Ground corn cobs for bedding--anyone use them?

[Cherry]

I just saw an ad for this and it's piqued my curiousity.... Normally I would use shavings and wood pellets but if corn cobs work better, well--I can change! ;)

I garden and reuse manure so this would be something that would be as biodegradable as wood products I would think.

[oldpony66]

If you can actually find in PA in stock somewhere... I know I would give them a try myself if they were easy to purchase since it would seem that they would break down better for compost.
The only time I used them was for small animal bedding. *I* liked them a lot more than shavings for the rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.. but some of them would eat the "bed-o-cob" bedding so I wonder if a horse would too.

[TrueColours]

Hated and despised the brand I used up here - Best Cobs. It broke down to a fine silt like cement dust and it went everywhere as soon as the horses moved in their stalls, even a little bit

Another poster tried another brand that was only available in her local area. She said that stuff broke down to about the consistency of Grape Nut clusters, so a much larger particle and she loved it and had no issues with the dust at all

We used a ground corn cob bedding for our kitty litter box and its again totally different from the Best Cobs I used - no dust and a large particle once again

So it does appear to be "brand dependant" for sure ..

[Bezysmom]

A friend of mine uses them for one of her horses. (the rest are on straw) I'm pretty sure she gets them at Tractor Supply.

[scavenger]

I used them as a kid for pony with COPD. Haven't seen or heard about them in years. They worked very well better and cheaper than the alternatives at the time penut hulls or stays dry (sugar cane ithink!)

[rtrules]

Cherry, I tried them back in the fall. I got a few bags at Tractor supply. In my area, they are a few cents more then the pellet bedding. I didn't like them. They clump like kitty litter. I put them into a stall during a rainy week of weather and I had clumps all over the stall floor. Any water from horse's wet feet or from a dripping blanket made clumps. It was a pain in the butt to clean the stall because I couldn't tell which were pee clumps and which were water clumps. Needless to say, I shoveled out all of the clumps and wasted a lot of bedding. (Damn those clumps.)

[SpecialEffects]

I used Best Cobs and liked it. I didn't moisten the bedding so I didn't have any clumping or problems with it going hard or stinky. I didn't find sloshed water from their buckets or water on them or on their feet was enough to cause any issues. I cleaned out the pee spots, picked out the poops and it worked well. The only reason I'm not still using it is because nobody in Canada makes it and the shipping from the US made it too expensive a bedding.

The one problem though was the donkey's. They LOVED it. For breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for midnight snackies....... :rolleyes:

[Melelio]

I tried it from TSC, and I did't like it. Clumping, like said before, and doesn't dry out to re spread very well. And it gets smelling funky.

I much prefer pine pellets, but I haven't tried something like Streufex yet, since I can't get that around here.

[Hollywood]

Another vote for tried it and didn't like it. I tried the TSC brand and it the pee spots did clump, and I found it to be more dusty than the wood/pine pellet bedding.

PS - just an fyi - the horse I tried it with thought is was tastey did eat the bedding the first night.