Muddy / wet winter land tips

[hattie43]

As above really . If your land struggles in the winter and can get really wet and boggy is there anything that can help . Part of it is low lying near a river so I’m assuming is caused by that but we still want it useable . Eg have you created pathways or mats to help move ponies around . Or anything else that has helped . Thankyou

This is a really tricky one because horse and ponies churn ground up so much. You can cut in drainage alleyways and keep clearing them, we did this behind the stables it was very rudimentary but surprisingly effective. You can have a minimum amount of ponies on the land, too many ponies on small patches really creates problems. Have two gates in the fence and alternate so one entrance doesn't get really bad. I know some people use hardcore but i find it just pushes the issue to the bit just outside the hardcore. I think you also need to accept it and have hard standing at parking, stables, hay barn and sheds etc so when you go and do them in the winter you are not wading through it too much when you do your yard jobs. Its nice for the ponies to come in and get a break from the mud in dry stables. I don't know what your set up is but i also think it needs to be accepted because even if you have plenty of lovely hardstanding the mud is pretty brutal with horses.

I wish we had put a track round the outside of our Ménage when we built it. That way our ponies who are turned out 24/7 would’ve had a winter area to walk, eat drink and the grazing could’ve rested till spring. I think track systems with proper drainage may become more popular with global warming and the rising awareness of horses need to move.

Thanks both . I have hard standing on the yard but as has been said getting from the field gate entrance to the yard gate is thick mud. I wonder if grass mats would be effective .

Could you put in some rubble drains, spoon drains, or ag drains draining back towards the river?

Thankyou , yes already done a couple coming out onto the riverbank . Not allowed to have them draining directly into the river even though it’s only rainwater .

I would have pathways stoned with limestone where possible and if there is space keep off the land near the river by fencing it off in winter and graze it in summer instead. I realise this is all expensive but I would structure the yard if possible to avoid the lower wetter land im winter

Your new best friend is mudmats. Hideously expensive but superb in every other way, easy to move and lay by a single person, much better than limestone chippings in allsorts of ways ( and actually limestone isn’t cheap any longer).
You need a couple of pallets of them, make an area where they can hang out and eat hay, then use the rest to partially surface some walkways/ tracks. Fence off the lower land and only use in summer, keep a smaller upland area to use in very weather with the mats and don’t worry about trashing it.

Oh and grass mats are shit, definitely don’t waste your money on those.

@JaffavsCookie what is the difference between grass and mud mats, when I google each term the same mats come up?

Thankyou , I’ll do some research on mud mats , being able to make at least some dry areas sounds good .

@WelshPony grass mats are usually made from black flexible rubber maybe 2m x1m, cheap but they sink in any form of mud and become useless in high horse traffic areas, probably would be fine in your back garden or similar.
the mudmats are rigid plastic squares that lock together.
The black mats are the grass mats, the grey coloured ones are the mud control mats.
i have both in use will add some pics of them later.

That’s really helpful thankyou

We used to keep our ponies at a livery yard which was situated in a damp valley with a river at the bottom. We only lasted 1 winter. It was horrific. The horses were kept in a single field all winter. Way too many horses for the space. A fixed hay feeder. The horses spent all their time around the hay feeder cr@pping. It was knee deep in mud /shit. I fell over twice. We moved to a friend's farm which is on a hill top. Much lower horse density - massive fields for just our 3 ponies and never gets that muddy.

So I would sort out drainage, keep your horse density low, put a surface down around the gate and keep moving where you feed them.

If you’re not allowed to drain into the river, can you dig shallow swales across the slope, small enough to step over and not deep enough to trip the horses? You could potentially plant the swales with plants that like having wet feet, to further reduce run-off down the slope - like the plants listed here www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/articles/swales-at-rhs-gardens