Planning a free range stable
involves a wealth of
opportunities for creating
new wildlife habitats. It is so
much nicer for horses to live
in a healthy environment with
buzzing bees and singing
birds and any amount of
silent little inhabitants
peeking out from behind a
blade of grass.
If this has aroused your curiosity and you would like to construct your own free range stable for your horses, Tanja Romanazzi, PhD, will be happy to support you with ideas and suggestions. Dr. Romaniazzi offers individual free range stabling consultation as well as an entire range of books and ebooks on a number of topics.
Tanja Romanazzi, PhD
DISADVANTAGES OF GREEN COMPOST
It gets dusty quite quickly (especially in the summer). Adding more bedding once a week can help. Very cold temperatures will make the compost too hard to lie down on. You can add a layer of wood shavings, for example, to create a softer litter. You will have to keep a close eye out for mold.
Further developments: combining green compost with wood chips
During the first winter, when the compost became too hard due to the cold, we covered it with a layer of plain wood shavings. This worked well. In time, the shavings were composted along with the other materials. In the second year, we had some rough wood chips left over and so we used those. These were of course more durable than the shavings and the results were fantastic.
We spread a 2 - 4" layer of wood chips over the compost bedding. The urine continues to be broken down by the compost, while the wood chips maintain a soft top layer. There is less dust and it also reduces the workload as you will not have to add fresh bedding quite as frequently. The bedding areas can be maintained this way for weeks at a time. All you have to do is pick up the droppings.
We used soft wood chips without any bark (and without any toxic wood, of course. This is very important when choosing your wood chips!). Wood chips containing bark would probably work just as well (and are less expensive). We just happened to have the other kind.
We change the entire bedding (compost and wood chips) once a year.
We used soft wood chips without any bark (and without any toxic wood, of course. This is very important when choosing your wood chips!). Wood chips containing bark would probably work just as well (and are less expensive). We just happened to have the other kind.
We change the entire bedding (compost and wood chips) once a year.