I like the pet safe deicer. It works really well so you actually just need a light sprinkling to create traction.
I wouldn’t use it to try to completely get rid of the ice as that would be cost prohibitive.
My dry lot - where they spend most of the winter - is 3/8 minus gravel. As much as I used dirty bedding, and thought it was effective, when I just had a dirt lot, I’m pretty unexcited about mixing dirty bedding into the footing that I just paid $$$$ to install.
Yup, but if you’re smart enough to sprinkle hot water on the ice right ahead of dumping manure, it provides the best traction of anything, is soil and surface safe, and keeps the ice safe as it gradually melts. Up in the Great White North, we make shit paths because it’s in plentiful supply, it’s cheap (labour notwithstanding unless you have the appropriate sized manure spreader) and it provides great traction.
Built one 2 weeks ago, and not a very thick one at that (maybe 2" should ideally be 4" but it was awful that day and that’s all we could manage) and it is still holding strong after snow, mega winds and rain and re-freezing. Bonus, they are still easy to see if they get snowed over and the horses learn them in one shot.
You’re right of course; and yes, we are working on this together.
Adding that on sunny days ground limestone (not slaked lime, powdered lime, white lime or any of the names of the more caustic heated and soaked stuff), the stuff that comes right out of the quarry will work better than salt by a long shot and offers better traction.
As above, it’s also safe in pastures, if the same thing as limestone screenings, but finer, and is reasonable safe on hard surfaces in terms of not eating them chemically.
I use buckets of sand from my indoor.
But that helps me more than the horses.
For them I dump my wheelbarrow after I pick stalls on top the worst/thickest sheets of ice. Gives them some traction.
I find Spring rains pretty much dissolve the frozen poop balls & they drain through to the geotex under the 9" of roadbase gravel.in the drylot.
Pastures thawed enough so (dead) grass is showing & the footing isn’t treacherous.
I am SO OVER Winter 
I second the manure and shavings paths! As long as you are not in a dry lot, they will break down into the grass after the thaw. I also use this around the water troughs to prevent icy patches.
Mix sand with some MagChloride. The ice melt will create holes the sand will stick in. Otherwise the sand/shavings/manure will just blow off.
splash a bucket of water across the ice and then sprinkle something with grit over the wet surface, and it will freeze / create a non-slip surface. Gravel, fine shavings, manure, barn lime, clay cat litter, sand, etc. - Any of that would work. I create trails using this method to the water trough, the gates, the hay hut, etc and the horses quickly learn to just follow these trails.
If you have a local limestone quarry and can get it, ice control chips are fantastic. They’re angular chips the size of Nerds candy. Might also be known as 1/4" washed chip. Not everywhere produces them though.
Someone suggested diatomaceous earth. I tried that and it worked very well – at least when first put down; I’m not sure if its sticky powers survived overnight. Plus it has the benefit of being very light. A 4-lb bag seemed to cover as much ground as a 50-lb bag of sand, plus stuck to the high bumps and ridges whereas the sand rolled off those (there is no animal-safe-non-environment-destroying salt/melting stuff left for sale in my area to help hold the sand. 
) We will continue our research when I get to the barn later today.
Please don’t use if there’s any breeze at all while applying or expected in the time between application and it getting somewhat moistened. It’s nasty crap to inhale.
I did not inhale. Horses did not inhale.
I do this. It does double duty, I had Mag Cl in the arena, so the dirt I take out melts the ice a little. It only takes a light cover to make the ice patches walkable, so I’m not taking a lot out of the arena.
I don’t like the manure method. In my experience is gets slick and when it melts, it adds organics to my gravel and I try to avoid that for mud reasons.
We’ve been lucky(?) this year in that we’ve only had one big thaw/refreeze, so my paddocks are mostly in good shape. But Feb is coming and that’s usually the time it all turns into an ice rink.
I cannot believe you wrote these words. Now you’ve done it.
I use ash. We burn wood all winter, so it’s in plentiful supply. Works great.
well, Feb is usually the worst month for it around here so I expect it will happen.
I was joking when I said we’d been lucky, as being lucky means we have not seen a day above freezing in a long time, and that’s not all that fun either
Doesn’t that leave you with an awful mess once thawing starts?
Yes. Even more so if you are trying to limit your mud by keeping organic matter out of your turn out.
We have hog fuel (cedar bark) paddocks so the shavings blend in. You wouldn’t want to do it on really nice sand. We don’t get mud per se with hog fuel.
I think it depends a lot on the soil composition, and for other areas (gravel, pavement) what type of clean up equipment you have. That said, even on gravel without equipment, it pretty much disappears once the ground is fully thawed and dried out.
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