Budget alternatives to mud control mats

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I dropped mud control slabs into really wet hock deep mud at the start of last winter. Mud oozed through them but only covered the surface. We put in a drain and lifted these slabs when the ground was dry this spring, leveled the ground a bit and relaid the slabs with some more. These slabs got a covering of sand and some grass seed.

Pictures are pre lifting, the single row of slabs are covering the new drain.
Newly laid slabs covered in sand
The gateway onto the track, a lot of filling in of the hollowed out way through with sand, the two slabs at the far side of the gate were extended to the slabs by the barn.

We put a pallet's worth of mud control mats down last September in the shelter and as an apron of hard standing, We did put sand on tthe surface of the mats as reccommended but our soil is very sandy and as it's worn off we haven't topped up the sand. We also bought a 2nd pallet and some of the mats were put down onto wet mud, they did slip a bit and need a bit of tlc now. We have just put about 30 of them into a gateway between fields which gets very wet and they are working well. We haven't had any problems with horses slipping, but we do keep clearing the gateway mats as the horses leave soil on them. We shall close that gateway off when the land in the top field gets too wet for the horses to go onto it.
I throughly reccommend the mats, they are better than any of the alternatives that we have tried over the years that we have been here.

 

[cauda equina]

I have some of the floppy rubbery ones
They work well if you put them down when the ground is still firm with good grass cover, otherwise they just sink in or ruck up and become pretty useless

 

[Poingsettia]

I have some of the floppy rubbery ones
They work well if you put them down when the ground is still firm with good grass cover, otherwise they just sink in or ruck up and become pretty useless

I have these but they just ended up bunched up.

 

[PeterNatt]

Get your old surface completely dug up and put down a new one with a membrane liner and graded hard core on top. That way you should have a permanent solution that will last for many years.

 

[FestiveG]

Get your old surface completely dug up and put down a new one with a membrane liner and graded hard core on top. That way you should have a permanent solution that will last for many years.

However you may well require planning permission for that!

 

[ester]

and if you don't own the land might not want to spend a lot of money on a permanent solution.

 

[Poingsettia]

Get your old surface completely dug up and put down a new one with a membrane liner and graded hard core on top. That way you should have a permanent solution that will last for many years.

Sadly not my property.

 

[ester]

That was part of the reason we got mats last year, if we don't need them anymore we can pull them up and sell them on much easier than you can with hardcore.