Cheap woodchip to make a 'trash paddock' for winter?

[kerilli]

i'm seriously considering making a small 'trash paddock' so i can turn my girls out in the daytime this winter without them standing up to their fetlocks in mud, looking miserable.
has anyone done this? will any woodchip do, or do i need hardwood that won't rot?
would putting a terram woven membrane down, then woodchip to a depth of about 8"-10", do? i did this at my last place on clay and some of it moved and came up through the woodchip, but i did have a hyperactive heffalump in there who loved digging...
i'm on well-drained sandy-ish soil here so hope it might be better?!
can't stand the thought of tons of mud all winter, of them trashing my lovely arena if i let them out in there, or of keeping them in 24/7...
suggestions please!

 

[FrodoBeutlin]

We do have three paddocks which are to be used instead of the grass ones - it's actually very common in Germany (in fact, in German 'paddock' means precisely a sand/woodchip pen

, while proper grass paddocks are called koppeln).

Anyway, ours are just sand, no woodchips, and they seem to withstand even heavy rain fantastically well. And the horses adore them because they can roll on something soft and comfy

 

[CazD]

We have a 20 x 30 concrete area that we turn ours out into when the weather is really bad and the fields are too waterlogged for them to go out. We use woodchip in a corner of this so that they have somewhere to lie/roll (although quite often they use it as a cat litter LOL). We get our woodchip free from a reclamation/recyling place. It is a mix of all sorts of wood - pallets, old kitchen cupboards etc. It does rot down quite quickly but we just spread it on the field in the spring as a fertiliser. We are on heavy clay soil and it didnt work so well on the soil as it holds the water really badly and they just ended up stood in a mix of mud, water and woodchip. (we didnt use any kind of liner - just plonked it on top of the soil!)

 

[Chico Mio]

I'm planning on making 'paddocks' for my two in the garden - like CazD's. Concrete base and then a layer of coarse sand and bark chippings from the local wood yard - they will be pine, oak and chestnut, because that's what they have. I may not even bother with the concrete as we are on rock with not much topsoil.

Previously I just had sand over sandyish soil. I'm a bit wary of membrane in case they do paw and rip it and maybe get a foot stuck - plus it is hellish if you change your mind and decide to remove it.

 

[spaniel]

Many years ago we built a sand paddock for a horse who came to us after severe pedal bone rotation many years before.

His feet had been saved but his angles were bizarre and the farrier wanted to try and straighten the coronet band area. Pony needed to be out all the time and the action of the sand packing up into his feet was the best support he could have had. He used to hoon about in his little sand pit like a lunatic and it stood up really well even in the worst weather. It was pretty deep though, I reckon it started off with nearly 12 inches of coverage at the beginning.

If I were building a place from scratch now I would include a sand paddock, very useful for turning out fatties as well as a few hours of leg stretch when fields get bogged down in the winter.

 

[Booboos]

If you are worried about the membrane coming up use a blinging layer (Dig down as normal, put your hardcore as normal, then put down 10mm to dust and vibrate with a roller. This creates a blinding layer which stops the stones from coming up but lets the water through to drain).

Woodchip will biodegrade depending on weather conditions and you may find it becomes quite slippery in time, so you might be better off buying good quality wood fibre that will last longer.

 

[kirstyhen]

If you are near any Forestry Commision managed woods or know any Tree Surgeons, you may be able to get wood chippings delievered for a small price.
We used to get a flat bed full delievered for about £5 that was used in the big indoor pens.
It's not the greatest quality though, does mulch down and if you get alot of bark in it it can be slippy.

 

[mtj]

Has anyone tried putting sand straight down onto heavy clay? Does it need to be a certain grade due to the abraisiveness? Alternatively, what about rubber chip?

I've got pens attached to the stables. These are brilliant for summer - stops them getting bored when they are in for the day - but easily get boggy in winter.

I've already been warned not to do wood chip due to slippling.

 

[Bossanova]

We have a sand pen and it's brilliant. We put a base of hardcore down and used a membrane too, though that was a bad idea, then sand on top.