Has anyone terraced a paddock before?

[MissIntent]

I have a small (roughly 1/4 or 1/3 of an acre) paddock around my (run in) barn where I keep my horses at night and when it’s very wet in my pastures. The paddock is sloped and my attempts at adding sand to improve drainage washed out a few weeks ago when we got 3" of rain in a few hours. I’m now considering terracing the paddock, perhaps with railroad timbers - as well as adding sand again (more details below*). Does anyone have experience with a heavily-used paddock that’s terraced? I’ve never seen it done so I’m leery about the horses hurting themselves on it, or something. I’d appreciate any experience or opinions you can give me.

*The soil in my area is full of limestone. When it’s been very wet the horses develop hoof issues from walking on wet mud and then sharp limestone, so I would really like to do something to make the paddock a good alternative in poor weather. The paddock also has several trees (and accompanying roots) in it, so scraping up the ground isn’t an option. I like the trees - we’re in TX and the horses like the shade.

[wsmoak]

I have not, but I have the same issue. Nothing is flat here and any bare ground invites erosion.

I know that just putting down landscape timbers won’t work – the water will find a way, it will wash out under them unless you either dig down and build a retaining wall, or at least trench in front of them and line the trench with landscape fabric before backfilling.

I have my eye on these (expensive) mud grids, eventually: https://www.hahnplastics.com/ca/products/ground-reinforcement-and-surfaces/mud-control-grids/344/mud-control-grids

How steep is your slope?

[clanter]

@MissIntent

I’m now considering terracing the paddock, perhaps with railroad timbers

really not a good use as the ties will not last thus requiring a complete rebuild

This is a retaining wall that was built in the 1980s of stacked bags of concrete mix… over time the paper decomposed but this wall still looks just as it was forty years afterwards. The Army Corps of Engineers also use this method to build retaining walls

[StormyDay]

Yes, I boarded at a barn that had to do this. The slope was too steep to leave as it was. It worked well but they were in an area that wasn’t prone to large flooding events. I know in Virginia if I tried that the water would probably dig a little canal around my timbers every time it poured hard.
If you want to do it and do it right, I’d French drain on top of each terrace to keep the water going where you want it to go and not where it thinks it should go.

[brody]

This is so cool. Thanks for sharing.

[4horses]

My paddocks are slightly terraced- I ran one board across the bottom of each paddock. It helps but the erosion just moves forward or backward around the area. I built a manure wall half way down the hill- the tractor scoops the manure into a pile there and I added hay and leaves to that as a compost pile. It prevents the rain from making matters worse, but the water now hits the barrier and goes forward around it- pulled all the leaves out of the compost and deposited them on the grass.

I probably need to add French drains. Tried sandbags and the bags just disintegrated, tried larger river rocks and they just washed away.

The boards have prevented major sand loss, although the sand has shifted noticeably already.

[trubandloki]

This is one of those things that I think could work well, but it requires some engineering to work. Drainage so that the tiers do not just wash out (like so many have mentioned above), etc.

[clanter]

the above wall in the photo the concrete bags are loose laid which allows ground water to weep through reducing or eliminating hydraulic pressure that wold build up on the inside of the wall if not drained away

Rebar was driven through the dry concrete bags to help tie the wall together.

If you search retaining walls in Corps of Engineers you can find a general layout, I believe the US Forest Service site also has some. When I was on advisory board for the local regional US Forest Service laying out bridle paths there were many published guidelines we had to follow

(The wall in the photo is not ours but is local, the wall is still in excellent condition)

found this guide on how to build

An Easy Way to Build Retaining Walls: Leave the Concrete in the Bag, Stack...

if you want or need an engineering study, well here;s the Corps’ guide including engineering for retaining walls
https://www.publications.usace.army.mil/portals/76/publications/engineermanuals/em_1110-2-2502.pdf

[B_and_B]

You need to attack the water issue from several directions. Drains that prevent water from entering the paddock in question, especially off of roofs, so that you reduce the overall amount of water you need to control. I took the trouble to direct all of the roof water from the barn into an underground drain pipe (which also takes the stock tank drain), that runs all the way under the paddock to daylight below it on a slope. A pain but worth it. The paddock no longer deserves its name: ‘mud lot’. I’m in the process of putting another french drain across the top of the paddock to catch all the sheet flow that comes in from the area beyond it. That too will go into a drain pipe.
Then take a look at that erosion channel that has formed, that tells you where the water wants to go. Don’t try to put the water somewhere else, unless you really want to go in for some grading. I wouldn’t suggest trying to fill that with sand, you’ll just loose it again. In a small paddock that you can keep clean, I’d suggest heavier material with strategic water bars to slow the water down in the erosion channel area. You will need to maintain it, but by essentially working with the water rather than trying to stop it, you have a more controlled process.