Straw in the steer barn?

[WBar Farms]

Can i use straw for bedding in my cooler room or is that prety bad they they lay in that all the time.  Should i just stick with shavings oris straw good?

 

[farmboy]

Straw just makes a big mess thats hard to clean up. Wood chips are best.

 

[FutureBreeder2013]

Would sand work in a cool room?

 

[shortyjock89]

Would sand work in a cool room?

If you don't like having hair on your calves......

 

[s010700]

Can i use straw for bedding in my cooler room or is that prety bad they they lay in that all the time.  Should i just stick with shavings oris straw good?

We like using mulch from the town. Usually towns or city's have a mulch pile from their maintaing their trees that is free for the taking.

 

[big tylerr]

so you shouldn't use straw  would ground up corn stalks work

 

[farmboy]

I would stay away from anything that isn't wood based. Ever cleaned out a barn that was bedded with straw? Its nasty, its hard, all the straw gets woven together and matted and you end up pulling out 50lbs per pitchfork stick. Not to mention what kind of dust is going to be flying around in your cool room from the straw

 

[Brice8]

Can i use straw for bedding in my cooler room or is that prety bad they they lay in that all the time.  Should i just stick with shavings oris straw good?

i'm not positive if this is true or not but ive heard that straw holds ammonia really bad and that could lead to ammonia poisoning in a cool room

 

[farmboy]

it does. I did it for about 2 weeks when I couldn't get any chips and the ammonia got pretty bad. then it gets really bad when you have to change it out... Luckily we own a big heavy duty chipper now and I have enough chips for 6 months  <beer>

 

[Dozer45]

The best bedding I have ever seen is wood pellets like those you heat your house with. We use them here at the college in our equine training program and they are the most absorbent bedding I have ever used. We use about 5 bags per stall and we cut a small hole at the top and fill them about 1/2 to 2/3 of the was with water and let them soak for about ten min or so then spread them out in the stall. The water causes them to expand into fine sawdust and they quickly dry leaving a very soft, fluffly, absorbent bed. very easy to clean just pick out the wet spots and so on

 

[The Show]

They pack really good too!

 

[OH Breeder]

Can i use straw for bedding in my cooler room or is that prety bad they they lay in that all the time.  Should i just stick with shavings oris straw good?

If you don't have access to wood shavings or chips, straw is more work but is fine for cooler bedding. We used it for three years. But it requires more maintence. You will have to strip the pens more often. You can put a fine shaving base done with stall dry and then top it with straw. Straw for us was cheap and it didn't take as much time to get or unload etc. It didn't pack down any harder than wet wood chips.