Wood Shavings

Benefits of Wood shavings

• Inexpensive
• Branded shavings provide a bright, clean, warm comfortable bed• contains little dust, is spore free and unpalatable.

Disadvantages

• absorb little moisture
• slow to rot down - causing disposal problems

It is important to be careful when purchasing shavings. Toxic chemicals or foreign objects in the shavings can be lethal to a horse.

The presence of black walnut or butternut in the bedding material can cause laminitis (or founder) in horses. Black walnut is highly prized for use in furniture.

Therefore, shavings and sawdust from furniture factories, and sawmills processing black walnut should not be used for horse bedding unless there is a way to keep the black walnut shavings separate from other shavings.

Pollen of black walnut has been implicated in causing laminitis in horses as well.