[Jleegriffith]

Knock on wood no teeth issues over the 4yrs that we have had them in use.

[buck22]

For a quick solution I use mats, the big 4x6 stall mats. They always have a use throughout the year, wash rack, etc. As far as I'm concerned money spent on mats is always money well spent. I put down a path of mats in all the high traffic areas and my horses are thrilled to comply, they don't like mud either.

When I learned of my morgan's broken withers a few years ago, my new goal became trying to strengthen his back as much as possible, which means lots of cavaletti work. I was thinking one day on how to make sure I work this horse over cavaletti every single day for at least 15 minutes, when the idea struck me to just install permanent cavaletti in front of his run in shed. He goes in and out several dozen times per day. It worked out great for him, for my 32 yr old too. Everyone always asked how I manage to keep such a topline in a 32yr old horse.

The reason I'm sharing this though is that the cavaletti had another unforseen benefit... mud reduction.

The run in is located in the lowest lying spot, so its a swamp when it rains and the entire entrance used to be one big mud pit. Since installing the cavaletti, the horses have a very set foot fall now, and it reduced the random churning. There is still mud, and there are ruts, but its less than half as bad as it used to be.

If you have some landscaping timbers lying around might be neat to experiment with.

[TFF]

The run in is located in the lowest lying spot, so its a swamp when it rains and the entire entrance used to be one big mud pit. Since installing the cavaletti, the horses have a very set foot fall now, and it reduced the random churning. There is still mud, and there are ruts, but its less than half as bad as it used to be.

That's an interesting concept. I noticed today that my horses have pounded a path to their run in that's pretty flat now. Maybe the landscape timbers would help this to happen sooner. I might just throw some down tomorrow and see what happens. Thanks for the suggestion!

Maybe by 35 yr old horse will develop a topline too...

[Robin@DHH]

We have clay soil and needed to do something at the gate
area to prevent excessively muddy soil. We had access
to lots of limestone (we owned a limestone quarry) but
the rock kept sinking into the soil each year. We didn't
have landscape fabric but did have a generous supply of
somewhat decrepid plastic snow fence. We put down a
layer of snow fence and put the rock on top of it. Voila,
rock does not sink, water drains and footing stays drier.