No-Mud Paddock Footing?

[horsepix76]

Hey all! My husband and I purchased a small farmette last year that was set up for horses. We have two horses on the property. The previous owner did a tremendous amount of work on water run-off and drainage and for the most part, while the property is flat, it generally stays dry. The paddock might be a little muddy on the surface after a lot of rain, but nothing obnoxious. Enter winter 2018. This spring has been awful in central Indiana, as it has been for much of the northern part of the country. When it wasn’t below 0, we got huge (very abnormal) amounts of either snow or rain – or freezing rain. Yuck. This has led to a lot of mud. Deep mud. We had an incredibly wet summer last year (we moved in at the beginning of summer 2017) and even then, our paddocks didn’t have anywhere near the mud we do now.

The barn is set up so that stalls have dutch doors on the back side which open to the paddocks/sacrifice areas that lead to the pastures. The paddock directly behind the barn is where the most mud is. I spent about an hour with our tractor last night scooping out a LOT of muck/organic matter – down to a base layer of gravel that was probably 10" below the surface. Based on what I found, I don’t think this had been done in a very long time. The entire paddock has not been scraped to the gravel, but the worst of it has been removed.

So my question: Now what? I don’t have a huge budget, but would like to put some type of stabilizer down that will allow water to drain. Obviously, I will need to keep the area picked of horse poop in order to not allow this to happen again.

I would love to hear about your experiences with some kind of eco-grid that stabilizes the soil. I’m looking at the 4" version of this stuff as I want to be able to drive our farm tractor back there as necessary: https://standartpark-usa.com/pages/geo-grid-new-1å

Thanks in advance!

[horsepoor]

The link you posted did not work for me. We have Hoof-Grid in our paddocks and I love it. We can drive on it with the tractor, although we don’t often - I think you have to just be careful about not turning the wheels too much on it, keeping to more straight runs across so it doesn’t shift.

There are a lot of similar products on the market now. For us, we chose Hoof-Grid because it was available locally and not having to pay shipping made it the least expensive. EcoGreengrid is a new one that is manufactured just a few miles from me and I’d likely use it if I do any more. My vet just put some of it in and is real happy with it. There is also Lighthoof, which is a different type of product (not rigid plastic, but accordion like sheets) and worth checking out.

We don’t have to deal with super freezing weather or frost heave, and that might also be a factor in choosing a product. Hoof-Grid did come in two types (this may have changed as I haven’t looked at it lately) and the one that we used is the “lighter” one that was not recommended for areas prone to frost heave, but we don’t have that issue here so it has worked great. We had 2.5 inches of rain this weekend, followed by a nice dry day yesterday and my paddocks were totally dry in the afternoon. We do keep the manure cleaned up so the rock covering stays clean.

[Dressage59]

@horsepix76 We’re in a similar situation. We moved in the beginning of September and had 10" of snow. As we’ve been in Atlanta for 26 years, that hasn’t happened before. I have two pens in mud and will probably make a dry lot. Good luck!

[TheJenners]

I put down Lighthoof. Not cheap, totally worth it. I’ve posted on it before if you do a search.

[saddleup]

Another Hoof Grid fan here. I have it in my runs and in front of my gates. We get snow here. Lots of rain in the spring. I have no mud. It changed my life!

[Libby2563]

I had a stonedust dry lot put in last year and the contractor used something similar to Hoof Grid but not specifically made for horses. It’s for general construction, like roads, and therefore somewhat cheaper than anything marketed especially to horse people! It works great. You can see pics here: http://thesmallhorsefarm.blogspot.com/2016/10/dry-lot-construction-with-lots-of.html

I LOVE my dry lot!!!

[2DogsFarm]

I’m in NW IN & have pretty much the same setup you described for 1horse, 1 pony & a mini.
Horses have free access to stalls from Dutch doors at the rear 24/7/365.
Sacrifice surrounds the barn on 3 sides & leads into pastures.

About 6yrs ago I had the sacrifice area scraped down 9", graded, then geotextile fabric laid & road-base gravel (rocks sized anywhere from 1" to fist-sized) laid over that.
No.More.MUD!
At least not in 4/5 of the paddock.
As you mentioned, the area directly in back of the stalls is still a morass when wet.
I pick manure piles until weather gets frigid, then all bets are off.
Darn horses never wipe their feet going in & out & so drag bedding (pelleted) out with them where it mixes with manure & organic matter ending up in about 4-6" of YUCK.

Just recently I added some 2X4 leftover synthetic decking boards screwed in across the sills - creating a kind of bootscraper effect. Horses have no problem stepping over to get in or out.
In just the few weeks it has been in place this has definitely reduced the problem & saved bedding besides.

[horsepix76]

Thank you all!!

@2DogsFarm I definitely have the problem of the horses pulling the bedding out into the paddock. I have thought about putting something across the doorway and may just do that now. Thanks!