Cheap(ish), Quick, Shorter Term Mud Solution

[kaya842]

Help!
Winter is finally here and somehow snuck up on me. With the “surgery horse” not allowed to be out in wet weather she has been confined to her stall for almost a week now, and with cold winter temps finally here the wet is here to stay (other horse would benefit from less mud as well). They have a relatively small (110 x 70-90ft) sacrifice lot that was (and eventually will be again) two separate area with a gate that stays open. The smaller area is flattER but both areas are hilly and slope in every which direction. I’m wanting to create mudfree areas in 3/4 places - a place for the roundbale feeder to site since they spend 80% of the time there, the main gate/ water trough area which are right by each other (eventually want all 4 gates to have a mudfree gravel pad on both sides of said gates), and then their favorite nap/ standing spot which is right behind our hay and shavings barn.

I know to do it correctly is time and money intensive and I’m short on both (as I want pony to be able to go outside sooner than later). I’m thinking use the box blade in tractor to scrape the crap/ mud/ hay mix out and away and drop a load of gravel then screenings or smaller gravel on top with some Timbers as a boarder on the slopier (hillier?) sections in an attempt to prevent washout. Again, I know it’s not ideal but I would be happy to get a few (3 would be ideal!) years out of that. Would that work? Is there a cheaper/ more effective but equally cost effective way?

[Scribbler]

It all depends on your drainage. I’d focus on the places with naturally good drainage and then try to figure out how to drain the lower parts

[StormyDay]

As Scribbler said it depends on your drainage, and also your soil.
Growing up in the PNW, if I dropped a load of gravel down on a wet area the gravel would have just been sucked right into the mud 24h later. You had to put down those rubber grids or the drainage fabric to keep it on top.
Same with in Florida. The sand would have swallowed the gravel up.
But here, with mostly clay soil, I can drop a load of gravel and it will sit on top of the clay and drain pretty well.

[Scribbler]

I’ve seen gravel work well on clay soil in riverbottom land in the PNW but regular soil yes its going to just sink.

[StormyDay]

Yes depends on the area! Where I grew up it was pushed up mud from the glaciers. Nasty, wet stuff that was good for growing berries but not much else.

[kaya842]

Working on uploading a short video to show what I’m talking about. The larger section of the paddock is sloped in a U/ V shape, so there is a “valley” on the middle that most of the water goes to and ends up sitting in. Long term, we want to put in a drainage pipe there to help collect and move that water out, as currently it collects there but sits and that area is rarely dry.
We have clay type soil with boot sucking (and likely gravel eating) muck on top. The geotextile would likely be doable, but not the grids. We have some existing grids but have those earmarked for a different area.

Here are some not ideal photos while the video uploads. I’m thinking the hay feeder will be moved to the flatter/ smaller section (previously inaccessible by tractor to deliver roundbale, hence its current location), which should help some with the mud in that area.

ETA that the fence is the priority for both time and money (thus the limited funds for mud solutions, fences aren’t cheap!) - I recognize it’s an issue and promise it’s being addressed!

And video link! Note I’ve been feeding loose hay to feed out some old/ not so great hay but that is done and over and moving forward everything goes in a net.

Paddock mud

[clanter]

well here is going down to 20F tonight that is pretty cheap, quick and short term solution to mud

but if OP could dig a dry-well , fill it with large rocks it should take care of the water pooling

[ClassyJumper]

I have no idea if this stuff works, but I ran across it one day and am super curious. Might be worth a try?

https://www.doversaddlery.com/pasturedry-mud-eliminator-gal/p/X1-270217/

[goodhors]

Well the Mud Eliminator write-up sure makes it SOUND amazing for mud! A bit pricy for me to consider without evidence it actually works. Great idea though, thanks for bringing it to my attention!

I would suggest the geotextile fabric, felted type, then putting rocks on it for making firm areas to hang out on. We have clay dirt and it slurps up any gravel or stone without geotextile fabric to prevent mixing. We are using a lot of crushed cement as our “stone fill.” It comes in various sizes, cost less than lime stone locally. Really locks together with some driving on it.

We get the fabric at Home Depot these days. They sell 2 kinds, but I recommend the felt type over what looks like woven plastic. Never used the plastic type. We have been happy with the felted type staying helpful after years of service. Comes in 6ft wide rolls that are 100ft long. Overlap it well if using several pieces to cover a spot. Fill might pull fabric when dropped on it, but you don’t want gaps between pieces to lose the fill, so wide overlaps are needed. Fabric is lightweight to work with, cuts with scissors.

[Calvincrowe]

I was picturing a lot more slope before the pics/video. Your best bet would be, very short term, to get geotextile material, lay it out where you want gravel pads, some landscape timbers, and put down 1/4minus or 3/4 minus gravel to create raised areas. You could put the material down and gravel over it in the gate areas without the “framing”

You’ll probably have to replace some of it next summer to do it “right” but we simply put our geotextle down over hard summer ground in our paddocks, added 5” of 1/4 minus gravel and that has lasted, with gravel added every 3 years or so, for 17 years so far.

Make sure you clean all poop and hay off your gravel areas every day—organics equal mud.

[EssexFells]

First of all, your facility looks like a lovely place! Every single horsekeeper on this board has SOMEthing that needs repair / improvement. It’s a never-ending process and very few of us have unlimited funds to fix everything at once.

That’s a lot of standing water, which is interesting given the slope. So in my opinion that makes it likely that it’s mostly just the accumulated organics that’s holding the water up there. I think your plan is totally worth it for a short term fix–scrape away the muck, geotextile fabric, and put down rock.

Under and immediately around your round bale, instead of rock, I would lay out stall mats. I’ve got 6 mats for my bale area, and it makes it a cinch to scoop up the waste hay even in wet + frozen conditions. And stops the horses from constantly churning the ground around the bale into mud.

The good part is that when you have the time and funds to do a more permanent fix, you can use that slope to your advantage–looks like it’s generally all sloping away from the barn?

With all those trees, map out your drain lines so they lie outside the drip line of the trees, to reduce how much you need to battle tree roots, and reduce risk of killing the tree.

A more important caution though-- I can see other houses fairly close to your turnout area. When you put your new drainage in, you will need to be very careful about where you are directing all that runoff. Water laws are complex but it’s generally illegal (and certainly a bad neighbor practice) to direct stormwater runoff onto a neighboring property in such a way that the flow and/or velocity of the water is increased vs. the natural “sheet” flow. So make sure you don’t run your drainage right close to your property line, and you may need to dig a retention basin at the bottom that will slow the water down before it spills over to a neighbor’s property. I think it will be worth paying for a drainage consultant to draw up your plan, so you’re not winging it.