Horse bedding specialist Sundown Products is launching a ‘Switch to Straw’ campaign this autumn to encourage horse owners to choose more sustainable and higher-welfare chopped straw bedding over wood-based bedding this winter.

“Improving the welfare of stabled horses, as well as the sustainability and environmental impact of horse bedding, is becoming increasingly important to horse owners and yard managers,” says Rachel Cubitt, director at Sundown.

“Our Switch to Straw campaign will support SQPs and store staff at retailers who stock our Sundown Green chopped wheat straw bedding.”

Campaign posters, leaflets and social media content to use in store and online will be available, highlighting facts about chopped straw bedding and the benefits to horses, owners, and the environment.

The campaign materials, as well as a presentation available to SQPs and store staff, will help retailers assist customers wanting to make more sustainable and higher welfare bedding choices.

From a sustainability point of view, ‘natural’ bedding products including wood, straw, and recycled paper or cardboard, may all sound equally environmentally friendly, but some of these bedding products carry a hidden high carbon footprint.

Ms Cubitt said: “Compared to wood and paper products, straw-based bedding is highly sustainable. It’s completely natural and a by-product of wheat crops, grown every year across the British countryside. It’s also sun-dried and collected in the field where it’s grown, requiring no artificial drying or overseas transportation.

“Conversely, the environmental profile of wood-based bedding varies hugely, but it all ultimately requires the felling of trees that take at least 40 years to grow. While some wood for horse bedding is felled responsibly in the UK, much of it is imported from Scandinavia and elsewhere overseas.”