Livestock Bedding: The Complete Ontario Farmer's Guide

Most barns pick a bedding material once and never look at it again. The dairy operation outside Woodstock runs sawdust because it always has. The boarding stable near Ingersoll runs shavings because the last barn manager did. The broiler grower up the road from Tillsonburg tops up on the same schedule his father used.

That is a lot of inherited habit for an input that touches animal comfort, labour hours, air quality and manure handling every single day. Livestock bedding is one of the few things you buy that shows up in all four of those columns at once, and depth, particle size and top-up rate are usually habits rather than decisions.

This guide covers what bedding has to do, how the common materials actually compare, how much you need, how to store it so it stays worth using, and what happens to it once it leaves the barn.

What bedding actually has to do

Bedding is the absorbent material laid in stalls, pens or poultry houses to soak up urine and manure, insulate and cushion the lying surface, and keep animals clean and dry. Common materials in Ontario include wood shavings, sawdust, straw and sand. The right one depends on species, housing and how dry you keep it.

Those jobs have an order of importance, and it is worth being blunt about it. First, absorb moisture. Second, insulate and cushion the surface the animal lies on. Third, keep that animal clean and dry between cleanings. Fourth, stay manageable through mucking, storage, spreading and whatever your manure system does with it.

A bedding failure almost always shows up as a wet lying surface before it shows up as anything else. Wet bedding is the common thread behind most bedding-related complaints across every species. Cold and wet is worse than cold. Dirty and wet is worse than dirty.

One framing carries through this whole article. Bedding is one input among many. Ventilation, stocking density, cleaning frequency and stall design all matter as much or more, and in a poorly ventilated barn the best bedding on the market will not save you. No bedding choice on its own prevents disease. What it does is shift risk, and shifting risk is worth doing.

How to compare livestock bedding materials: absorbency factor

The cleanest way to compare two materials on paper is the Absorbency Factor, or AF. It is the weight of water a material can hold per unit of its own weight. A material with an AF of 2.5 holds two and a half times its own weight in water. Higher AF means more moisture held per kilogram of bedding you put down.

Here is where the common materials land, using the figures published by OMAFRA on Ontario.ca.

Material	Absorbency Factor	Typical use in Ontario	Watch-outs
Straw	2.0–2.5	Beef pens, calving pens, bedded packs, small ruminants	Bulky to store; absorbency depends heavily on chop length and how dry it was baled
Softwood sawdust	2.5	Dairy stalls, horse stalls, poultry litter	Fine particle size means more dust and more bacteria than coarser material
Hardwood sawdust	1.5	Mixed use where hardwood supply is local	Noticeably lower AF than softwood; check the source
Sand	0.3	Freestall dairy barns	Very low absorbency; hard on pumps, augers and spreaders
Peat moss	10.0	Niche and small-scale use	Supply is limited and handling is awkward at barn scale

Absorbency Factor figures: OMAFRA, “Alternative bedding materials for livestock,” Ontario.ca.

OMAFRA gives a caveat with those numbers, and it matters more than the numbers do. Absorbency varies with the source of the material, its starting moisture content and how finely it is ground. Two loads of softwood sawdust from two different mills will not behave identically. Treat AF as a starting point for comparison, not a guarantee.

The practical consequence is simple. A high-AF material lets you bed lighter, but only if it arrives dry and stays dry in storage. Buy a highly absorbent material and store it under a leaking roof and you have bought the storage problem, not the absorbency.

Why dry matter matters more than material

Dry matter is the share of a material that is not water. OMAFRA’s target for bedding in dairy barns is 60% dry matter or better. Below that, you are laying down something that is already partly saturated before an animal ever steps on it.

The clearest illustration Ontario.ca gives is a lying-time comparison. Cows spent 1.1 hours per day less lying down on wet sawdust at 34.7% dry matter than they did on dry sawdust at 89.8% dry matter. Same material. Same barn. Over an hour of lost lying time per cow per day, purely from moisture.

Bacterial counts move the same direction. Ontario.ca reports that fresh, clean bedding is typically under 5,000 CFU/mL, while counts above 1 million CFU/mL raise mastitis risk. Finer materials such as chopped straw and sawdust harbour more bacteria than coarser materials such as shavings.

So the honest answer to “which material is best” starts with a different question: which material can you actually keep dry, in your barn, in February? A wet high-AF material is a worse product than a dry mediocre one.

The main bedding materials, honestly compared

Wood shavings

Good absorbency, easy to handle, and low dust when properly screened. Coarser particle size means a lower bacterial load than the fine materials. Shavings compost slowly, which is fine for a bedded pack and less convenient if you need fast breakdown after spreading. Fine shavings pack tighter and feel softer; coarse shavings drain better and stay looser underfoot.

Sawdust

Finer than shavings, and on the softwood side it holds more water per unit weight at 2.5 AF versus hardwood’s 1.5. That fineness cuts both ways: finer materials harbour more bacteria and generate more airborne dust. Widely used in dairy and horse barns across Oxford County, and a reasonable choice where you can keep it dry and clean it often.

Straw

Bulky, warm and forgiving. Straw’s insulation value is why it dominates calving pens and beef bedded packs through an Ontario winter. Absorbency per unit weight is at the lower end at 2.0–2.5 AF, so you use more of it, and it eats storage space. Chop length changes both handling and absorbency.

Sand

Inorganic, which is the whole point. Sand does not feed bacteria the way organic bedding does, so bacterial growth in the bedding itself is far less of a concern. The trade-off is real: at 0.3 AF it holds almost no moisture, so drainage and grooming do the work, and sand is hard on manure pumps, spreaders and anything with a bearing.

Peat moss

Very high absorbency at 10.0 AF, the highest on OMAFRA’s list. It stays a niche material because supply, handling and cost drivers make it awkward to run at barn scale. Worth knowing about; rarely worth ordering by the trailer load.

Shredded paper

Used where dust control is the priority and wood products are not an option. It absorbs reasonably well, packs down quickly and can turn to mush when saturated. Ink, staples and contamination vary by source, so know what you are getting.

For the full side-by-side, see our post that lets you compare bedding materials side by side.

Matching bedding to the species in your barn

Horses. Depth and banking do most of the work. Dust is the main respiratory concern, so screened coarse shavings tend to be the default in boarding stables. Wet bedding packed around the frog is a recognized risk factor for thrush, which makes daily picking and a dry lying area more important than the material on the bag. Our horse stall bedding guide goes deeper on depth and banking.

Dairy cattle. Bacterial load in the bedding is the central issue, because of the established link between dairy cow bedding and somatic cell count in the tank, and with it mastitis risk. That is why dry matter, particle size and cleaning frequency get more attention in a dairy barn than the material name does.

Poultry. Litter is a bed and a moisture sink at the same time. The daily concerns are caking and ammonia, both driven by moisture. Litter management is really ventilation and drinker management wearing a different hat.

Beef, sheep, goats and swine. These systems are usually bedded heavier and less often, with pack management and drainage doing most of the work. A well-built pack sheds moisture downward and generates its own heat. A poorly drained one turns into a slurry with a crust on top.

How much bedding do you need, and how it gets to you

The short version of the estimating method is straightforward. Multiply the stall or pen area in square feet by the bedding depth in feet, then divide by 27 to get cubic yards. A 10 ft by 12 ft stall bedded 4 inches deep works out to 120 × 0.33 ÷ 27, or roughly 1.5 cubic yards to fill from bare floor. Multiply by the number of stalls, then add a top-up allowance. Our dedicated post walks through a full worked example.

Two delivery formats cover most barns:

•          Super Sack totes, at 2.5 cubic yards each. Loader-friendly, stackable and easy to move one at a time. Good for barns with limited dry storage, or barns running more than one material or grade at once.

•          Bulk by walking-floor trailer. For operations that can take a full load and have somewhere dry to put it. Fewer deliveries, less handling per yard.

One thing to keep in mind on volume: bedding is bought by volume, and it settles in transit and in storage. Ordered volume and settled volume are not the same number, and that is normal for every material on the list.

Storing bedding so it stays worth buying

Dry storage is the whole game. Tie it back to the 60% dry matter point. Bedding that gets rained on, or that wicks moisture up off a bare concrete pad, loses the absorbency you ordered and gains bacteria while it sits. You end up spreading more material to do the same job.

A few things that consistently help:

•          Store off bare ground. Pallets, a gravel pad or a poured floor. Anything that breaks the wicking path.

•          Keep totes covered or indoors. A tarp that actually sheds water beats a tarp that pools it.

•          Rotate oldest-first. Bedding does not improve in the corner of the shed.

•          Keep the delivery area clear. If the truck has to drive over your existing pile to reach the unloading spot, you have lost part of that pile.

Seasonality matters here too. Shoulder-season humidity does quiet damage to uncovered stock, which is why winter storage deserves its own plan.

Bedding in Southwestern Ontario: what’s different here

The climate sets the terms. Cold, wet shoulder seasons. Barns closed up from roughly November through April, which concentrates moisture and ammonia indoors exactly when ventilation is least generous. Freeze-thaw cycles that turn a yard into ruts and then set them like concrete. Spring spreading windows governed by weather and by nutrient management rules rather than by when your pack is full.

That combination puts more weight on two things: keeping stored bedding dry through a wet fall, and keeping deliveries predictable through a hard winter.

Oxford Animal Bedding delivers across Norwich, Woodstock, Oxford County, Ingersoll, Tillsonburg, London, Brantford, Kitchener–Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, Stratford, St. Thomas and Simcoe. Delivery reliability in this region in February is not a marketing line. A barn that runs out of bedding during a cold snap has an animal welfare problem, not a scheduling inconvenience.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best bedding for livestock?

There is no single best. Match the material to the species, the housing system and how dry you can realistically keep it. Absorbency, particle size and dust all matter, and so does what your manure handling equipment can tolerate. A material your spreader chokes on is not a good material for your barn.

How often should bedding be replaced?

It depends on the system. Tie-stall and box-stall barns are usually topped up daily and stripped on a set rotation. Deep-litter and bedded-pack systems build up over weeks or months before a full clean-out. The trigger is the same either way: a lying surface that is wet or smells of ammonia needs attention now.

Is sawdust or shavings better for livestock bedding?

Softwood sawdust holds more water per unit weight than shavings, according to OMAFRA’s absorbency figures. But finer materials harbour more bacteria and throw more dust. Where bacterial load or air quality is the priority, coarser screened shavings are usually the safer default. Many barns run both, in different areas.

Where can I get livestock bedding delivered in Oxford County?

Oxford Animal Bedding delivers fine and coarse wood shavings and sawdust across Southwestern Ontario, either in 2.5 cubic yard Super Sack totes or in bulk by walking-floor trailer. Deliveries run on flexible or standing schedules, so you can match top-up frequency to your barn’s actual usage.

Get bedding you can count on, from a fleet that shows up

The best material in the world is useless in the yard behind a truck that did not come. Oxford runs its own trucks, trailers and walking-floor trailers, so delivery windows across Southwestern Ontario are scheduled by us and not brokered out to whoever is free that week. Standing schedules are available if you would rather not think about reordering, and flexible one-off loads are fine too.

We have been doing this since 1999, family-owned, and a good share of our shavings start life as wood we recycled rather than wood we cut.

Request a quote and have four things ready: the species and housing system, the number of stalls or the square footage you are bedding, your preferred material and grade, and a note on yard access, including whether a walking-floor trailer can get in and turn around. Or call 519-468-3400 and talk it through.

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