Mud Mud Mud !

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aspirit

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we have really bad mud at moment, losing shoes daily , overeach boots daily. i seem to be the only one in my livery yard that worries about my horse standing next to hay feeder in over foot of mud . i dont have mud fever ,YET. Am I overreacting ?
 
I couldn't have my horses living in such conditions;

Part and parcel of keeping too many horses on too little land. I don't have any mud apart from a small bit by the gateway. I've even advertised for a livery, and had no takers at all!

I guess being on a yard with lots of facilities outways being somewhere where they can live out mud free!
 
AngieandBen said:
I couldn't have my horses living in such conditions;

Part and parcel of keeping too many horses on too little land. I don't have any mud apart from a small bit by the gateway. I've even advertised for a livery, and had no takers at all!

I guess being on a yard with lots of facilities outways being somewhere where they can live out mud free!
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Lucky you to have little or no mud, my mud is due to an overflowing underground stream flowing between two gates, not having too many horses on the land, there's acres and acres here, all with springs running through them
 
i dont have lots of facilities and am thinking i should move but its such a big decision , but they unwilling to put hay anywhere else . i bring in nightly but she cant resist the hay in the day . my farrier said it wont be worth shoeing her soon
 
Mud is not always down to overstocking. I wish it was that easy! I have 16 acres for two horses and suffer enormously from boggy clay fields. We too have a few underground springs that have blocked and cause problems. I just don't have the money to redo all the drains again (would probably cost tens of thousands).

For the last four years mine have spent most of the winter on a large turnout area of road planings which has meant daily turnout but no mud issues. Not too expensive to build either.
 
I empathise aspirit - we are on clay and whilst hay feeder is on firm standing by the gate the two horses in my field have to negotiate a swamp to reach the higher drained firmer ground. My mare is also pulling off one particular shoe so have been using over reach boots and luckily she has been pulling it off and not her shoe for the past month or so. (I know Ive just jinxed myself and tonight she ll come in without shoe and boot!). I was contemplating removing all mares shoes for two months over winter if she continued pulling them off as hacking out in Jan and Feb can be very sporadic in icy windy Scotland and she wouldn't need them for soft indoor arena work....would that work for you?
 
I'm on clay too, also have an underground spring; I have 3 ponies on 5 acres, but, I leave most of my field to grow from April to October, the ground doesn't get muddy then. We did put some drainage in about 8 years ago which has obviously helped, it cost us £3k
 
Midlifecrisis said:
I empathise aspirit - we are on clay and whilst hay feeder is on firm standing by the gate the two horses in my field have to negotiate a swamp to reach the higher drained firmer ground. My mare is also pulling off one particular shoe so have been using over reach boots and luckily she has been pulling it off and not her shoe for the past month or so. (I know Ive just jinxed myself and tonight she ll come in without shoe and boot!). I was contemplating removing all mares shoes for two months over winter if she continued pulling them off as hacking out in Jan and Feb can be very sporadic in icy windy Scotland and she wouldn't need them for soft indoor arena work....would that work for you?
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im considering the same and only using areana as well
 
We are really lucky where we are. We have a 'sandpit' an area approx 15m x 30m which is a sand surface split in half with electric fencing and fencing around the 'sandpit' and the horses are turned into there for two hours a day each with a hay net to munch on. They can amble around and even have a roll or a bit of a buck and squeal and let of steam, but its not too big an area for them to do much damage and of course there is no mud which is a godsend.

I have to be really careful with my horse who has always had reoccuring colic problems in the past, so when he does go out in the spring in the paddock I will have to monitor him and only turn him out intitially for an hour and build up his time. I am doing as my vet has in the past advised whenever he's been on box rest (but can hand graze) and this is to try to keep a little grass in him as much as possible as this is the best way to keep the hind gut active and to stop any problems so when I hack out I give him ten minutes of grass whenever I can.

I am glad I have moved yards to this place as the last yard was a nightmare with a track leading down to my paddock really deep in thick cloying mud and because he had a suspensory injury at the time which we were trying to heal it didn't help for him to have to walk through this twice a day, plus he was getting chased by dogs in his paddock on a daily basis anyway.

I wouldn't like to be back to the deep mud situation againl. Its not until you have no mud that you realise what a nightmare and how much damage it can do your horses, especially if they already have predisposing problems with their legs/feet.
 
applecart14 said:
We are really lucky where we are. We have a 'sandpit' an area approx 15m x 30m which is a sand surface split in half with electric fencing and fencing around the 'sandpit' and the horses are turned into there for two hours a day each with a hay net to munch on. They can amble around and even have a roll or a bit of a buck and squeal and let of steam, but its not too big an area for them to do much damage and of course there is no mud which is a godsend.

I have to be really careful with my horse who has always had reoccuring colic problems in the past, so when he does go out in the spring in the paddock I will have to monitor him and only turn him out intitially for an hour and build up his time. I am doing as my vet has in the past advised whenever he's been on box rest (but can hand graze) and this is to try to keep a little grass in him as much as possible as this is the best way to keep the hind gut active and to stop any problems so when I hack out I give him ten minutes of grass whenever I can.

I am glad I have moved yards to this place as the last yard was a nightmare with a track leading down to my paddock really deep in thick cloying mud and because he had a suspensory injury at the time which we were trying to heal it didn't help for him to have to walk through this twice a day, plus he was getting chased by dogs in his paddock on a daily basis anyway.

I wouldn't like to be back to the deep mud situation againl. Its not until you have no mud that you realise what a nightmare and how much damage it can do your horses, especially if they already have predisposing problems with their legs/feet.
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Clear your inbox, lol, you have just PM'd me and I can't reply as your inbox is full!
Oz :)
 
Ours are out in 15 acres which still has a fair bit of grass. Only around the gateway is a bit claggy (clay) and with the recent wet weather it has gone really schleppy just for the first couple of feet right at the gate, although it is only about an inch or so deep. Our 2yo was SO impatient to come in for tea he couldn't keep still and THIS was the result......

10915224_10152981171362790_4802957059500285477_n_zps7b37e8ec.jpg


He wasn't my best friend that day!
 
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