Peat Moss: Bedding for Senior Horses
What makes peat moss such a good bedding for senior horses? Lots of things! Here are the high points, and the how-to's from Hands-On Senior Horse Care.

High Points from the senior point of view:

• Good for Lungs: It's the most absorbent bedding available, by far, absorbing 10 times its weight or more in moisture (urine), and unsurpassed in its ability to absorb odors (ammonia).
• Good for Bones/Joints: It's soft, cushion-y, and nonslick if bedded deeply enough (minimum 6 inches, preferably 8 to 12 inches?the deeper it is, the easier it is to keep clean and fresh).
• Good for Hygiene: It's clean, and easy to keep clean. See how-to's, below.

Here's How To Put Down The Peat

Step 1. Shop around. Prices vary widely. They're likely to be lowest toward the end of gardening season. (A good time to stock up.) Good sources include garden, home improvement, and feed stores. Plan on paying between $4 and $11 for a compressed, 4.4-cubic-foot bale (roughly the size of a standard hay bale). For a 12 by 12-foot stall, you'll need about 12 bales to net a 6- to 8-inch depth, depending on how much it fluffs when you open the bales. Check the advertising pages in your favorite horse magazines for bulk sources that'll deliver peat moss by truckload, instead of bales. It's likely to be significantly cheaper, depending on delivery charges.

Step 2. Make it deep. In a clean, stripped stall, add enough peat for a minimum 6-inch depth; 12 inches is better, so there's plenty of peat to absorb urine. Otherwise the urine may flood through to the stall base and puddle, causing ammonia fumes to build.

Step 3. Pick out manure daily. Use a basket-type manure fork to sift out manure. Pick out soaking-wet urine spots (if you happen to be nearby when your senior horse urinates), or stir them with a rake if they've already been absorbed. (There's no need for a rototiller if you're using peat moss without topsoil, as it naturally retains its loftiness.)

Step 4. Keep it moist. Keep the peat moist enough to hold together briefly if you squeeze a handful, but not so moist as to stick to your hand. It absorbs urine better this way, and isn't as dusty. With practice, you can toss leftover drinking water from your horse's bucket in an even spray. Or, keep a watering can outside his stall and dump leftover water in it; sprinkle the peat's surface. Work any water in with a pitchfork or garden rake after you've picked out manure.

Step 5. Consider adding topsoil and getting a rototiller. Here's why:

• The peat moss, and the fresh, ammonia-free smell of your horse's stall, will last a lot longer? -- 6 months or more -- if you mix it with an equal amount of screened topsoil. That's because topsoil contains beneficial organisms that "sweeten" urine-soaked bedding by breaking down ammonia, rather than just absorbing it.
• You can have topsoil hauled in from landscape suppliers; for a 12 by 12-foot stall you'd need about 3 yards of topsoil for a 12-inch deep, 50-50 topsoil/peat moss bed. Cost for the topsoil: about $50 to $100, depending on delivery charges.
• A rototiller helps spread urine and oxygen around, so organisms can work efficiently and aerobically. It also keeps bedding fluffy (otherwise, the topsoil tends to compact). A lightweight (about 20 pounds) tiller is ideal for small stalls because it's easy to maneuver. Such models are available at garden and home-improvement stores for $200 to $300. A bigger tiller, which can double as a serious gardener's tool, costs from $400 to $1,000, depending on size/model. These monsters make quick work of a big stall or run-in shed, but they're too hard to maneuver in an enclosure that's not at least 15 feet in one dimension. (The bigger the stall, the more sense a big rototiller makes.)
• Daily or every-other-day tilling may sound like a lot of work, but actually it takes no more than 2 or 3 minutes to do a 15 by 15-foot stall--we defy you to dig out and haul away pee spots, and re-bed that same stall faster than that! The paybacks are many, including the fact that the entire barn will smell like a freshly tilled garden, instead of ammonia.

This article is an excerpt from Hands-On Senior Horse Care, published by Primedia Enthusiast Publications. To order online go to TheEquineCollection.com.