Creating a mud free paddock off stall - how do you do it?

[Obsidian_Fire]

Have you done this? What did you do? Keep in mind this is the NW and it can rain a whole lot.

Here’s the current situation:

24x12 run off stall. When barn was built, owner dug it down about 2’, laid down drain fabric, covered it with bark hogfuel (and has replaced it periodically).
Since then, in spite of being ‘topped off’, the fabric has worked its way to the top.

How do you stop this? I would think: lay fabric down, put in drain rock, then cover with the hogfuel. But would the drain rock end up coming to the top? I would hate to have to scrape it all out and replace rock.

Horses that walk alot, is there a better choice than using hogfuel for their runs? (as it tends to grind down pretty quick). I am thinking chips would last longer?

I have considered using coarse sand or pea gravel, but horsey likes to lay outside in better weather instead of in stall.

Ideas???

[msj]

I’ve used stone dust as a top layer. But then I’ve not used the fabric. My contractor initially scraped away the top layer, maybe 6-8", put down stones that gradually got smaller with stone dust or similar on top. I’ve replaced the stone dust about every 2-3 yrs or when I see the larger rocks coming to the surface. Also, my stalls open to a sacrifice paddock about 110’ X 110’, not just a smaller area. Contactor probably did it about 20 yrs ago and it remained good till I lost the last horse in 2014.

[Foxtrot_s]

We gave up on hog fuel years ago and even cedar chips. Cedar chips were ok, but did get broken down with use and hard to dispose of, so I’d hand pick the poops - soon got sick of that.

We had dug down to hardpan, laid road mulch on top of that, and then crushed limestone rock on top. Over a winter it settled to almost concrete with a slight slope so water cold run off as well as through. (British Columbia).

I now have a pile of cedar sawdust in one corner where she lies, sunbathes, sleeps, rolls - like a nice mattress and she is kept in/out. She puts herself in at night. She walks a lot. She is white - my paddock is very clean and she does not get stable stains and if there is one comment I get is “wow - she is so white”.

Poops just scrape off and are disposed on a pile that gets composted eventually.
My turnout is larger than yours, tho. I have old conveyor rubber matting where she walks out of her stall to lessen the impact of one track.

Did this years ago, and seems to work the best we can work out. My husband has a little tractor with a blade on it and he occasionally scrapes the sawdust back into the pile, or as it wears out scoops it onto our boulevard where it disappears into the grass.

[Garythesquirrel]

[QUOTE=Obsidian Fire;8693199]

Horses that walk alot, is there a better choice than using hogfuel for their runs? (as it tends to grind down pretty quick). I am thinking chips would last longer?

I have considered using coarse sand or pea gravel, but horsey likes to lay outside in better weather instead of in stall.

Ideas???[/QUOTE]

Forget wood products or anything that will decompose. It will just turn to muck eventually and cause you extra work in the long run.

My horses love to sleep in pea gravel and prefer it to shavings in their stalls. It does have to be raked to keep it in place though. My paddocks are about 100’ long. I have pea gravel up by the stalls and 3/8 crushed/washed in the rest of the paddock and absolutely no mud, even in the rainy Pacific NW.

[RedmondDressage]

I agree, run as far away from wood products as possible. Standard protocol here in the PNW is, scrape as much mud as possible. Lay down geotextile fabric (6 oz weight or heavier) then 3" - 4" of 5/8" minus. Top with sand if you’d like. Then clean, clean, clean. Pick up every bit of manure as the organic material is what will bring back the mud. And expect to add footing periodically. I personally prefer not adding sand so that I can top with a fresh truckload of 5/8" every year.

[horsepoor]

I’m also in the NW and agree with others to use rock, not hog fuel. What we did originally was the geotextile fabric, then several inches of 5/8" minus (I want to say 6" but not sure). Topped that with an inch or so of pea gravel so it was nice for their feet and still drained well. That worked great for the first two years when I only had a retired horse and mini mule, but then I got a young warmblood that DUG and he would create holes all over, getting down to the fabric. So we redid most of ours using Hoof-Grid and that is the BEST. There are a bunch of similar products (Hoof Grid, Eco Green Grid, Stable Grid) that work similarly. If I were building new, I’d budget for the stuff from the get go as it is totally worth the cost. I have one part of the dry paddocks that didn’t get done in Hoof Grid and they still dig holes and make messes, so this year, I am adding grids there.

As for laying down – my horses all will lay in the pea gravel (which is also the topper I use with the Hoof Grid) just fine.

[SugarCubes]

We put stone dust down, probably 6" deep, no fabric underneath. It hardens after a good rain and no more mud. But you do need to pick manure and hay religiously in order to keep it nice.

[Simkie]

[QUOTE=SugarCubes;8693493]
We put stone dust down, probably 6" deep, no fabric underneath. It hardens after a good rain and no more mud. But you do need to pick manure and hay religiously in order to keep it nice.[/QUOTE]

Yep, we did this too–6-8" of lime screenings (which is the analogous product to stone dust in my area.) After some good hard rains it was a pretty solid surface and after a few freezes it really packed down. It’s been awesome to have no mud in the runs!

I don’t feed hay out there specifically to keep the organics off of it, and any manure is picked up twice a day. No problems so far, although I can see the need to top it off, maybe, once a year or every other–but that may be because the long runs are on a slope, so the footing does tend to run downhill.

[Calvincrowe]

Another PNW horse person here-- do not use wood products, please! Do use geotextile cloth. If your paddock has a slope away from the stall, then this summer when it’s dry and hard, you can lay your cloth directly on the soil, top with gravel and screenings (that’s what I did) and go about your business. You absolutely must clean the poop and hay off it daily if you want to not have muddy gravel.

You simply cannot clean poop off of hog fuel. You need 5-7 inches of gravel on road fabric/geo cloth to keep it safe from horse feet. I used 5/8" minus (driveway gravel) topped with 3" of fine screenings (angular sand sized to 1/4" sized gravel). Mine do not lay out there, but I am planning a “rolling pile” this summer made of either cedar or sand, depending on location.

[costco_muffins]

In the PNW too, and also do rock and hoof grid. For a 24x12 space, it would run you just less than 1K for the grid and a couple hundred for the rock. I won’t do fabric again as we have a horse who paws/digs/plays with anything he can and he would work up a corner of the fabric and then play with it. When we pulled it out it was completely torn to shreds. I would be more inclined to do the 7/8" clear gravel and compact it without the fabric.

Our paddock is backwards sloped to the barn and we had mud issues every winter. Dug in a drain to divert water, filled it with 7/8" clear rock, put hoof grid on the top, and filled the grid with pea gravel. Still have a sand rolling area as well since our paddock is big enough, and have had no mud issues this winter. But we also pick religiously and have no hay ground in.

[Jim_in_PA]

[QUOTE=Garythesquirrel;8693353]
Forget wood products or anything that will decompose. It will just turn to muck eventually and cause you extra work in the long run. .[/QUOTE]

This. ANY organics should be avoided for a so-called dry lot/dry paddock. You have to implement this in the same way you would a quality arena (or a properly installed stone driveway outside of footing materials) so that you accomodate proper drainage and then the geotextile is followed by the footing…something like screenings or small pebbles that drains well is typical in this area.

[js]

Perhaps consider covering the paddock. Our last 2 barns we opted to cover the paddocks, they are 12x18. Makes for a nice extensions off the stall that is always shaded and dry.

[horsepoor]

[QUOTE=costco_muffins;8693797]
For a 24x12 space, it would run you just less than 1K for the grid and a couple hundred for the rock. [/QUOTE]

When I priced EcoGreenGrid this winter, it was $1.95/sq.ft. so 24x12 would be under $600. They might have a minimum quantity, however - I can’t remember And I didn’t get a shipping price since they are local to me and I can pick up. I’m going to use that instead of Hoof Grid for our remaining paddock area – it seems to be quite similar and I don’t have to connect it to the Hoof Grid so it doesn’t need to match.

For a small area like that, I’d grid in a heart beat. Do it once and be done. You might have to add gravel once in awhile, as you lose some with cleaning and horses moving, but that’s no big deal.

[Foxtrot_s]

Regarding topping with sand - often the sand has fines in it that wash into the sand and act like a blocked coffee filter.

Washed sand didn’t seem much better than unwashed. There is beach sand which is round in shape and dug sand from a pit which is angular, but more money.

For a lying down spot, we like the yellow cedar sawdust over sand. Sand is gritty and gets into the coat - sawdust seems to just fall out

[2miniB]

We’ve cleared topsoil, put down geotextile, then covered with stone dust in a couple places as well as just clearing the top soil and covering with stone dust. Both work well, in terms of keeping things dry. Oddly, the place we didn’t put any fabric down doesn’t grow any weeds, while the areas with geotextile do.

I can’t get true pea gravel here (3/8" smooth, round stones), so I’ve used 3/8" crushed granite instead. My horses love it, even the old pony. They’re on it 24/7, between the run-in and the dry lot. Its softer than stone dust, which will compact down into a very hard surface eventually.

I’m not in the PNW. We can get a lot of rain here and have had years where it rains all spring and summer.

[Bluey]

Our horses over decades seem to have preferred soft ground to take naps and roll and hard, even ground, even concrete pads, to stand there snoozing.

I think maybe we ought to consider providing them with both.

[Equibrit]

Do you have access to crushed marble ? It packs beautifully.

[AKB]

We have 6’ or 8’ overhangs that keep the areas just outside the stall doors dry. There is a layer of stone dust under the overhangs and around the barn.

[Scribbler]

I’m in the PNW, and have a functional hog fuel run of similar dimensions.

1. Supplemental drainage, in this case “French drain” perforated pipes. Two pipes running the length of the paddock, tying into the main drains for the barn. They arae down deep, at least three feet below the surface, in trenches in the hard pan.

2. Drainage stone over the pipes, then landscape cloth over the stone.

3. Hog fuel on top of the cloth, a foot or so.

The hog fuel needs to be regularly topped up. The hogfuel disappears as it goes out with the manure; the paddock is picked out daily. We get a pile of hog fuel delivered regularly, and top up as needed.

Some people at our barn have shifted over to sand, which looks better at first. But it often packs down, and then has bad surface drainage. Also, if people let it go too long before renewing the sand, it gets nasty. And the horses tend not to want to sleep outside on it.

I don’t think hogfuel would work very well, however, if you just built the paddock and expected the surface to last for 6 months or a year. It does work if you have the basic drainage solved, and then you continually top up as needed, as if you were maintaining a stall. Keep a clean layer of hog fuel on top of the composting layer.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Thank you everyone!

Lots of great ideas here, and most are where I thought I should go anyway - as in far far away from wood products!!

Thank you very much!!