Over the last 2 weeks we have gotten about 4″ of rain and when you have horses out in pasture or a dry lot (when there is no grass)you get a lot of mud. My pasture currently looks like a swamp and the two pens that horses are in looking like wading pools. Last night we had a huge storm come in and I moved the two outside horses into the barn with the others who spend their nights inside.
When I got home from work this morning, I needed to turn horses out. Surveying the mess we have I decided to leave Jet, who usually lives in my round pen in his stall, and Dori who lives in a pen inside the pasture, in their stalls. They had no high ground and I would rather not have to deal with stratches and thrush. I turned all the other horses out in the pasture because they have a couple of places they can get out of the water.
There are several ways you can combat the mud and help keep your horses’ feet healthy.
- I use my extra stall mats along the front of my stalls and in front of the hay barn to give my horses somewhere dry to eat.
- There is a low spot in my pasture near my mare’s pen that I have dumped my bedding and old hay in to combat the water.
- We disc the pasture a couple of times through the winter weather pre
mitting. - I use blankets on my regularly ridden or worked horses to make grooming easy.
- Baserock is used on a regular basis to give horses a dry place to stand.
- Pea gravel and sand has been used also.
Mud is not our friend, but we all have different methods to deal with it!
What do you do to help combat the mud at your barn? Tell us in the comments!
