I have a 12 ft covered overhang along my barn that spans 48 foot. The base when we built the barn last year was a lot of gravel and then a lot of packed lime. Thought this would be perfect but it is far from it 
The auto waterer and the hay for the horses is under here, so they spend a lot of time under this overhang. Now with any rain, and with the horses urine, it is a deep mucky nasty mess that doesn’t really ever dry out. One of my horses has a previous tendon injury that is healed BUT I do not want her to be walking in that deep mucky stuff. I know I need to do some grading to try and keep some of the rain water from running under the overhang, but not sure I can totally fix that either. So, I need ideas on what to do to fix this. One idea I had was to concrete this area with a rough texture or grooves in it so it wouldn’t be slick (horses are shod half the year). My concern with doing that however is I don’t want it to be a ice rink in the winter and have the horses slip and fall and get injured that way. So I am looking for options on what to use under this area and what your thoughts are on using concrete. Thank you in advance!
You need to dig out the area and put drain tile (pipes) under the area, which will help the water drain down a grade to go out of the overhang. Then, put large stones, smaller gravel and limestone over the pipes. If you can find a landscaping service, they would have the equipment required to do it.
I would be really afraid to put concrete down. I have seen what happened to two horses at our barn, who slipped down on it. It is not pretty. :no:
No matter what the base is you will have to remove manure/uneaten hay/mud on a regular basis to avoid mud build up. A better investment would be some equipment to scrape away the build up with a drain system for water. Cement can be tough to stand on all day, slippery and still needs scraping out.
I recommend digging out, installing french drains, #2s, landscape commercial fabric, and then 6-8 inches of millings. Honestly it sounds like a lot, but once you get it dug out (and you could easily rent a skidloader for a few hundred dollars a day (and it shouldn’t take more than 2 days for the whole job)), the rest is pretty easy. I say this because we’ve done it a few times in different areas on our farm. The biggest challenge will be to determine where to run the french drains so they drain out away from your structure and run somewhere innocuous. I would absolutely not use cement, ever. And, it does need to be picked out regularly. Once installed, think about using hay bags to minimize trampled hay on ground, and pick manure at least every other day to keep millings clean.
[QUOTE=melhorse;8230836]
No matter what the base is you will have to remove manure/uneaten hay/mud on a regular basis to avoid mud build up. A better investment would be some equipment to scrape away the build up with a drain system for water. Cement can be tough to stand on all day, slippery and still needs scraping out.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
My friend’s family built their barn - the overhang is where the automatic waterer is and where they get hayed/grained daily… at 8PM after feed drop they pick out the overhang… it’s been 12 years without a problem.
They packed it with lime, crushed gravel, and wood chips.
Do you have gutters? The part about the rain making it wet under there makes me wonder – you really need to address the water coming in if you can, and that would mean adding gutters if you don’t have them to direct the water away, or grading around to move the water away.
I wouldn’t do concrete. What I have for my overhang is that we put down packed gravel then mats over. We built a box from treated lumber down in the ground to hold the gravel and mats in – makes for a very nice porch for the horses to be under even when they don’t have access to the stalls. I feed out there except in the most awful weather. Easy to keep clean and the only problem we ever have with it is I do have one horse that pulls up mats at times (he’s unique in this way), so we use metal pins to hold the mats down.
The other good thing with a matted surface, they tend not to pee there!
I have concrete at the back of my barn and it can be treacherous depending on the circumstances. I would love to get rid of it. My old gelding turned wrong coming out (at a walk) and all fours went out from under him. I was almost pinned under him as his legs swept mine out from under me as he fell. We have been trying to come up with alternative but it’s nearly impossible as the cement pad runs up creating the barn footings. Stall mats over it have proved slick, too.
I would dig it up and put in French drains if I could. But it would demolish my barn.
Is it on a slight downhill slope where the water is running through after a heavy rain? I have this issue with my goats. They too are under the lean to off the side of our old barn.
We dug a trench to divert runoff from up above, which did help some. I plan to build up the height with gravel and hope this takes care of any seeping that may still happen.
I dislike concrete because it can sweat in humid weather and get awful slick in cold wet weather, and the horses have a greater risk of slipping should there be any bad behavior under the lean to.
If you can’t get the water to drain, you’ll just end up with heaved concrete in short order. Good drainage is pretty much the key to any kind of footing, concrete, or asphalt. My husband is a civil engineer who primarily did work on roads but is a farmer too. I get to listen to diatribes about poor drainage often. 
Can you put rubber mats over crushed stone? That works for my overhangs.
scrape out all the mucky stuff.
Put down crushed stone
Lay mats over the stone.
That’s what we use in our run in and it works great.
Can you pull out the dirt & replace with sand? Frame the area perhaps, to keep the sand in. Rock/gravel is so hard to stand on. Matts are also an option…
No concrete. Even grooved, it would only take the horse running under there and trying to turn especially with wet or muddy feet, to cause a fall and serious injury. Do the French drains, and crushed limestone. Build it up so it has a slight slope away from barn.
Thank you everyone. The overhang does have gutters, so the water is coming in from the slope of the land unfortunately. So that will have to be addressed. The horses also get their hay out of slow feeders, so hay is not just laying on the ground. I do always pick up any manure piles under there daily. So it’s a drainage and slope issue. I will look into getting someone out to take all the existing muck that was once lime out, then add tile, then gravel and hope that fixes it. I don’t want to do mats unless I know the water collecting under there is solved. But once it is, that could be a option. I will scratch the concrete idea since everyone is thinking (like I was afraid would be the case) it is too dangerous.
[QUOTE=cayuse;8233729]
I have concrete at the back of my barn and it can be treacherous depending on the circumstances. I would love to get rid of it. My old gelding turned wrong coming out (at a walk) and all fours went out from under him. I was almost pinned under him as his legs swept mine out from under me as he fell. We have been trying to come up with alternative but it’s nearly impossible as the cement pad runs up creating the barn footings. Stall mats over it have proved slick, too.
I would dig it up and put in French drains if I could. But it would demolish my barn.[/QUOTE]
Ring mats. I have concrete leading out from the back of the barn on a slope and put down ring mats, just for me and the wheelbarrow.
I just did this for my shelter - scrape right down to ground, line with drainage pipes. Then 6" of class 2 rock (about 2-3" diameter) then 12" limestone screenings. So far it’s working wonderfully well.
[QUOTE=ElementFarm;8234357]
scrape out all the mucky stuff.
Put down crushed stone
Lay mats over the stone.
That’s what we use in our run in and it works great.[/QUOTE]
Ditto this. We have a 12x36 overhang and this is holding up great.
It might be a little spendy on that big of an area, but don’t forget my favorite, which is Blume Farm’s solution in her shade structure/run-in: the treated 2x4s with stone screening tamped over. I can’t find the photo. It was fabulous. Okay, imagine that this is a sort of frame of 2x4s laid out on the ground on edge and nailed together where they overlap, with a frame around the whole thing. Kind of like a framed wall tipped over onto the ground, but with the 2x4s close together. This is the best I can do – we really need that photo:
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Anyway, she said she’s had it for over ten years and it has held its shape and provided good footing. It looks very neat, even, functional, and cool.
