Start spring spotless!

With spring on the horizon it is the perfect time to schedule in a ‘big stable clean’ in preparation for the season ahead. After a long, damp and cold winter, your horse will undoubtedly have spent longer in, mucking out may have been rushed to maximise daylight hours and your stable will probably have seen cleaner days!

The stable environment inevitably gets dusty, damp and dirty over the winter period - that is unavoidable - yet there are many simple steps that can be taken to ensure it remains a safe, hygienic and healthy environment for your horse to stay!

Start with a spruce up. Choose a dry and breezy day to make sure you give your stable plenty of time to dry and air. Remove all your horse’s bedding, buckets and equipment from the stable so you can get sweeping, and remove the dust and dirt that have built up over the winter. Sweep the floor thoroughly and remove every last bit of bedding, making sure you get into all the corners, use a dustpan and brush for those fiddly areas!

Take a damp cloth to the corners and remove all the dusty cobwebs as they hold bacteria and debris, then wash and disinfect the floor and walls, choose a product that eradicates ammonia and leaves a fresh, but not overpowering odour.

The only thing left to do now is lay your horse’s bed! Nedz provides the perfect balance of absorbency, ease of use and health benefits by pairing technological advances in manufacturing and dust extraction, with the traditional benefits of straw. Both Nedz Original and Nedz Pro provide a super absorbent alternative to wood based products with the addition of our exclusive Natural Nedz formula for cleanliness, and exceptional biodegradability.

Natural Nedz is a unique, organic formula made exclusively for Nedz to ensure that whilst your horse is cosy and comfortable and your box is quick and easy to muck out, the environment is also clean and hygienic. By including Manuka and Cade Oil, Natural Nedz offers anti-bacterial, antiseptic, anti-fungal, and anti-parasitic properties, whilst providing a fresh and clean smelling aroma, which eliminates odours, particularly ammonia, and also discourages insects and bugs.

Nedz Original is made from traditional wheat straw and gives owners a classic bed, without the classic straw related problems, meanwhile Nedz Pro is made from rape straw which offers a quick, easy and extremely absorbent stable base which only needs mucking out fully once a week.

For more information visit www.nedz.co.uk

Choosing the right bedding for the job!

During winter our horse’s stabled hours are inevitably increased, if it isn’t snowing, it is howling a gale and many of our domesticated horses aren’t very good at dealing with the elements! Not only is that tough on our pockets but also sometimes on the horse’s welfare, which is why choosing the right bedding product for you and your equine partner is important.

It is sometimes difficult to know which product is best for you and your horse, but Nedz has three different bedding products to choose from to suit your equine’s individual needs.

Nedz Original brings together a touch of tradition, without scrimping on the latest technology. Made from chopped wheat straw which has been rigorously dust extracted, Nedz Original is treated with the unique and exclusive Natural Nedz formula to bring comfort and cosiness along with health and hygiene to your stable floor! If you are a fan of thick, luxurious and classic straw beds, but want to reduce odours, mucking out time and wastage, Nedz Original could be the product for you!

If you want to bed like a professional, consider the choice of show jumper Geoff Billington, event rider Mary King and dressage rider Stephanie Croxford. Nedz Pro is made from oil seed rape straw, which is quick rotting and due to its highly absorbent properties, can be utilised as a deep litter bed. Even when only skipped out daily and mucked out fully once a week, the bed is kept hygienic and clean with the help of Natural Nedz, which reduces ammonia levels and kills bacteria. If you are short on time and want bedding that leaves you with little muckheap and less waste, Nedz Pro is ideal.

Nedz Advance, though still manufactured from high quality straw, provides a very different type of bedding. Each blade of straw is both chopped, ground and steamed before being pressed into a pellet form. The pellets are so absorbent they can soak up around five times their own weight in liquid providing the perfect bedding for the wetter horse. Nedz Advance is virtually dust-free making it an ideal bedding for those equine’s suffering from respiratory problems. The pellets expand in volume as your horse stands on them, negating the need for watering - saving time and effort. Perfect for people won want fuss-free, functional bedding, Nedz Advance has been seen to half mucking out time when compared to traditional bedding methods.

Every single Nedz product is suitable for use on rubber matting, or concrete stable bases. Visit www.nedz.co.uk for more information!

Bedding… the bigger picture

With horse ownership seemingly growing more expensive by the day, many people are understandably looking for the most cost effective option; however looking at the price of bedding per bale can often be false economy. With this in mind Nedz have put together some tips for horse owners this winter to help stretch out their pennies…

• Find out how many bales you will need to get your stable started – some bedding requires a lot more product to form the initial base than others. Choosing a product that requires fewer bales will be a less costly investment.
• Absorbency is key – the more absorbent your bedding, the less product you will end up throwing away and wasting, which results in fewer bales to ‘top up’ the bed on a weekly basis. The result, more money to spend on exciting things like riding!
• Will it rot down? Choosing a product that biodegrades quickly will save money on expensive muckheap removal. Think of each bale of un-biodegradable bedding as a proportion of the cost of your muckheap being taken away – it may make the cheap bale price seem less appealing.
• Quality raw material that has been thoroughly dust-extracted will provide a cleaner, healthier environment for your horse, which could result in a healthier respiratory system. Ultimately this reduces the chance of coughs developing which can not only become costly to treat, but also hinder performance levels.
• Save your time. If you are on a busy yard and have many horses to muck out, choosing a product which is simple and easy to use could save you many man-hours and you, or staff, could be doing more beneficial jobs such as riding.

Nedz provides economical chopped straw bedding products for every eventuality; choose between Nedz Original, Nedz Pro and Nedz Advance. Nedz bedding has been made from high quality raw material which has been rigorously dust extracted and treated to offer a superior bed for your horse.

Waste not, want not

Watching your bedding get dumped on the muck heap can feel a little like throwing money down the drain and with cost saving a high priority for all horse owners this winter, choosing a product which results in as little waste as possible is a more economical, and less soul destroying, option.

Absorbency is the key to reducing the quantity of bedding you remove on a daily basis. The more absorbent, the smaller the wet patch – which means less to take out, and more stays in your stable! It is important to consider this when you are choosing products as a bale of bedding which appears to be cheaper in price may not be as absorbent and may not last as long.

In addition to keeping your stable stocked up, less waste will also reduce the size of your muck heap and this in itself can save you hundreds of pounds.

Nedz Pro is made from top quality rape straw that has been chopped to form short, highly absorbent fibres and results in a comfortable, yet stable base, for your horse. As an added benefit the dust extracted straw is treated with an exclusive Natural Nedz formula containing Manuka and Cade Oil, which provides a hygienic and safe environment for you and your horse. 

Leading international riders choose Nedz Pro, including Geoff Billington, Stephanie Croxford and Mary King. “Nedz Pro bedding is my favourite because it offers me and my grooms an easy, fast method of mucking out,” Mary says. “I always ensure my bedding is highly absorbent as this reduces the amount of wasted bedding you have to throw away and also ensures harmful ammonia levels are kept to a minimum.”

Bedded down for the season ahead

Much as we don’t like to admit that summer will soon be over, as the months whizz by and autumn creeps up it is unfortunately time to get organised for the cooler season ahead.

Whatever your equestrian bedding needs, Nedz have it covered. If you like a quick, easy and no frills bedding, our pelleted product Nedz Advance is undoubtedly the way forward. Its exceptional absorbency means that urine stays in one small patch, and the pellets don’t stick to muck and rugs so minimal bedding is removed, reducing the amount of waste and the size of your muck heaps!

If you are a traditional horse owner at heart Nedz Original is the product for you. Made from wheat straw, the soft, fluffy, yet very absorbent product, provides a comfortable, aesthetically pleasing bed for your horse which is quick and easy to muck out as well as rotting down within just two or three months.

If you like a combination of quick and easy, together with a traditional feel, then Nedz Pro is the way to go. The highly absorbent rape straw product works most effectively when deep littered so only requires a quick skip out on a daily basis, yet it still provides a thick and cosy bed for your horse.

All Nedz products are made from top quality chopped straw which is dust extracted to ensure a healthy and hygienic environment for your horse. Both Nedz Original and Nedz Pro are treated with our unique Natural Nedz which contains Manuka and Cade Oil, plus a bitter tasting ingredient to prevent bed eating.

Used and favoured by top international riders, including Mary King, Geoff Billington and Stephanie Croxford, Nedz products can give owners peace of mind that they know exactly what their horse is sleeping on.

Quality not quantity!

With the huge number of pelleted bedding products on the market it is becoming increasingly confusing for consumers to choose the right option for their horse. As the only chopped straw pellet currently available, Nedz Advance offers a huge number of benefits and the rigorous quality control process means it is one of the safest and most hygienic products a horse owner can choose.

It starts with the straw! Only the best quality straw is chosen and chopped to form very short fibres. This is then passed through a rigorous dust extraction process before being treated with steam to sterilise the raw material and make it totally unpalatable for horses.

The raw material is then compressed in to small pellets which will only break down once they are laid in your stable and your horse walks on them. Each pellet is capable of absorbing up to five times its own weight in liquid due making Nedz Advance one of the most absorbent bedding products money can buy.

A little goes a long way with Nedz Advance and the pellets increase in volume to create a soft, yet sturdy base for your horse that will not slip, move or stick to rugs and droppings. Taking just a few minutes to clean out, Nedz Advance can be fully mucked out daily, or just skipped out with the wet taken out once or twice a week. What little bedding is removed will rot down within 4 – 6 weeks removing the need for costly muck heap removal.

Nedz Advance will reduce ammonia levels, save you time and money and provide a safe, virtually dust-free environment for your horse, making it ideal for horses that suffer from respiratory disorders and horse owners that get irritated by dust. The high standard of raw material, and the manufacturing process, ensures horse owners are not compromising their own, or their horses health by using inferior, poor quality bedding products.

The easy-to-handle 15kg bags cost around £6 - £7 a bag and can be purchased from your local Nedz stockist. For more information tel: (01254) 677 762 or visit www.nedz.co.uk

Mind your muck heap

After recent press coverage surrounding horse manure, muck heaps and the potential legal issues that could be implemented, many horse owners are blissfully unaware of the implications their mucking out could have! As a manufacturer of equestrian bedding, Nedz feel it is their duty to help ensure customers understand the rules and regulations surrounding their horses waste!

Biodegradability of your bedding has always been a point to consider, however with recent legislation changes and the government clamping down on rules and regulations of muck heaps, now is the time to ensure your bedding is as quick rotting as possible!

Did you know...

• If you use manure as a fertiliser to benefit the land it is no longer treated as waste and as such, is not subject to the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2007. You also do not need a waste transfer note or waste carrier registration if you are moving manure that is to be used as fertiliser. If you ‘discard’ your waste, i.e. burn, tip or bury it, it is still classified as controlled waste and that is subject to the EP Regulations 2007.
• Your muck heap should be at least 10 metres away from any watercourse and should not be situated in an area prone to flooding. In addition you should bear in mind the prevailing wind to avoid any odour pollution. 
• Your muck heap should not be in a single position for more than 12 successive months and you should leave a two year gap before returning to the same site.
• Choosing the correct bedding material will have a significant impact on the quantity of waste and the speed it rots down. Using straw based bedding will maximise the nutrient value of the compost – as wood based products use up far more of the nitrogen in the manure during decomposition and results in a poorer nutrient level in the fertiliser. Straw also decomposes within several months rather than wood based products which can take 1 – 2 years.

Following some simple guidelines can avoid you a costly fine, and a huge upset. When choosing your bedding product, consider your options carefully and look at the whole picture rather than simply the cost per bale. You may find that a cheaper product could cost you more in the long run.

Nedz products are all made from chopped straw which rots down within several months and can be safely spread on fields meaning you should be exempt from the EP Regulations 2007.

To find out more about Nedz tel: (01254) 677 762 or visit www.nedz.co.uk