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ali bali
Gold Member
Scotland
641 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Jan 2010 : 5:43:50 PM
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Hi, this is something I know very little about (except that it is much more common abroad) but have the misfortune of keeping my horses on limited grazing on clay soil over the winter. This results every year in a horrible sea of mud and one of the three suffering badly from mud fever (I have tried almost every remedy known to vets!). I have access to a couple of lovely 12 acre fields for the summer but these are too far from their stables for winter use and I cannot winter them out due to a 25 year old who needs his home comforts.
I am thinking about removing the internal stabling from their shed and creating a turnout area approx 20 x 40 meters surfaced with pea gravel and a short gravel access way between the two. The shed (20' x 24') would be half bedded. They would be able to move freely between barn and turnout area and would have ad lib haylage. They are in a stable group with a settled pecking order.
The obvious pros of this set up are 1) no mud and hopefully less skin problems in a drier environment 2) less damage to the ground so more summer grass and less shipping them out to friends 3) less tying to regular turn out times
The drawbacks that I can think of are 1) greater possibility of bullying 2) will they get enough excercise in this restricted area 3) cant put on box rest if necessary 4) expensive to set up
I cant find much info on the internet about yarding horses like this. Has anyone got experience of a similar set up? Has anyone used pea gravel as a surface, one of mine is shod would it get jammed in his shoes? Or can anyone suggest other pros and cons? In an ideal world I'd have 20 acres to chuck them out in but....
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Pashon2001
Platinum Member
3575 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2010 : 7:15:27 PM
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I assume you would put land drains in? Otherwise on clay (take it from me I know) it will still end up a mud lake without it. I personally wouldnt use pea gravel as it can get everywhere and stuck in shoes including your own. What about wire stripping? There is a company up north that supplies it, and you get a lot for your money. Its soft and drains well.
I wouldnt have thought you would get bullying with a settled group. As long as you do the obvious and put hay nets/racks far enough apart. Could you set up one corner of the barn so you could rail it off if necessary for box resting?? As far as exercise is concerned I think they will be much happier trolling around in a small DRY area than acres of liquid mud. |
     
www.jarvastud.com http://hocon.webs.com/ |
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Theo
Silver Member
England
368 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2010 : 8:15:16 PM
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Hi Ali,
What ground are you planning to lay pea shingle over? If it's directly on clay, then it won't last 2 seconds before it turns into mud again... that would be throwing good money after bad.
What is the material of your shed floor? Concrete, hardcore/ chalk etc? If it's of a good base, I'd just explode a couple of large bales of straw in there for bedding. Your turn-out area which I presume would be outdoors? You will need to think in the lines of building for a sandschool base... ie: scrape off 12inches of topsoil, lay drainage if necessary, lay with membrane (to stop clay from rising up through the subsoil) then laying a minimum of 9 inches compacted depth of crushed concrete or type 1 mot. Solid enough to park a car on it... You can then dress it if you wish with second hand sand school surface if you can lay your hands on it (if a rich neighbour is having a new surface put in in their sand school?) Or leaving it as per...
Make sure trhere is enough height in your open barns to bribe a local farmer to come in in the spring to gut out the bedding with his tractor, and using the bucket, he can scrape the yard clean at the same time!
The area you described should accomodate 10-12 horses. I assume you have 3, so, IMHO, I would retain a 12x12 partition in your covered area for emergencies and go 10 x 20m in the turn out area.
Rough guess done on the cheap... 3 day's 5t digger hire, 4 loads of crushed concrete, membrane tc... you should be able to do it for about £1200?
I run a mix of stallions and geldings (8) over a 20m x 10m open barn into a roughly 20x 40m t/o area using 2x bales of haylage/ hay (round bale) per week WITHOUT any additional hard feed. They have never looked better.
Initially they will explore their boundaries WRT pecking order, but will soon settle. As of all batchelor herds will...
Will try and take and post piccie for you.
T  x
...A great horseman once told me...'Work smarter... not harder!' |
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Theo
Silver Member
England
368 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2010 : 9:42:29 PM
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| PS: Use digger to track down/ compact crushed concrete... etc, also use bucket to drive down your fencing posts as well as digging your gate posts for concreteing! |
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Roseanne
Moderator
United Kingdom
6708 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2010 : 10:12:45 PM
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| Could you organise a 'yarding' situation for the 25-y-old who needs his comforts together with a companion, and use your available turnout for the rest? What you're suggesting - with others' experiences of clay ground -sounds rather complicated and full of potential problems. |
Roseanne |
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ali bali
Gold Member
Scotland
641 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2010 : 3:52:58 PM
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Hi all, thanks for your replies.
My concern with wire strippings is the difficulty of getting rid of manure from poo picking as no matter how careful I was I suspect that some of the plastic would end up on the muck heap and doubt my local farmers would be happy to spread it on their fields!
Any surface would be laid on top of hard core, and I will now take land drains into consideration too. Thanks for the depth and size guide Theo, definately hoping the new regime results in less labour intensity! Though unfortunately the 25 year olds COPD means deep bedding is out. Excuse my ignorance but is type 1 mot a form of hard core?
I am struggling to find the right surface, ideally it needs to be non-porous, easily cleaned and disposed off and 'soft' enough to allow the two year olds to play etc. Sand I worry might be too abrasive and make the mud fever worse. Wood chip may go soggy when exposed to that level of manure, as I suspect the 2yos will charge around and mash much of it in. Ideally I would like to just compact the hard core (I know you can hire machines that really pack it down) and leave it at that but am a little concerned the sharp rocks would cause hoof abcesses.  Am running out of ideas, hence the pea gravel, so any other comments/suggestions would be gratefully received.
Roseanne, I only have 3, so one for all and all for one management wise! |
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Theo
Silver Member
England
368 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2010 : 8:41:10 PM
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Hi Ali,
Type one/ two is the grading size of the stones, basically, the stuff they use for building roads' sub-base... Any local stone would do the trick... or crushed hardcore. Yes, I've found that once you've compacted it in, and over time the loose clay and poo will make it lightly mushy. Again, you can have the surface scraped in the spring.
T  x |
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kofihorse
Bronze Member
241 Posts |
Posted - 07 Feb 2010 : 10:51:42 AM
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I am a great fan of yarding. My little barn-type stable opens out onto what used to be my back garden. I had a guy with a digger scrape off the topsoil and clay,lay a couple of drain pipes,then backfilled with compacted type I hardcore. On top of that I have put wood chip and I am very pleased with it. You do have to source the right type of woodchip for this purpose - from a proper sawmill who understands what you want it for. Must be from virgin timber so you can be guaranteed no nails or other debris.Chippings from green branches with leaves and bark are useless as they rot down within months.Ask around and go and see what's on offer. Best to buy in dry months as they usually sell off this by-product by weight.
I had mine done in 2001 and my two boys are on it most of the winter and,until last year, every night in summer and it has lasted very well. It is beginning to rot down just a bit much nowandI think I will have it scraped off and replace this summer.
I take my muck up to a local farmer's midden and he isn't bothered by the small amounts of woodchip that get stuck in the poo (or maybe he hasn't noticed it LOL)
Poo only gets mashed in if you don't remove it regularly. I do mine once a day and don't often have much scattered around unless the Shetland has had a mad half hour. Even then,it is very easy to see and remove (I use rubber gloves).
My boy have rubber mats inside and some concrete in the main part of the barn. I do put a smallish shavings bed down but they wee outside on the woodchip almost all the time.
The biggest upside of all this is that I was able to keep them out most of the time during the recent Ice Age,with the help of some used shavings laid on the slippy bits - I haven't even thought about clearing that up as it is just disintegrating down into the woodchip.
I recommend yarding to anyone who has any space at all to provide it,it's amazing how inventive you can be! |
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Yarding
