Is woodchip in a gateway really that awful?

[SpotsandBays]

Desperate. My gateway into next door is already churning up after this rain and I have a friend who can supply me free woodchip (horse safe). In winter it ends up extremely deep and wet - am I mad to want to put woodchip in it too? Will it make it even worse? What if I kept it topped up?

(Edited to add, I can’t put anything permanent in there, and I’m not buying mats as it’s just too costly for me).

 

[angel7]

Afraid it will probably make it worse. It will rot quick, go muschy, turn to soil and act like a dam as the water sits behind it further out into the field. Thats what happened when i tried it.

 

[Birker2020]

Afraid it will probably make it worse. It will rot quick, go muschy, turn to soil and act like a dam as the water sits behind it further out into the field. Thats what happened when i tried it.

Yes you are correct Angel7

S&B someone I knew put a single rubber stable mat down in their gateway which I thought was a good idea although I think you'd have to sprinkle some grit or rock salt on top in case a layer of moisture froze on top and made it slippy.

 

[angel7]

And I also tried carpet(disaster), old shavings (wet fly ridden mess), hay and straw (more mush and a mess to clean in the summer).
Look on faceache marketplace for free rubble, garden slabs, type 1, stones and just dig out the gate a 4 foot by 4 foot square, 5 inches deep, lay a bit of tarp and fill it with the stones. Cover over with soil when you leave.

 

[Gloi]

Never use anything that will rot down it will just end up a stinky wet sticky mess you'll need to remove. Some stones are probably cheapest.

 

[PurBee]

I tried woodchip under a tree that had a soil base, and was on a slope, it was about 8 inches of soggy mud in winter so trialled woodchip. It worked for 18months.
I put a good 6-8 inch depth of large pine woodchip pieces (4 inches x2 inches average) ontop of somewhat dried but loose soil.
Putting it ontop of soggy soil would cause the woodchip to get churned into the soggy mess….its best laid on dried soil.
Mine didnt last long because it was on a slope and we have very high rainfall - it soon rotted down, and became a soggy mess again - i then used crushed hardcore snd years later its still great.

As you already have a bit of a soggy gateway, id simply put a very deep bed of woodchip - 1 foot deep - but that does depend on whether you’d then be able to open/close the gate.
If you put tiny shredded wood chip it wouldnt last long at all - big woodchip pieces are better.

All gateways should have crushed rock/hardcore put down. Grass never lasts no matter how deep the roots or strong the grass - horses hooves and wet winters simply destroy all grass at gateways. I’ve used ‘gateway grass seed’ and it didnt last at all - mud pit at the first winter!

Mud mats are expensive - crushed rock lorry load is cheaper - i’d speak to the owner of the land about putting a thick layer of crushed hardcore down, maybe split the cost? It would last years - and ask a friend with a heavy 4x4 or tractor to drive over it to flatten out smoothing it, making it hoof-friendly.

 

[Tiddlypom]

You’ve really only got the choice between crusher run (stones) or mud mats. Crusher run is cheaper but permanent - it’s what I use. I barrow it in by hand.

Wood chip will make a sticky boggy mass.

Grass mats sink and are hopeless.

 

[ihatework]

No experience but some people have reported success with laying sheep fleece, can normally be got free/cheap.

 

[gallopingby]

I had crushed stones put down by my neighbour a few years ago and it has worked well, if it’s really wet there’s a puddle on top but it remains solid.

 

[JackFrost]

I put woodchip in a gateway about 5 years ago, and haven't had any problems at all. It did the job brilliantly. Not all woodchips are equal - if you can get stuff with oak or beech it rots more slowly than softwoods, but mine has never gone slippery or boggy and is still doing the job.

 

[Surbie]

Mud control slabs are expensive, but they work, can be laid on the worst mud without disappearing, AND they hold their value so you can sell on easily and for most of what you paid for them, if not more. So they are a better investment than stone would be, imo, though that is cheaper.

I got mine 5 years ago. They now go for more secondhand than I paid for them new.

I use woodchip on my paths at the allotment, which is on heavy clay. In winter the bottom ones get slushy and slippy quite fast, and that's just with human feet on it.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

No experience but some people have reported success with laying sheep fleece, can normally be got free/cheap.

I tried this for a very wet exit from my barn. Only had sheep going over it but disappeared completely within a year. Got a few mud mats there now which are doing a great job.

 

[SpeedyPony]

I've used woodchip with success, but it needed a lot of topping up. It wasn't dry, but you could walk through the gateway without sinking up to your knees, so a definite improvement!

 

[Honey08]

Don’t put woodchip or wool anywhere boggy, it will eventually make it much worse. You could put a few barrowloads of small stones or road planings and put stable mats over the top as a quick fix. A decent layer of road planings would be best.

 

[Lois Lame]

No experience but some people have reported success with laying sheep fleece, can normally be got free/cheap.

I tried this for a very wet exit from my barn. Only had sheep going over it but disappeared completely within a year. Got a few mud mats there now which are doing a great job.

It sounds a good solution though, just needing to be done as required, and, of course, access to sheep fleece.

 

[asmp]

My farmer put chalk down in one of my muddy gateways and it works pretty well but not as well as the mud mats I put in the other one. With the gap between my two fields I just put a row of 2 mud mats so the horses could choose which surface to cross on and I had something solid to walk on (so you don’t have to cover the whole area) There is a FB page where you can get together with other people to split a pallet so share the delivery costs. I couldn’t be bothered to wait so ordered a pallet and sold off the mats I didn’t need at the price I paid for them. They went very quickly.

ETA I lifted some of mine this year as wasn’t happy with where I had put them and it was quite easy

 

[SpotsandBays]

Thanks all. The gateway is a man made one through a hedge line into next door as I don’t know how long I will have use of it. I really don’t want to put anything permanent down as a) I can’t scrape the area first and do a proper job of it due to its location and b) I will need to fill it in and replant the hedge within the next few years. I would do mud mats but I’d need a fair few and just cannot afford that right now, even splitting a pallet.

 

[dorsetladette]

could you look on FB or similar for some second hand mud control mats? If it's a gap in a hedge as described (and I've imagined in my head) then you probably wouldn't need many and you could lift them when your done. They tend to hold their value too. I haven't used them personally but a friend has some in her shelter with a hard standing in front. Its the only part of her field which isn't fetlock deep in mud in winter.

As others have said woodchip gets deep and muddy and smelly and attracts flies.

 

[Highmileagecob]

I'll let you know. We have just laid a transit flatbed full of shreddings in out gateway. It absolutely cannot be as bad as the mud last winter, and our farmer owner will not allow us to dig out and gravel.

 

[southerncomfort]

Previous owner of our place chucked some stone down (couple of sacks from DIY place) and then put a grass mat over the top (the ones with holes in).

Actually works really well.

 

[Lucky Snowball]

We tipped rubble on top of deep clay mud. At first it was awful to walk on but within a few weeks it settled into a proper level area and still good some ten years later.

 

[Tiddlypom]

I don’t excavate out a gateway before tipping stones in either. The deeper and gloopier the mud in situ the better - it just sucks the stones in and very soon firms up.

 

[SEL]

Thanks all. The gateway is a man made one through a hedge line into next door as I don’t know how long I will have use of it. I really don’t want to put anything permanent down as a) I can’t scrape the area first and do a proper job of it due to its location and b) I will need to fill it in and replant the hedge within the next few years. I would do mud mats but I’d need a fair few and just cannot afford that right now, even splitting a pallet.

Can you chuck a load of hard core straight onto the mud? Drive the tractor over a few times and it'll settle quickly.

My hardcore in gateways now have a layer of mud on top so you wouldn't really know it was there - I don't think it would be really obvious to your neighbour & the weeds would take over pretty quickly if you had to shut it off again

 

[Caol Ila]

Haha. Woodchips. Terrible idea. The yard owner of the place where I kept my horse a few years ago had the ingenious idea of putting woodchips, which he'd chipped himself (so cheap!) in the gateways of his muddy winter fields. As you can imagine, especially after reading this thread, the bog went from ankle-deep to knee-deep. What does YO do? Put down more woodchips. And when the bog basically became the Dead Marshes from the Lord of the Rings, he did the sensible thing and added more woodchips.

The following winter, you'd think he might have learned from this experiment. Nope -- fresh woodchips appeared in the gateways. Rinse and repeat. My friend and I thought this was hilarious (unless we had to get our horses out of the paddocks): a classic case of insanely doing the same thing over and over again, even though it hasn't worked the first ten times. Very Sysyphian. I don't know if he's still futiley laying his woodchips because I left the yard.

 

[SpotsandBays]

Can you chuck a load of hard core straight onto the mud? Drive the tractor over a few times and it'll settle quickly.

My hardcore in gateways now have a layer of mud on top so you wouldn't really know it was there - I don't think it would be really obvious to your neighbour & the weeds would take over pretty quickly if you had to shut it off again

I can’t get a tractor over it due to the trees annoyingly!

 

[Tiddlypom]

You won’t need a tractor to flatten the stones. Just rake them level and they will soon disappear into and bind into the mud.

I keep the horses at home and could put anything in our gateways, and am super pleased with stones barrowed in and raked by hand. No wishing that I’d done things differently.

ETA The gateways are now passable by vehicle all year round, all materials barrowed in by hand.

 

[SEL]

I can’t get a tractor over it due to the trees annoyingly!

Can you barrow hardcore to it? I found if I can lay a single track then at least the humans can walk up and down the nice bit and if the horses want to stand in the squidgy stuff so be it!

We ordered a large bag of gravel and got it as close as possible then wheelbarrow.