Another mud mat query

[SpeedyPony]

Slightly toying with the idea of mud mats, but want to have something that can be taken up at the end of the winter.
Does anyone do this? I'm aware they're heavy, so it will be a disgusting, wet, back-breaking job but just wondered how much they sink/if it is a feasible idea.

 

[SEL]

Mini digger if they've really sunk into the mud!

 

[Burnttoast]

Depends on the mat I guess but the mud control slabs don't sink at all if properly put in.

 

[NR88]

It is very heavy work. The mud sets in the holes making the slabs heavier and its laborious knocking them out. If you have a pressure washer that makes light work out of it.

It is simple to do and I've lifted and moved mine before. It was back breaking sorry to say.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

We lifted a few just before Christmas, we thought we might need a crowbar to prise them up but it wasn't necessary. Of course the ground was wet at the time.

 

[rabatsa]

I lift the mud control slabs that I make into a feeding area in the field every spring. I lift them with a little help from on old buckrake tine, stack them to dry the mud. Bang the mud off once dried and shrunk in the holes and store for the following winter. I have been know to buy another pallet full come the winter as they have been used elsewhere by then.

 

[SEL]

Depends on the mat I guess but the mud control slabs don't sink at all if properly put in.

Oh they do!! We shifted some that had gone in a very wet gateway with a lot of horse traffic. Back breaking.

Not a chance we're ever manually lifting the pallet load outside the winter shelter. The mud is oozing up through them & it'll be concrete when that dries.

 

[rabatsa]

Oh they do!! We shifted some that had gone in a very wet gateway with a lot of horse traffic. Back breaking.

Not a chance we're ever manually lifting the pallet load outside the winter shelter. The mud is oozing up through them & it'll be concrete when that dries.

Don't worry, they sort themselves out after a year or two of being down and mud does stop oozing up. We laid a couple of pallets of them down into real hock deep slop one winter, kept them clean with a yard scraper thingy as the mud oozed up. Lifted them all come spring and relaid them properly with a drain underneath and they have been a god send ever since.

 

[SpeedyPony]

Thanks all, that's good to know- they'll be needed in different areas from year to year, so I didn't want to think too seriously about it unless they could be moved.