Yup, I agree with this.
My dad installed septics for a living. He would never let a horse anywhere near one. At my parents farm they have everything fenced off from the horses.
I don’t have horses at home, but the only thing that goes over ours is the riding mower. I don’t even drive the snowmobile over it.
Around here the pipes for conventional systems are typically 2-3’ deep.
Wow, good to know. Thank you. Kinda funny to imagine but not to experience, I’m sure!
I think we need to take into consideration the PSI of horses versus, say, many deer. I just looked up a few – and this is just a google search, so take it at that.
And for humans, think of snow shoes. You weight the same, but the weight distribution is spread out, so the PSI is much lower. The average human exerts 16 psi and that same person with snowshoes only exerts 1 psi. Also, some vehicles that weigh a LOT more, actually have a lower PSI due to the weight distribution. https://terramac.com/news/what-exerts-more-ground-pressure-a-human-or-a-crawler-carrier/
I use a my field to turnout one horse, but not when it’s really wet out.
I’ve heard that cloven hooved animals like deer, goats and cattle, are less damaging to a drain field, as opposed to solid hooves like horses
Our finger system is likely under our indoor/outdoor arena. We know this because we eventually found a pipe that goes in that direction. We have been here 6 years and the outdoor has been there since at least the 1980s and the indoor since the early 2,000s. The farm was in bad shape, the sellers weren’t super forthcoming, and we didn’t ask too many questions. Our only issues have been with the tanks filling with roots, besides that everything seems fine.
This is a great topic and worth discussing but just a FYI, the original post is four years old.
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