winter turnout surface ideas please

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Beatrice5

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We are about to finally put in for planning for 2 stables and a store and a small concrete yard. What I also want is a turnout area for when our awful wet field is really awful in the worst weather so the horses can have a roll and a mooche and not feel too cooped up.

Can anyone suggest a surface and size required or does anyone have anything similar. I need to keep costs down so can't build a school and the field is terribly wet ( has springs) and heavy clay so would need to prepare site well. Plus the field is sloping down towards the house and where I want the stables . French drains suggested but worried they will silt up.

One cantractor suggested 20mm to dust scalpings then rollered down to go like concrete but I fear that will turn into a dirty mush when wet.

ideas and advice greatly appreciated.
 
I have an area of road scalpings between my garage and te field as a temporary area until the yard is built. It doesn't have any drainage and is level with the surface of the grass. In the torrential rain recently it has been as wet as the fields but obviously no mud. I was thinking of having an area done with drainage and scalpings when I get my arena done so they can go out on that. My land is very flat and drains pretty well but on the days of really bad rain it takes a few hours for the surface water to subside even on the scalpings.
Sorry I can't be of more help.
 
I've seen this done in a few places now and plan to do it at ours when we can afford it.

Put telegraph poles as edging round your turn out area. Lay a membrane down, put 4-5 inches of road planings on top, compact that down, then add surface of choice. Most people round me use recycled, shredded timber but I've been looking at alternatives as the timber rots down and needs scraped off and replaced every 3-5 years.

Most places that have this provide 10 x 10 metre as a minimum and I have seen some areas the size of a standard arena at 20 x 40m.

I have four large ponies and their winter turnout space at the moment is a large shed which is 15 x 15m with a 15 x 4m corral on the side.
 
Road scalpings sound a good idea but when I phoned our local highways department they weren't very helpful. How did you source yours ?

I also agree the wood chip will rot and be a pain to scrape off and keep replacing.

How does sand compare cost wise to stone / scalpings?

I also wondered about pea gravel but wonder if it will kick about too much and be difficult to much out ?

There must be other people with turnout / winter yard areas?

Has anyone used 20mm to dust scalpings and had it rollers down as one contractor suggested ? Does it work or do you get a wet slimy film in heavy rain ?

I am keen to research this well as am putting a lot of money into this and want to get it right with no costly mistakes.
 
We have done this as can't use fields in winter. We have road planings and sand on top. By choice I wouldn't use the sand again as it 'pockets ' and then the holes become waterlogged and the whole thing becomes a mess. I would go for a decent base of hardcore and a membrane then a layer of compacted road planings. If its at all wet then you need to think about drainage as well. Its really like building a mini arena.

Concrete would be slippy and really bad for joints. Although you could try concrete and some form of non slip rubber mats maybe. Good luck as a hardstanding pen is a really useful thing to have, couldn't manage without ours even though they are quite mushy now.
 
unless you have a porous topping and drainage underneath it will still be wet and even worse it will be boggy - road planings as I understand it will compact but if you were clever enough you could have them on a gradient and then a porous topping so water runs off to a ditch.

If you look in my album there is a picture of my arena - dearer than a turnout area but only about 7k - , drainage dug membrane on ground and pipes put in - stone on top (rubbish stone from towens) then membrane then topping which is cushionride. topping is fab but if you dont have drainage underneath it will turn to mush - mine has been down 3 years and is firm and bouncy (oooh errrr) I also looked into sea sand which was v v cheap if you could get hold of it which i couldnt - you could put membrane down held down by telegraph poles round edge then sand on top but not sure if it would drain at all - depends on your ground.
 
Agree with Meesha and forgot to say you need to excavate the surface layer before putting down drains and bottoming. A friend tried to just lay a membrane on top of the ground and added lots of sand (free from a water processing plant) but it just turned to mush!

If your area is well drained the sand does make a nice surface and might be worth a try. the water poeple use it for filtering the water but need to discard it after a while so you might get some from them. There is also an ad in H and H for free sand.
 
We are on similar wet clay fields at the bottom of a hill, and built a winter turnout last year. When we built the stables initially we put down about 4' of rough hardcore, flattened with a tractor/digger, then lighter grade hardcore about 1' on top. We did similar for the turnout area - a good deep base of hardcore (which was free if collected, so we only paid for the farmer and his tractor to do it), then we got four lorry loads of road chippings delivered (about £100 a load for a 4 wheeler lorry) and spread that on top.

The area the horses were on was about 18m long in one direction, 15, in another, and 12m wide (it was L shaped and went partially in front of the stable yard) We had the horses out all day with haynets dotted around and hay on the floor sometime. It worked fantastically well, and the horses morale was much better than when they went out two hours a day in the trash paddock.

This year we will be extending it so that it continues around a track through the dry bit of the trash paddock, and so will become about 100m of walkway.

Here are a couple of photos from when it first went down last year. This summer it has started to grass over where the hay has been.


autumnwinter2011037-1.jpg




autumnwinter2011038-1.jpg
 
we have an area of pea gravel in our gateway and dug it out and put a membrane down first.. it is travelling a bit though and has puddled in the real wet. It is not a cheap stone option either (we wanted it for feet)
 
Beatrice5 said:
Has anyone used 20mm to dust scalpings and had it rollers down as one contractor suggested ? Does it work or do you get a wet slimy film in heavy rain ?
Click to expand...

We used stone (cant remember what size but could ask hubby) ??mm to dust which was compacted down. Its a very hard surface but odd stones do come loose very now and then. Its not slippy when wet as its an uneven surface. Ours is on a slope so the heavy rain just washes it clean. Works great for ours (we have four) as they are closed onto the area a lot of the time in winter with haynets when the field is too boggy.
 
A yard I used to work at had a small area to put the horses out in the winter (when mud was over knee deep :eek: ) they just fenced off an area and put down wood chippings that they got free from local gardeners/ tree surgeons etc. When it was put down deep enough the horses didn't sink through, and they used to jump around and roll, they put hay directly on the surface and it was brilliant all winter.
 
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