Ammonia is a gas that is highly irritating, colorless and very soluble. It is absorbed in the superior part of the breathing path trough the mucous membrane. Its presence alters the defense mechanisms of the animal, allowing the accumulation of pathogenic bacteria in the breathing tract and the presence of illnesses.

Is has also been reported that ammonia can reduce the capturing of oxygen by the hemoglobin due to its impact in the blood pH. This could explain the rate of reduction of oxygenation and its inability to comply with the metabolic demand for the oxygenation of the tissue. Upon increasing, the heart cannot simply adjust itself to such demands. Ascitis and cardiac failures take hold as well as the disruption of the negative effects of ammonia in birds and hogs begin when the concentrations exceed 20-ppm. Ammonia is considered extremely harmful at levels of 50 ppm.

The symptoms of irritation by ammonia in birds include: ocular damage, sensitivity to light, ulcers in connecting tissue, pulmonary congestion, edema, hemorrhage, a decrease in food consumption, ascitis. In very high levels ammonia damage causes death.

In hogs, ammonia provokes susceptibility to breathing illnesses such as atrophic rinitis and nasal congestion, nose and mouth irritation, and pneumonia. It has been reported at ammonia levels of 50 ppm a loss of weight gain by 10% or more.

In summary, ammonia generated in livestock operations increases the susceptibility to breathing illnesses, causing a general health deterioration. This reflects is negatively reflected in the decrease of productive parameters such as the weight gain, the conversion and the reproduction.

Lastly, ammonia affects worker’s health and performance, increases ventilation energy costs, provokes corrosion in metallic farm or operations equipment, and generates unpleasant smells.

Source http://www.yucca.com.mx/nh4en.html

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

Ammonia is dangerous to your horses health, with young foals being especially susceptible; this article by Tox Town shows just how dangerous ammonia can be to not only horses, but humans who are exposed also.

Ammonia
Ammonia has a sharp odor and is used in fertilizers, refrigeration, and cleaning products.

What is ammonia?
Ammonia is a colorless gas with a sharp, pungent odor. It is both manufactured, and also produced naturally by bacteria, decaying plants and animals, and animal waste. In its natural form, ammonia is found in water, soil, and air, and is a source of nitrogen for plants and animals. It is commonly sold in liquid form, and is a corrosive chemical. The chemical formula for ammonia is NH3.

When ammonia is manufactured, it is primarily used to make fertilizer. It is used to manufacture synthetic fibers, textiles, pulp and paper, pesticides, explosives, smelling salts, cleaning products, rocket fuel, fuel cells, and some foods and beverages. Ammonia is also used to make other chemicals, including nitric acid and cyanide.

Industries that use ammonia include metal treating and chlorine water treatment. Ammonia is also used in the rubber industry to stabilize raw latex, and in the petroleum industry to protect equipment. It is used on grapefruit, lemons, and oranges to control fungal growth during warehousing.

Ammonia is used as a refrigerant in industrial facilities, including meat, poultry, and fish processing facilities; dairy and ice cream plants; wineries and breweries; juice and soft drink processing facilities; cold storage warehouses; and food processing facilities.

How might I be exposed to ammonia?
Everyone is regularly exposed to low levels of ammonia in air, soil, water, and food. You can be exposed to higher levels of ammonia by breathing it or having skin contact with it.

At home, you can be exposed if you use products that contain ammonia, including window cleaners, floor waxes, and smelling salts.

If you work on or live near a farm, you can breathe ammonia in the air if the farm uses ammonia fertilizers. Farmers, cattle ranchers, and people who raise chickens can be exposed to ammonia from decaying manure.

At work, you can be exposed to ammonia if you deal with chemical manufacturing, coal tar, compressed gas, dye manufacturing, explosive manufacturing, fertilizer, glass cleaner, organic chemical manufacturing, refrigeration, rocket fuel, and hide or leather tanning. You can be exposed if you work in a chemical laboratory, maintenance facility, petroleum refinery, or sewer.

How can ammonia affect my health?
Exposure to extremely high levels of ammonia can cause death, coma, blindness, lung damage, collapse, and seizures.

Breathing high concentrations of ammonia can cause fluid in the lungs to build up, and possible lung damage. Exposure to high levels of ammonia can burn the eyes, skin, throat, and lungs. Breathing lower concentrations of ammonia can cause coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, laryngitis, headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting, pink frothy phlegm, chest pain, asthma, rapid pulse, and increased blood pressure.

If you swallow ammonia, it can burn your mouth, throat, and stomach, and cause severe abdominal pain. If concentrated ammonia spills on your skin, it can blister or severely burn your skin, or cause dermatitis. Eye exposure may cause conjunctivitis, corneal irritation or damage, and temporary or permanent blindness.

You may suffer increased risks from ammonia if you have corneal disease, glaucoma, or chronic respiratory diseases.

Source: http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/text_version/chemicals.php?id=2

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

Do you recall that burning sensation that fills your nostrils when you’re mucking out your stalls? That is the smell of deadly ammonia fumes, which hurt the health of your horse. Stall Genie can help absorb these harmful ammonia gasses and here are 4 reasons why.

Reason 1: Ammonia Absorption & Elimination
Stall Genie products were developed to absorb harmful ammonia gasses before they can reach the lungs of your horse or foal. Recent studies have shown that ammonia is harmful, especially in foals who can suffer from heaves due to ammonia exposure.

Reason 2: Reduces Fly & Parasite Populations
Stall Genie also acts as a dehydrator, reducing harmful fly and parasite populations in your horses stall. Stall Genie nutrients stimulate the growth of aerobic microbes that digest the biological matter in the bedding material. This activity and the increase in microbe population remove moisture out of the bedding and help keep it dry.

Reason 3: Compost Booster
Stall Genie treated bedding retains un-metabolized urea, a valuable nutrient in the compost.

Reason 4: Beats the competition
Stall Genie Products outperform competitors in the performance chart below.

Stall Genie Products WORK

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

Your horses lungs can be adversely affected by ammonia exposure – this can become especially pronounced if the exposure occurred and continued from when the horse was a young foal; foals are especially susceptible. Studies are showing that the horses respiratory system is a primary factor for the performance of the horse, and ammonia performance and health impacts cannot be overlooked.

Ammonia in a horses stall is caused by urea due to urination, this urea breaks down into ammonia; this is the pungent odor you smell when you walk into your horses stall – now imagine living with this smell! Ammonia gas can burn the respiratory tract and eyes of your horse, resulting in heaves in foals and performance impacts on race horses.

In the workforce Ammonia is known as a deadly gas as reported by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, who warn of the dramatic lung and eye damage which can result from ammonia exposure, as read by their safety pamphlet:

Hazards of Ammonia

Ammonia leaks can be very dangerous. These leaks in the refrigeration pipes carrying ammonia to the coolers can endanger all workers in your plant; therefore, it is important to make sure you are protected when one occurs!

Ammonia is extremely irritating, and may severely burn your skin and eyes upon contact. During a leak, a cloud of ammonia gas causes burning and swelling of the air passages of the nose, throat and lungs. Workers exposed to very serious leaks may survive the accident, but may die later from pulmonary edema, a buildup of fluid in the lungs caused by the damaging effect of the gas. Workers may suffer permanent lung and eye problems as a result of exposure to high levels of ammonia.
Nausea and watering eyes from ammonia fumes pose an additional safety hazard to workers who must work with sharp knives and precision cutting equipment.

Not much is known about the long-term effects of ammonia. Frequent exposure to small amounts of other irritating gases can lead to bronchitis, persistent cough, and excess mucus production. It may also decrease your body’s ability to get rid of foreign substances, like dusts, from your airways. Chronic (long-term) exposure to ammonia may, therefore, harm you by itself or in combination with other occupational hazards and infectious diseases.

Click Here to View Entire Pamphlet

Often Foals are the target of deadly ammonia exposure due to their proximity to the stall floor where ammonia levels are the highest, which is why it is so important to reduce and eliminate ammonia levels when foals are present, reducing harmful diseases such as heaves which some research has shown is due in part to ammonia exposure.

STALL GENIE PERFORMANCE CHART

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

Foals spend much of their youth near the floor of the stall where ammonia resides, leading to a much higher ammonia health risk in foals. In addition to this, foals are weaker and the ammonia’s adverse health effect’s are even more pronounced in young foals. According to Frederick Harper PHD written for the University of Tennessee, up to 15% of all foals will suffer from a severe respiratory health disease before one year of age.

AMMONIA AND FOALS DON’T MIX

Dr. Frederick Harper
Extension Horse Specialist
Animal Science Department
University of Tennessee

It is the time of year when many of us get colds, or at least do a lot of coughing and sneezing. Also, it is that time of year when foals are starting to be born. It is also a frustrating time for horse breeders. About 15 percent of all foals have a severe respiratory disease before they are one year of age. Problems appear from 1-12 months of age. But, most respiratory diseases occur when the foal is 2-6 months of age.

Not only are these diseases costly and time-consuming to treat, but they disrupt other farm activities, such as foaling, breeding mares, training and showing. Horse breeders need to review management practices, seeking methods to reduce insults to foals that place them at risk. One of these is reducing the level of ammonia. High ammonia levels have been associated with respiratory problems in foals, as well as other animals. Protein in the diet is broken down by the body, resulting in urea that is excreted in the urine and volatilized to ammonia in the environment.

Often, horse owners keep barns shut up to keep out the cold. They may even heat their barn in winter, especially if they have show horses. A strong ammonia odor can often be smelt when entering these barns. Much of the ammonia is near the floor where young foals spend a lot of time. Young foals also have an immature respiratory system, making them more susceptible to disease. Ammonia levels as high as 400 parts per million (ppm) were measured in foal stalls in one study. But, it has been reported that 10 ppm of ammonia is the level above which one might expect problems in animals. So, it is important to reduce the level of ammonia in foaling stalls, and all stalls in barns were foaling occurs.

In a University of Illinois study, the ammonia level was the same regardless of whether straw, sawdust, sand or shredded paper bedding was used. But, 1-2 pounds of hydrated lime reduced the ammonia levels when sprinkled on the stall floor after cleaning and before re-bedding. Ammonia levels were noted 48-72 hours after the hydrated lime was applied with straw, but not until 72 hours with sawdust. A commercial product prevented detectable ammonia levels at either 48 or 72 hours with either straw or sawdust. In another study at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers lowered ammonia levels

to non-detectable levels when 10 pounds of sodium bisulfate were placed on the floor of a 10 x 10 foot stall (100 square feet), before bedding with 33 pounds of straw. Afterwards, sodium bisulfate was sprinkled on top of the bedding daily, then 4.5 pounds of straw was spread over the old bedding. Straw is the preferred bedding material at foaling. Afterwards, mare and foal can be bedded on sawdust or other suitable bedding materials. It is also advisable to check the level of protein being fed to broodmares. Excess protein in the diet results in greater levels of ammonia. Not only can this negatively affect the foal, but excess protein is a waste of money.

Horse breeders need to remove waste and soiled bedding daily, and apply hydrated lime, sodium bisulfate or a commercial stall product along with additional clean, fresh bedding to reduce levels of ammonia in foal stalls.

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

Tip 1: Ammonia inhalation into a horses lungs can hurt the health of horses, with foals being especially vulnerable.

As written by Tracy Williams in Equus Caballus, Tracy discusses the hazard which ammonia places on your horses health, in which a very small inhalation of only 10 parts per million over a 5-7 week period can cause dysfunction.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, ammonia is a toxic, reactive and highly hazardous chemical. Their recommendations warn that concentrations of greater than 50 ppm can cause serious harm to human beings. Even in the cleanest barns, ammonia levels in equine stalls exist well above this concentration. Furthermore, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services warns that humans exposed to ammonia can suffer chronic inflammation of airways, airway hyperactivity, and chronic irritation of eye membranes

Read The Complete Article: Ammonia Beware

Tip 2: Pay Particular Attention To Foals

Foals spend much of their youth near the floor of the stall where ammonia resides, leading to a much higher ammonia health risk in foals. In addition to this, foals are weaker and the ammonia’s adverse health effect’s are even more pronounced in young foals. According to Frederick Harper PHD written for the University of Tennessee, up to 15% of all foals will suffer from a severe respiratory health disease before one year of age.

About 15 percent of all foals have severe respiratory disease before they are one year of age. Problems appear from one month to one year of age. But, most respiratory diseases occur when the foal is 2-6 months of age.

Not only are these diseases costly and time-consuming to treat, but they disrupt other farm activities, such as foaling, breeding mares, training and showing…High ammonia levels have been associated with respiratory problems in foals, as well as other animals.

Young goals also have an immature respiratory system, making them more susceptible to disease. It has been reported that 10 ppm of ammonia is the level above which one might expect problems in animals. But, ammonia levels as high as 400 parts per million (ppm) were measured in foal stalls in one study. So it is important to reduce the level of ammonia in foaling stalls, and all stalls in barns where foals reside.

Keeping a clean, ammonia-free stall is especially important when it comes to foals, who are at greater risk for respiratory disease than older horses.

Read The Complete Article: Ammonia and Foals Don’t Mix

Tip 3: Reduce Flies in Horse Stalls

Ammonia gas and fecal matter have the dangerous effect of attracting flies and parasites. Stall Genie will eliminate moisture in the bedding, insect and internal parasite eggs need moisture to survive, so the reduction in moisture will improve the horse’s environment in more ways than just odor control. Essential oils in the product replace the harmful ammonia gas with a pleasant smell and serve as an insect repellent.

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

By Katherine Blocksdorf

If your horse lives in a stall for any part of his day, you’ll have to keep it clean. Unclean stalls attract insects and could encourage hoof problems like thrush. Breathing ammonia from urine saturated bedding can be harmful to your horse’s or pony’s sensitive lungs. It’s unpleasent to work in and smelly for you too. Stall cleaning should be a daily task.

Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 20 minutes

Here’s How:

1. Dress for the Job

Dress in appropriate clothing. Gloves can prevent blisters. Urine can erode the stitching on the soles of leather riding boots. Save yourself boot cleaning time by changing into work or rubber boots.

2. Clear the Work Area

Take your horse out of the stall. A good time to muck out is when your horse is in his pasture. If you can’t put him out, put him in an empty stall. Remove all the feed tubs, water buckets and stall toys.

3. Assemble Your Tools

Get your cleaning tools and park your wheelbarrow or cart close to the stall door facing in the direction you’ll want to go when the barrow is full. It’s easier to maneuver an empty wheelbarrow than a full one.

4. Dig In

If the stall is bedded with straw use a pitchfork to remove manure and wet or soiled bedding. If shavings or sawdust have been used, use the shavings fork to remove manure and wet bedding. Fork the manure into the wheelbarrow or cart. Sometimes it’s easier to pick up wet bedding with a shovel.

5. Head for the Manure Pile

Wheel the filled barrow and dump out the contents in the assigned area (the manure pile). It’s tempting to fill the wheelbarrow really high, but this can make it hard to push and easy to tip. It’s frustrating having to clean up manure a second time because you’ve tipped over the wheelbarrow!

6. Do a Thorough Job

Continue cleaning out the dirty bedding. Scrape the unsoiled bedding to one side, and check that there is not wet or manure soiled bedding hiding underneath.

7. Even The Surface

Once you’ve removed all the manure and wet bedding, spread the cleaner bedding back over the whole stall area. Check around the edges of the stall as clean bedding sometimes gets tossed against the walls as the horse moves around. This leaves a thinner area in the middle or where the horse usually stands. Distribute the bedding evenly.

8. Add Clean Bedding

Add new bedding to replace any that has been removed. You’ll either add a whole bale of straw, or portions of one. Fluff it with a pitchfork. Some stables have truckloads of loose shavings piled, or some buy bags of compacted shavings. Use your wheelbarrow to transport fresh shavings to the stall, or open a bag and fluff the compacted shavings with the shavings fork.

9. How Thick To Bed

Gauge how thick to bed by what type of floor is under the bedding and what season it is. If there is thick rubber matting on the stall floors, bedding can be thinner. On concrete, especially during cold weather, add more bedding to provide padding and urine absorption. Sand floors are easier on the horses’s legs, but may get saturated with urine quickly if not enough bedding is put down.

10. Weekly Maintenance

You may want to completely strip a stall occasionally. In this case, keep filling your wheelbarrow until the stall floor is bare. Use the shovel to scrape up remnants of bedding and the broom to sweep it clean. You may want to put down odor control solution or stable disinfectant. Let the floor dry before re-bedding.

11. Keep Alleys and Doors Clear

After you’ve finished cleaning and bedding the stall, use the broom to sweep up spilled manure, straw or shavings in alleys and doorways. Scoop up the sweepings into the shovel and toss them into the manure pile. Manure, chaff and bedding pushed out a doorway will turn into a muddy mess in wet weather.

12. Prepare Tools for Next Use

Put all the tools away where they won’t cause a tripping hazard.

13. Ready for Your Horse

Replace feed tubs, buckets and toys so the stall will be ready for your horse when he comes in.

Tips:

Always turn the wheelbarrow pointing in the direction you want to go out in.
Inexpensive hangers keep cleaning tools safely out of the way.
Some people leave a thick padding of bedding for warmth and only clean the top surface during winter months.
Use the broom to knock down spider webs every so often.
Inexpensive riding gloves with the sticky rubber dots are handy for handling tools and shavings bags without slipping.

What You Need:

A wheelbarrow or cart
Pitch fork (Five pronged is best.)
A shavings fork for moving shavings or sawdust
A broad shovel
A stable broom
Gloves (optional)
Rubber boots (optional)

Source: About.com Guide

To further lend to a clean and healthy stall, the use of Stall Genie Products can help absorb and eliminate deadly ammonia in stalls, click the button below to learn more about the benefits of using Stall Genie Products in your Horse Bedding.

The respiratory health of horses and their owners is affected by the quality of the air they breathe. We are all familiar with the smell of ammonia that comes from soiled bedding, but how many of us appreciate the adverse health effects it can cause in both our horses and ourselves?

What is ammonia and where does it come from?

Ammonia is a noxious gas with a characteristic pungent odour that is present in the stable environment. It is produced from a substance called urea, that is passed in horse urine and faeces. Urea is converted to ammonia in wet horse bedding, by the action of bacteria present in the stables environment. These bacteria produce an enzyme ‘urease’ which drives the conversion of urea to ammonia. Management practices affect the levels of ammonia present in the stable. Production and build-up of ammonia in stable bedding is exacerbated in deep littering systems, such as those used with hemp, woodchips and shavings. Also this problem can occur when rubber matting is used with little or no bedding and when stable drainage and ventilation is poor, or soiled bedding is simply allowed to accumulate. Levels of ammonia in the air are worse during mucking-out and if straw is used as bedding. Ammonia can also be absorbed into the structures of the stable or loose box, particularly timber and semi-porous floors and will continue to escape back into the air, even after the stable has been mucked out. It can also be trapped under rubber matting placed on floors of Horse stables.

Ammonia and respiratory health

When ammonia combines with water in body tissues, it becomes extremely irritating and harmful to the sensitive eye membraines, sinuses and respiratory system. In humans, short-term exposure to high levels of ammonia can cause upper and lower respiratory tract irritation and oedema and, over the long-term, can cause chronic bronchitis and may exacerbate occupational lung diseases including asthma. In horses, ammonia restricts the movement of cilia (brush-like hairs) in the airways that filter out harmful dust particles and its corrosive action causes inflammation and a build up of mucous. Excessive ammonia inhalation in horses is thought to be a significant contributing factor in recurrent airway obstruction (RAO) formally known as COPD and lower respiratory tract inflammation of small airway disease. Persistent airborne ammonia exposure can also lead to an impaired response to respiratory bacterial and viral threats and has been linked to eye irritation and reduced hoof integrity.

How Can Stall Genie Help?

Simple, by absorbing and eliminating deadly ammonia fumes and moisture. The absorption of moisture will help eliminate populations of parasites and flies which thrive with moisture, while the Ammonia absorption will improve the health of your horses and foals reducing veterinarian bills and resulting in a happier healthier horse.

By Nancy S. Loving, DVM

Q. My horse’s stall smells like ammonia. I keep it clean, but the odor is still there. I’ve heard that a strong ammonia smell indicates a horse is passing a lot of protein in his urine. I feed my horse alfalfa hay, and my barn friends tell me that the high-protein content of this hay is causing the ammonia smell. Is this true? Is it a bad thing?

A. A high-protein diet is notorious for increasing the amount of ammonia output in horse urine. So yes, your friends are correct. Legume hay, like alfalfa, is exceptionally high in protein and may well be contributing to the ammonia smell in the stall. If you can stand in the barn or aisleway and smell the ammonia or feel that your lungs are irritated by it, then the fumes are too strong for your horse, too.

High ammonia fumes in the stable are detrimental to good respiratory health in horses. The fumes irritate the respiratory airways and can trigger any number of inflammatory events, including heaves (also known as recurrent airway obstruction). Irritated airways are also more susceptible to viral and bacterial invasion. Your objective should be to improve the air quality in the barn, and this can be done in several ways:

First off, and when possible, switch your horse to a grass hay diet to lessen the protein load on his kidneys. Use other supplements, like high-fat, fiber-rich complete feeds or beet pulp, to add calories to your horse’s diet instead of alfalfa hay. If you must feed alfalfa hay, then try to move your horse outside, where there is better ventilation, for as much of the day as possible.

Frequently muck your horse’s stall and change the bedding often. Bedding saturated with urine holds the fumes. Add commercial materials (like Sweet PDZ) to the bedding that are known for soaking up urine and neutralizing the odors.

Avoid the temptation to shut the barn up tightly or to heat it in attempts to keep the horses warm. Keep barn doors and windows open when possible to allow good air circulation inside. By fall horses should have good fur coats or are being blanketed, so they should stay warm. As long as they have shelter, they will benefit from the air flow. Have a knowledgeable person help evaluate the barn’s ventilation system to ensure that fresh air is circulating in and stale air is moving out.

Expert: Nancy S. Loving, DVM, is a performance horse veterinarian based in Boulder, Colo., and is the author of All Horse Systems Go

Stall Genie Products can help absorb and eliminate deadly ammonia in stalls, click the button below to learn more about the benefits of using Stall Genie Products in your Horse Bedding.

By Susan Raymond

The health and well being of horses depends on healthy lungs. Poor air quality can contribute to various respiratory disorders in horses and in the people who care for them.

Bedding Choice
Your choice of bedding will depend on a combination of personal preference, cost effectiveness, local availability and type of horse housed. Bedding should be dust and mould free, absorbent, supportive and easy to use and dispose of. A barn with proper ventilation and floors with good drainage are as important as your choice of bedding.

Dust
Dust in the stable can be an irritant, infectious or allergenic. Each particle can play more than one role. Dust can be divided into two groups, “nuisance dust” and allergens. “Nuisance dust” includes plant particles that can irritate the respiratory tract. Allergen sources include mould spores, pollen and mites. The chance of a dust particle inducing disease as an irritant or an allergen is dependent upon the amount retained in the respiratory tract. Deposition and clearance of particles are dependent on the size, shape and type of particle that is inhaled. The smaller dust particles have a higher chance of reaching the lower airways.

Mould
There are many types of mould living in the field where our crops are grown (i.e. straw). The spores from these types of mould (“field fungi”) are usually large and do not have a good chance of getting into the lower airways. The mould spores that are more dangerous are small. The highest exposures to these mould spores are associated with bedding that has been processed, packaged or baled damp and with deep litter management. The high moisture content influences the fungi in the bedding and metabolic activity of the organisms causes the temperature to rise. The moulds that thrive in this high moisture and heat are very prolific. The spores from these moulds are very small and when inhaled can travel deeply into the lungs.

Ammonia
Ammonia is an irritant and is a recognised concern of stable management. The source of ammonia is the horse’s urine and faeces. Ammonia is released by the action of bacteria that degrade organic matter. Ammonia inhibits the ability of the defence mechanisms in the airways to remove particles from the lung. Ammonia can also increase mucus production. Ammonia can be particularly high when stalls are being mucked out. If the horse is left in the stall during mucking, it will be subjected to high levels of ammonia and high levels of dust. The more absorbent a bedding is, the lower the levels of ammonia will be. Take action if you smell ammonia in your barn.

Barn Management Tips
wet all hay that is fed indoors and feed close to ground level or feed a good quality, low dust alternative forage product
remove the horse from the barn when mucking
sprinkle the barn aisle with water when sweeping or raking
use a quality bedding and muck out daily (avoid deep litter systems)
consider barn ventilation for all seasons
increase turnout time with shelter

Stall Genie Products can help absorb and eliminate deadly ammonia in stalls, click the button below to learn more about the benefits of using Stall Genie Products in your Horse Bedding.