How to Soak Up Mud in a Paddock

Mud means hard work for owners of horses or other livestock. As well as looking messy, it traps bacteria and pathogens, which can cause thrush or mud fever and may contaminate water sources. Mud collects in paddocks and run-in areas where horses mill around or wait to be fed. Manure makes it worse, and where the paddock grass breaks down through trampling, it can leave the soil unstable.

Your choice of methods for soaking up mud and making a drier footing depend mainly on what materials are available locally and how much you want to pay.

Things You'll Need

  • Quicklime or hydrated lime
  • Coarse washed fill sand
  • Crushed limestone gravel of 3/8- to 3/4-inch grade
  • Hog fuel (wood chip or shredded bark)
  • Rake, hoe, shovel and tamper
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Instructions

    • 1
      The area outside the barn door soon turns to mud.

      Scrape off manure and excess mud. Where the problem area is outside a stall or barn, take off enough muddy soil, if possible, to make a slight slope away from the barn as an aid to drainage.

    • 2

      Pour quicklime or hydrated lime onto the mud to dry it out. Mix the lime into the mud using rakes and hoes. Compress it with a hand tamper.

    • 3
      Sand makes a clean absorbent surface for a corral.

      Lay gravel about six inches deep. Put larger stones on the base then finer gravel on top if you have bought different grades. Top with 4 inches of sand or 6 to 12 inches of wood chip or shredded bark.

    • 4

      Mix asphalt millings, bluestone dust or blue metal with either sand, gravel or bark as an alternative footing if they are more readily and cheaply available.