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High Use Areas

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T O P I C R E V I E W
CloversMum	Posted - Dec 14 2015 : 10:05:46 PM How do each of you manage your high use areas? How do you keep the mud down? Are wood chips the only or best answer? In our future plans for a dairy barn, there are plans to create a "cow path" from each pasture up to the barn. It might be gravel on top of cloth. That may be fine for a path for my cows, but I'm wondering right around their shelters. Pros and cons for gravel? Pros and cons for wood chips? Best method of getting the best price for each?
6 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)
CloversMum	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 8:10:39 PM Are aged pine needles okay for pregnant cows? And, if so, how aged? My goats can't have pine either if they are pregnant (can cause the fetuses to abort); although, pine branches are good for them if they are sick. And, of course, I feed them pine branches when they aren't pregnant. They think it is a grand treat! A chipper would be a great idea; although, our farmstead is on old farm fields so no big trees yet. We've planted many and I get sad if a single one gets damaged or dies. No wood chipping here unless it were from branches/trees from elsewhere!
maryjane	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 4:20:25 PM We make a fair amount of chips whenever we take a tree down. We have a chipper that attaches to our tractor. Inevitably, those chips end up with pine needles in them so I have to keep them away from my pregnant cows. Bulls only if there are fresh pine needles amongst the chips.
Andrea0509	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 3:58:41 PM I've been wondering what to do for wet areas as well. We have a huge brush pile from trimming overgrown trees this summer and I was thinking about chipping them and using for this purpose.
NellieBelle	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 2:03:23 PM Horses and cows get bruised hooves/feet. Injury, cause lameness. Also rock is slippery and not solid footing. When you go to clean up the rock and gravel, it's just a nuisance. Pine shavings can be picked up and moved out, and the ground made ready for seeding come spring. Just nicer all the way around, and once established, it does the best. I must say, that not even pine shavings, gravel or what have you, would have worked here with the amount of rain we received. You just have to work with and through it. You can only try and make it workable until things change for the better. We tried both gravel and rock and I wouldn't ever do it again. I'll stick to pine shavings for now. Just me. I'll plant to prairie or pasture grass come time. Others may get along fine with gravel and rock.
CloversMum	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 1:20:39 PM A good tip to remember for installing BarBarA waterers! Or at least for waterers that humans didn't need to fill each day... Janet, you mentioned elsewhere that gravel and rock didn't work for you. Why? Personal preference or something different? I read about pine versus cedar chips that cedar puts out a toxic fume but it does keep bugs away. Cedar can make a horse or chickens ill by the fumes or by ingesting it. Pine is more absorbent but less able to keep smells down. And, it sounds like it is safer. I read that many people mix the two, along with some sawdust. Or they put small amounts of cedar down first, covered with several inches of pine.
maryjane	Posted - Dec 15 2015 : 08:46:42 AM Kade was telling me that at the vet clinic where he used to work, they put the water for the animals on top of a hill, quite a ways away from where they ate and hung out and the path was graveled so that it helped keep their hooves trimmed.