Dry Lot Footing

[jyuukai]

We are FINALLY going to be moving to the family farm in Michigan, and that means that we get to bring our mini mare with us! Unfortunately the fencing on the whole farm has rotted (20 year old wood) so we have to redo a part at a time.

For our mare we plan to first fence in a 40'x60' paddock attached to the barn. I would like to turn it in to a dry lot. While researching footing I came across the idea of putting down pea gravel, which people seem to love for barefoot horses. The recommendation I saw suggested 12" of pea gravel over crusher run.

12" seems like a LOT for a 36" mare. Does anyone have any depth suggestions geared towards minis? I want her to be comfortable as it may be up to half a year before we can reseed and fence the main pastures.

I do plan to put landscape cloth under the footing to keep it from sinking in if that changes your suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I can't offer any real suggestions on footing depth since my dry lots are just the clay soil that is naturally there, but I wanted to say congratulations on moving to the farm

 

[jyuukai]

Thank you. My father in law passed away unexpectedly so we are moving in to help my mother in law. Father in law built the house and everything on the property by himself so it's kind of an heirloom of sorts. Sad circumstances but a great opportunity for us.

 

[Jenny]

Congratulations on the new farm! My guy has a 40' by 60' paddock and the footing is crushed gravel about 6"-8" deep. I LOVE the fact that we never have any mud at all and it keeps his hooves really nice and healthy. We put landscape cloth under the gravel to prevent any grass from growing through. BIG mistake. He tore it apart and most of it is gone now. Should've known there would never be a problem with grass growing through as he constantly searches the entire paddock looking for any morsel of green!

Here's a couple photos:

 

[jyuukai]

Jenny, did you dig down any? If so, how much? We have to drive up 14 hours to put this in place so that it's done when we ship her up so I'm trying to make really detailed plan to get it done as efficiently as possible lol

And what a cute little man! I hope my mare looks that trim once she's off the grass. She's a total porker now (though not so fat that I worry about founder).

 

[Marty]

I have gravel and what you are calling crusher run, we call it chat. I love it all. I have paths made out of it everywhere I walk for my benefit so I don't get myself slipping n the mud. However, I would highly suggest you not do a thing with your paddock. Its plenty small enough she will have it down to the nubs in record time so you won't need anything added. That size is going to be a dry lot faster than you can hear the grass grow. That said, you might want to dump a load in front of the gate where she will be coming in and out which is usually where they stand waiting and where you may keep your water supply,..

 

[Jenny]

No, we didn't dig down at all. We built the new barn too, and the barn sits a bit higher than the gravel.

Thank you! Luckily my guy stays fairly trim with carful feeding and daily walk/trots. He still stayed in good shape with 4 hours of grass in the summer. We won't have grass until May (darn snow!), so right now he's on just hay. I'm sure your mare will slim down nicely with limited grass and good exercise.

 

[jyuukai]

Marty, I do plan to let her eat it down but the property gets very muddy every time it rains (enough so that a day later I still sink while walking). She also had a known habit of eating mud, despite several diet changes and vet-suggested supplements. For those two reasons I would feel better covering it in something other than the natural dirt.

Jenny- thank you for the info. She's going to be on a fairly strict diet as she's such a piggy.

 

[candycar]

Put "geo textile" on the ground instead of landscape fabric. It's the same stuff they use when building roads. I'm sorry, I can't recommend a place to purchase it.

I just moved to a farm that had the geo-textile down under gravel (crushed limestone). It works very well to keep the gravel from disappearing in the mud. We put the pea gravel on top of the existing limestone. I would think 4 inches of pea gravel on the textile would be enough to start with. If it's not being driven into mud it will last longer and you can adjust the depth from there. I love pea gravel! It's easy to pick, doesn't freeze solid and polishes the hooves.

 

[jyuukai]

Yikes! I just calculated the price of all of this and I think I may be sick haha

I found a great local price on pea gravel at least. And it will be very worth it to give our lady a nice home. I'm getting some great feedback from you guys, thank you all so much!

 

[chandab]

You can always do it in stages to spread out the costs. Start with the heavy traffic areas first: gates, nearest the barn/shelter, an area where you plan to feed, then gradually do more as finances allow (if you even need to, once you've started with the heavy traffic areas, you may find the other areas are just fine even during wet times).

 

[jyuukai]

We are actually going to be able to afford it easily thanks to what FIL left us, but I think it's reflex to choke when I see a high price tag In addition to this project we have two other 3 acre pastures to seed and fence and a barn to renovate so the whole thing makes my head spin!

But I'm so so excited to look out the window and see my ponykins happily playing around. And I'll be able to get more lol!

 

[Marty]

I think you should start a thread on the eating mud subject.

 

[jyuukai]

I think I did a few years ago but I honestly can't remember much, only that we put her on psyllium after. She has literally done it since she was four months old and she's five years this month. She has a particular love for the soupy dirt at the bottom of a puddle.

I'll try to get one going in the morning if the baby allows

 

[shorthorsemom]

I did my paddock in stages in pea gravel. I shoot for 4-6 inches and when it gets down I replenish it again on top. it seemed to sink in to the mud forever and right now I have a skim (but still not much mud) and better weather I will have another load brought in if I can afford it. This was a hard winter on my gravel, it just sunk in.. I do Iove it though. I have pasture attached but they loaf on pea gravel when not on pasture. It was well worth the money.

No thrush, no white line disease, excellent feet and clean horses and good footing and best of all, no frozen hoof prints to trip over. My horses have strong feet due to the pea gravel, my farrier says they have excellent feet.

I did put rubber mats around the area where their hay rack is and their feeder buckets are and it is easier for the farrier to do their feet while standing on the rubber mats.

I tried a few other types of gravel first and still am happiest with the pea gravel. I tried stone dust once, and stone mixed with dust once, and that was a huge mistake. Grey soup. Don't do that.

They love to lay in the pea gravel and roll in it. Must feel good. The hoof difference was amazing.

 

[paintponylvr]

Timely subject, thank you.

You might also check into horse farms in the area where the farm is. They may have other ideas of what combinations work best for the soils in your "new" area (new state). They may differ only slightly or may differ a lot.

As to the mud eating - she may have been deficient in Selenium (not saying that was it or that you weren't doing the right thing). A lot of horses in NC don't get enough. And the dirt eating seems to run in "years". When one of our colts developed this habit, I was mortified! It was difficult to fix/maintain as we are on predominantly sand - and our paddocks/pastures all had areas that were either bare sand or bare dirt/clay. At 2 months of age, we lost the battle - sand caused an abdominal rupture and we had him euthanized. Don't have a clue why we didn't think to have his body sent to State to see if we could find out the "why" of his eating dirt/sand. I had sent one previously (different issue) and one since (again a different issue - though similar to the first one). Anyway, I did make a lot of phone calls to local area vets - and found that in that same year there were a total of 10 mares w/ foals that developed the sand/dirt eating habit (that vets/owners were willing to share info on). Some, like mine, were lost - others were not. Some were with experienced large number breeders, some with small breeders such as myself and others were with back yard owners that were having their first foal - one had been totally unplanned and unknown about until they walked out and found a new foal with their mare that never showed any signs of being in foal (she would have been purchased bred). Most were large horses, but 2 were Welsh ponies (same bloodlines but different owners) and one was my Shetland/horse cross (all 3 of the ponies died). None of the mares or other equine on the owners' properties had this issue. That was in 2004 - foals were spread out/born between March and June and all developed the problem w/i the first month. After that, I put all my mares on Mare Plus during their pregnancies and I watch the foals after they come along. I haven't seen any dirt eating since I've gotten back into breeding Shetlands. I am considering using other supplements - fed free choice in such a way that the ponies can pick what they want/need - but have not yet implemented that.

 

[jyuukai]

Shorthorsemom - Thank you so much, that was really helpful info

She's always had really good hooves and they tend to self-trim nicely, so I wanted to keep that up. The dry lot attaches to the barn, so I was going to put her hay in there, but I like the idea of a rubber mat outside. I can see the dry lot from the kitchen and both porches, so I would feel absolutely comfortable sticking a slow feed hay net over top of a mat. She's really sensible anyhow about keeping her feet out of bad spots.

Paintpony- That's really interesting. I've never heard that about the selinium, but I have indeed noticed a lot of horses here who eat dirt/sand. The first time we observed the behavior was the first time we turned her out, and she was weaned from her mum only two days. She has a special love for puddles, and even today (she'll be five this month) she will chew mud from a pond if you don't watch her. I'm going to bring that up to the vet when she comes out to do vaccines/health papers. I have no issue with supplementing for a while and seeing if that helps the issue

Now there are two really big dressage farms and a hall-of-fame producing standardbred farm in this town. They all three have dry lots, but they just have.. mud. I'm going to contact the county extension. I've heard that sometimes they will fund part of your dry lot because it helps with erosion. I do not know if this is true BUT it can't hurt, right? At the very least they will know more about the ground there than I do! And I can ask them about reseeding the pasture, too. I'm so used to good coastal bermuda grass here, but I did not see even one bale of it up there on any of our visits! In fact, the wife had never heard of it before moving here lol