Surface Advice for Shelter/Hard Standing

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suej102

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In preparation for the winter I am now planning to put a hard standing area adjacant to my paddock with the field shelter on it and an large area for the horses to move about off the field when it becomes a bog (found this out during last winter having just moved to new house and paddock was a lake and mud bath!). We are having the area raised and having planings put down as the main surface. I am happy to put rubber matting down in the shelter itself, but it is going to cost huge amounts to rubber mat or field guard the rest of the area. My Husband is worried that leaving it as planings (although 'whacked' to flatten) will look unsightly and I am more concerned as to whether it is appropriate for horses to be on this surface for large amounts of time. Does anyone else have hard standing areas that are heavily used during the winter? I haven't the planning permission for concrete so am after a durable, cost effective solution so any ideas would be very gratefully received.
 
The grass mats are great, the rubber mats with holes in. Get them from a farm shop and not a horsey place as you save a lot of money doing this. I use them in high traffic areas, gates, walk ways and have an area in the field where the hay gets thrown in. I too have a boggy field, and wouldnt be without them, no mud! best to put them down before the winter so that can ground in otherwise they will lift, sown some grass over the top when you lay them and some fert and join them all up, in a few months you would even now they were there.
 
i have hardcore flattened in my gateways which i grass seed in the spring and try to rest and it blends in with the field though never gets boggy or deep. ideal for feeding on and they do tend to gather on it in the gateway. the only downside is that the boggy muddy bit is pushed back into the field. so they still have a boggy bit to go through before getting onto the landing pad, but generally works well.
 
I have a field stable just on earth with rubber mats in and a shavings bed on top. Outside the area would get very muddy in winter with my horse coming in and out so last year we got a small lorry load of bark chippings put down outside - enough so it was about 1 foot deep across the front of the stable and out by about 12ft. This has been a god send as it kept the area completely mud free even though he is fenced in this area at night and use it as a sort of corral area with his stable to keep him off the grass at night.
We need to top it up this year again but we paid £80 for a huge pile to be delivered and it naturalises really quickly with a bit of sun and rain...so it sort of merges in and looks more mud coloured. It has all but gone now (sunk into the ground and rotted down) but has left the soil more aeriated and less clay and mud so it has been fine throughout the summer too and just needs the top up for the winter months.
 
That is really helpful. Thankyou to you both.

The hardstanding area I am planning will not be needed for grass etc - I am happy to leave it as a hardstanding, but will put some mats down along the 'entry point' to the area.

If the planings are whacked down well, do they stay put so that I can poo pick the area, or is there a danger that they come loose?

Thanks again.
 
we use road planings for hard standing and bark peelings in the shelters. we do not compact the planings so they are a softer gravel type surface which drains well. the horses love the peelings and their favourite place to lie down is in the shelter on the peelings.
planings are easy to poopick :)
 
That is brilliant - thanks so much. Are bark planings the same as chippings? Not sure how they would be to poo pick? My horses will be on this area quite a bit during the worst of the winter, and definately o/night. My boy is 17'3 ID so need to consider his whopping poops here!
 
We have a field that drains down to the entrance gate..you can imagine the bog.So we got ex council 4x2 foot paving slabs ,the whole area is now dry and includes the field shelter as well.
 
MOT (Ministry of Transport) type 1 is the best for hard standing in my experience; relatively cheap, low maintenance, and can stand up to the hardest winter.
I don't know what area you are in but Nicholls is good around here..
 
We're on heavy clay and had an area dug out in the end, laid a membrane down and covered deeply with bark chips, it was wonderful... Until after a couple of years the bark broke down (I poo picked daily) and went to a deep disgusting mush which led to mud fever, which was what I was trying to avoid.
The horses also discovered the membrane and took great delight in grabbing it and tugging it up.

So, we scraped off the bark and had limestone chippings down, which 'raw' would have been bad on their feet. I spead the wet bedding from the stables over it over the summer and that broke down and made a fine layer of soil as the horses used it over the winter. Grass has now grown on it, we don't need the grass but it makes a soft cushion and binds the surface together. I use it in the summer at times so that they can go into the barn out of the flies and even when it is dry because of the grass it stays a good surface for them.
 
Learnt a lot from this thread, both about the grass mats and the bark.

One point though. We now have a concrete track to our stables (with planning permission!) on which the horses stand happily all winter out of the mud. But before that we had what I think you would call planings. It was fine for my young horse; but it created havoc for an old livery, who at 30+ was starting to have hoof problems, with the wall of the hoof moving away from the sole. The smaller bits of planings worked their way up into his hooves. He had abcesses on three different occasions, and in the end, to my great regret, he had to be moved to a new livery. So watch out for that one.
 
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