laying fresh and dry wheat straw on wet

Question
hello madam, after mucking out my stall which is layed with moldy wheat straw, after cleaning the stall with lime water to remove urea, should i make the vacant stall dry for some time to lay to the fresh wheat straw bedding, if i dont wait and lay the fresh wheat straw on the wet stall, it may turn moldy quickly due to wet? how much time roughly it takes for the dry fresh wheat straw to turn moldy when layed on wet?

Answer
Hi Caine,

Thank you for your question.  If you are going to use lime water to eliminate ammonia odor in the stall, you are going to want to allow it to dry before you lay down fresh bedding.  How long it would take wet straw to mold really depends on environmental factors like heat and humidity...so it is difficult for me to give you an exact time.  If the moisture from lime water is of concern may I suggest that you spread dry lime on the bare stall floor before you put fresh bedding down, which would completely eliminate the water issue.  A word of caution about lime though, it can be quite caustic and cause burns on your horse's knees and hocks if they come in contact with it while lying down.  There are many products on the market that will do the same job of eliminating ammonia without the danger of contact burns, and most of them are diatomaceous earth based.

I'm not sure at what interval you clean stalls but I have not often seen straw mold in the stall.  I realize that you come from a very hot and humid climate so that may create a real issue...but you may need to look at cleaning your stalls more often, or picking them out throughout the day.  The mold that is growing in the stall is just about as bad for your horse's lungs as the ammonia from the urine.

I hope that helps.

Thanks, Corlena