That one made me laugh too. I can buy Indiana 53 in Illinois.
But really - they call it CA6. I know this because I just had 22 tons of screenings dumped in my driveway and the first truck that pulled up had CA6 on it. Thank god I caught it before he dropped it.
I don’t know, sounds like free rock 
The regionality of what stuff is called drives me bonkers. I’d just figured it all out in MN when we moved. CT is of course all different. 🤦
That’s what I told the guy lol, I could use the CA6 to skim coat the driveway, but I didn’t have time and my little tractor was going to be mad enough with the 22 tons of screenings.
Seconding the Artimud. Sticks in the hoof for a few days, so can be useful treatment/ prevention even if only applied twice a week. Smells nice and is gentle on all tissue. Better than any variant of the purple crap that stains everything.
Another vote for Artimud, but the same company also makes Field Paste. I believe the FP is better for muddy conditions. I use it on my old man when the pasture is wet. I use a little Artimud on my mare before applying composite shoes. RedHorse also makes a Sole Cleanse product that I use on the old man after a trim or a thorough hoof cleaning with a wire brush.
Wow, what a resounding endorsement of Artimud! The last two products I bought per similar COTH endorsements were the posture prep and a set of HAAS brushes, both of which I love and use on a daily basis. Will definitely be checking Artimud out!
Do you use landscaping timbers or anything to keep the concrete in place to create a pad, or does it pack down on its own? Thank you for the suggestion!
Would it make sense to put some of these pavers down as a base before the rock in lieu of
fabric?
What kind of pavers? In general, if you’re not able to scrape to hard pan, you can just assume the ground is going to eat anything and everything you put down for a good long while.
The ones you posted in one of your comments. But that makes sense. How realistic is it to scrape a paddock with lots of little hills and dips? Or would doing it the correct way with scraping, fabric, etc require the whole thing to be graded/leveled to some degree?
It does make sense to put some sort of edging in place when building a pad for standing on. Edging will hold fill together. You fill right to the top of edges with a bit extra in the center. This fill will settle over time. So you may need to add more fill in time. You do not want horses brushing the pad edges with hooves or shoes to break it down. Many people here on COTH have posted their pads with board edges, built outside their runout stalls. Pad edges kept fill better contained as horses went in and out the outside stall door. They were using limestone fill in most cases.
We did not edge with the field driveway going thru the barnyard. Husband crowned it slightly for drainage, so the edges were short, not much of a step-up. He did scrape it down to hard dirt before putting down the fabric and crushed concrete. Being so heavy crushed cement stayed in place, not much moving in horse hooves. Fabric is a lot cheaper than the various grid pieces you can buy to cover muddy places. Still need to lay them on hard dirt to get them level, edges matching, before covering them for best results. Fabric needs a deep layer of fill on top, to keep it well covered.
Handy consumer idea is to ALWAYS buy the dirt/rocks in completely FULL truckloads, even if you may not need that much right now. Just pile the extra over out of the way to store it. Then you have it handy when needed later. Trucking cost is the painful expense when buying any dirt or fill. Pretty sure they charge delivery cost the same buying 40yards as they do 20yards. So get as much as possible in the truck when buying. Only pay one delivery charge.
You may not have thought of a use for that extra dirt or stone YET, but you will!. Ha ha
We used RR ties to create a raised pad for our barn overhang (picture a 60 foot long side of a pole barn, attach a 12 x 48 foot overhang, add dirt and gravel, pack, place RR ties along the outside edge, add more fill, top with rubber mats). This is open to two large all weather (textile and screenings/1/4 minus) paddocks, separated by moveable round pen panels. In those paddocks are two sand piles, refreshed yearly, for horsey rolling, peeing, and naps. This arrangement has worked well for 21 years. We did it right the first time-- high quality textile and maintenance of the gravel footing.
The size rock you need depends on how deep the mud is. If you can’t put down geotextile fabric you can mitigate the mud with just rock. In areas with deep mud put larger (2") rock for a base layer and compact it down, then 1" rock, and then maybe top with pea gravel.
I put a deep layer of 1" rock in our very muddy corral 3 years ago, and it’s still holding up well. Pea gravel wasn’t an option because it isn’t available locally. My horses are barefoot, and I was worried at first that the 1" rock would be hard for them to walk on, but they don’t seem bothered by it. This is because the rock layer is deep enough that it cushions when they walk on it, whereas a thin layer on hard ground wouldn’t “give.”
I also put 1" rock in front of the barn where it was very muddy. It has compacted down over time and grass is growing through it now.
As for what is the best thrush preventative–I think dry feet. Don’t let them stand in mud 24 hours a day.
Here’s the new game plan:
I’m about to order 20 tons of road gravel and 20 tons of sand. The gravel will be $160 per truck and the sand will be $175 per truck, whereas limestone screenings were much more expensive and per ton. We’ve scraped what will be their run in down and will put down fabric, then a few inches of gravel (unknown how many inches, the run in is sloped currently and we’re going to level it out with the road gravel), and then top with sand. I’ve picked a few spots out to make pads out of the gravel, sand, and railroad ties in their paddock but the run in is the first priority! Hoping this works!
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