Hard-standing area suggestions

L

LOZHUG

Well-Known Member
Joined
26 March 2007
Messages
1,047
Location
North Wales
Visit site
I have recently bought my own land with stables etc and am busy doing it up. In front of my stables is a grass area which gets quite churned in the winter so I was thinking about putting post and rail around from the left of the stables to the right (in a square U shape) and turning the middle grass bit into hard-standing.

Here is where i mean
th_Bitsandbobsincyard1102.jpg

Any ideas on what to put down? MOT stone, slate waste, gravel, wood chip or rubber?

Have any of you done anything similar? If so what did you use?

Thanks in advance :)
 
We've used road planings, about £8 + VAT per tonne in Devon. You could just rake them into position or rent a wacker plate to beat them down a bit. It's worked well for us until a mole decided to come up through it, we didn't use a liner as it was a bit of a basic fix up job.
 
Ive used road planings as well for an area outside the stables approx. 15m x 40m. It was done at the same time as the school so dug out, land drains down, membrane and road planings. Cost about £5k but been a godsend in bad weather and when the miniature got laminitis
 
I second road plainings - they've worked a treat outside our stables and for tracks. We haven't bothered with hardcore or drainage and it's been down over 2 years and still fine.
 
Last edited:
I've seen somewhere that used bark. It was built into a hill so natural drainage - the bottom end was always rather soggy though! I'd be worried they would slip on wet bark, but I don't know!
 
The only thing with road planings if you happen to have unshod horses is that there was someone who got loads of roadplanings for their tracks and ended up with I think every horse having rotten feet as a reaction to the tar. If your horses are shod then it won't be a problem, just thought it was worth mentioning. I would go for easy to clean and keep tidy!
 
We've used gravel - it was actually excess gravel off my parent's driveway - around the our main gateway and the field shelter next to it, which last year got so muddy and churned up that we had to electric fence it off entirely as you just couldn't get through.

The difference has been great, this photo ( apologies for the size...I resized it on photobucket and it's still coming up massive!) was taken a few weeks ago and the hard standing is still in very good condition. We've not used a liner either. So far, so good!

1525586_10203044146930989_1763954687_n_zps1ca34f3f.jpg
 
Thanks for all your replies so far. Dollyanna thanks for that extra post as all mine are barefoot (4 shetlands and my ISH) so road planing's are probably a bad idea in that case. I just thought it would be a good idea to turn this area into a hard-standing paddock to use if and when needed and obviously not for all 5 at once. Just thought it would save some of my fields in the worst weather.

We are using MOT which is larger stone compressed on the path to the barn but i feel this will be too big and sore under their feet.

P87 I was thinking the same about bark.

Mariposa that looks fab and serves the purpose doesn't it, which is what i want.
 
This is what we used as a permanent winter living area. Around 18 inches of demolition hardcore (required planning permission) on top of teram. The mud was dug out first. There are drainage ditches (soakaways) at both sides.

DSCF2260.jpg
 
We have a concrete apron in front of the stables, and about 20 years ago put down limestone "inch to dust" which made a fab surface over all our stable yard, however over the years grass had grown on it in wet seasons, and so we are now scraping a couple of inches of mud off. I have tracks and gate ways with road plantings again they have grassed over.

I am now putting concrete flagsdown in the areas of the yard that get most use, and they are so easy to brush up etc. Using Xmas present money to fund currently!
 
MOT will compress a lot and go smooth. We had a barefoot pony who was perfectly happy on it. It does get puddles on it and grassy/muddy eventually. Reminds me a bit of the picture Cloppy posted. We put road planings on top of that surface and it has been perfect for three winters now. I wouldn't swop it for anything now, it has saved out lives!
 
I know there are many people with road planings who have no problems, but after reading this article I would think carefully where it was used (this was where they were standing rather than walking) and maybe try and see the type of planings you are getting - gravelly stuff is probably better than sticky stuff. It was just a thought, I have no experience of either.
http://www.performancebarefoot.co.uk/page133.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top