubber stall mats, then wood shavings on top.  We also started using the Swet PDZ this year.  Stuff works great!!!  Really takes out the ammonia smell.

 

[KMJCC]

We go the route of the tree trimmers for getting wood chips for out coolroom.  We have a dad in our 4-H club that works for a tree service and he is providing a lot of our club with bedding for there coolrooms and he is also providing it for our county fair.  You just have to be carreful as to what kind of wood it is that they chipped up and also look for trash they may throw in there.  I try to give him a few days notice and he will have them get a load with out the rakings as he calls it.  I am guessing that is with out a lot of little branches that me not get shredded all the way. 

 

[afhm]

Something you might try is using sand as a base and covering it with mulch or shavings for the top layer, agree with the rest of the posters sand gets down to skin level and wears the hair off (same with your carpets), we bed on sand at the county fair and it is amazing how long we continue to blow sand out after we come home.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[afhm]

Next to Cedar Fibre, sand is used in Oklahoma and Texas more than anything. Been doing it for years with no complaints. Hell of a lot cheaper, hell of a lot cooler and easier to maintain. Get your cattle clean befor clipping and there won't be any clipper problems. Some shavings are used, but most of those people are always complaining,and you would get laughed out of the county if your use of straw leaked out.

Sand isn't near as common in the south as you think TMJ.  There is a lot of pine, sawdust and mulch being used.

 

[mike]

We have used sand in our cooler the last 6 years with no problems what so ever, we put mats in the front so they cant paw at the sand and we blow out calves 3 times a day in the cooler, havent had any skin problems or hair problems and before we clip we just make sure if there is any sand in their hair coat we get it out, calves seem more comfortable and over all seems cooler in the cooler. JMO and experiance

 

[farmboy]

i think you guys need to read the original post again. me and dad drove around for about 2 hours all over the county looking for woodchips. the only thing there is is a place with fine fine fine saw dust that is not very good at all.i have a base about a foot deep of some woodchips we did find about a month ago on the side of the road. also my cool room doubles as my barn because we just built it by my house and not in our barn because we don't actually own our barn and my uncle is dumb etc etc etc. so basically i have 5 calves living in a 24x12 shed 24/7. it gets messy fast. straw gets swallowed into the ground is hard as hell to clean out with a pitch fork. it doesn't last very long either.

I can get a heck of a lot sand though and i have 5 or 6 mats I can put down. I don't know what kind of sand it is. its at a building supply place in town and we got some a long time ago for a pool base.

 

[shortyjock89]

Don't let them inside at night, unless it's going to be storming like crazy.

 

[farmboy]

thats the only shelter

 

[shortyjock89]

Ooook?  Ours like to lay outside most of the night anyhow, why do they need shelter on a clear, calm nght?

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

I build an ag lime base and taper it towards the back of the tie area and then bed with what ever I have on hand. The lime will get pretting hard and neutralizes the amonia smell. After it hardens you can clean it pretty easy no matter what you have bedded with - even straw. RW

 

[afhm]

Zach, put your google skills to work.  Try and find somewhere that sells pine shavings or any kind.  State fair is almost here so if it costs more than you want it will only be for a few weeks then you have a little while to find an alternative.  Check with some of the local horse people they can help you locate bedding.

 

[farmboy]

anyone do it? we can't get woodchips or sawdust anymore. straw is too messy.

well yesterday we got a big truck load of some kind of mulch. idk if it is the famed cedar fiber but it sure smells like awesome and didn't cost an arm and a leg for a bunnnnnnnnnnnchhhhhhhhhhh. like half semi load. we could get enough to last us till next year for a hundred bucks. the calves really like laying in it.

 

[simtal]

if your calves are  in a cooler, why does bedding that is "cooler" matter?

 

[farmboy]

they will paw out all of it until they get to the dirt because the dirt is cooler

 

[BK]

i have seen people use shreded tires. they shred them really fine and only the side walls so theirs no wires in it and you can wash and re use it but i don't know where 2 get it or how cool it keeps them. i know its cheap and you can buy it by the ton. and if anyone finds some they should let me know i would like to get some. oh and i seen it at denver 2 years ago used 4 display buls.

 

[OH Breeder]

i have seen people use shreded tires. they shred them really fine and only the side walls so theirs no wires in it and you can wash and re use it but i don't know where 2 get it or how cool it keeps them. i know its cheap and you can buy it by the ton. and if anyone finds some they should let me know i would like to get some. oh and i seen it at denver 2 years ago used 4 display buls.

they are using recycled tires in some horse arenas. It has been around for about 10 years or maybe more. It is expensive but you can have riding arena filled with rubber material.