Mud, Mud, and more Mud!!! HELP!?!?!?

[ki4got]

my property is fairly sloped (ie no flat places to build anything decent) yet even with all this slope and ability to drain, I am still inundated with MUD!

any suggestions what might help?

the ground here is mostly Virginia red clay, and when the sun hits it for a few hours it dries right out, but when it rains, it's a squishy sloppy mess.

sorry if I give too much detail, but I figure the more information the better when planning...

the breeding pens i'm planning to build (8 in total) will be on a fairly flat(ish) area, and it seems the only time I've been able to keep the prior coop un-muddy was to cover the whole thing. since this area is already shaded to the west and south by trees, i'd like to let in as much light as possible, without having to resort to covering everything, if I can.

I have another more open area I could use (bottom picture, lower red square), but over the span of about 25' (the length and width of my proposed project) it's got a drop of about 2' to the adjacent corners and nearly 4' to the opposite corner. so unless I build everything stair-stepped (or just totally sloped) it's not much of an option right now.

our property is roughly rectangular, following the lay of the hill, and goes from 1800' at the bottom to 2100' at the house (and continues for another 200' elevation rise to the top of our property line...


here's an aerial view of my property, with the red areas where i'm 'allowed' to put chickens. LOL hubby doesn't want anything on the other side of the driveway to block the view of anyone coming up. (anyone want a sailboat? cheap? pm me! seriously!)


for scale, the shed at the bottom right (run in for the horses) is 18x20 (and the sailboat is a Chrysler C-22)

 

[jruhle]

Don't get ducks, they make it so much worse!!! I have a similar problem on my property, no flat ground anywhere. Our only solution is to spend thousands of dollars on heavy equipment and rock fill. I doesn't help that it rains A LOT here. I recently solved my squishy duck mess by making several trips to a rock pit and building a nice dry trail so I didn't have to sink up to my knee's to feed them. Rock fill and sand for drainage works well, we've laid several pipes in the ground also. If you have a mill nearby the shavings can be used as fill also and it composts nicely in a couple years.

 

[Ga Boy]

Sand, sand, and more sand.

 

[ki4got]

I was wondering, would it help to lay down plastic sheeting to keep the sand from sinking into the clay? the last time I put sand down it became part of the clay/mud pretty quickly.

yeah the plastic would hold the water up some, but the water would run out downhill while the sand would stay pretty much where it is. especially if I put some small gravel on the downhill end, to keep the sand from washing out?

 

[Mrwinchester]

Just a thought, how far down until you hit bedrock? you might have to remove the clay and replace it with 3 inch aggregate to allow water to flow and install irrigation.

 

[ki4got]

ROFL

easier said than done. in that section, bedrock is about 10-15' down... go 20 feet the other side of my driveway, bedrock is above ground in places...

to remove the clay and put in rock would probably cost me as the property itself when we bought it. i'd be better off (financially) building on stilts and having a raised walking platform to visit them with.

at this point i'm thinking dig it down 6-8" or so, laying 1" chicken wire on the clay and putting 2-3" rock on top of that, topped with smaller gravel to fill in the chinks, then sand to fill in those gaps. keep adding sand until it no longer sifts down thru the rocks. should hold for a while, at least until the wire rusts away, but then maybe everything will have settled enough to be stable by then.

 

[Mrwinchester]

you could always do like they do on logging roads, they fall trees and lay them perpendicular to the direction of travel and literally create floating roads across swamps and bogs. if you were to do the same with cedar or whatever rot resistant timbers you can get in your area even saw mill slab wood and then add your gravel ext. ??? good luck

 

[Mtn Laurel]

We're in Virginia with the same sticky red clay problem. Have been on the same property for almost 30 years and have been working with some muddy spots the entire time. And, yes, sand seems to get sucked into the muck in no time.

Wood chips and organic matter have worked well for us. We got a pickup truck load and put them in the muddy spots. We really piled them on and - while some of them were sucked into the mud - it seemed to change the soil texture and allowed for better draining. We kept piling the organic matter in, just make sure it's not "hot" mulch. Mostly wood chips, straw, and ton's of leaves, which the chickens loved. We even bagged leaves in the autumn to dump on muddy spots in the winter. It was almost like doing the Deep Litter method but in the run instead of the coop. That seemed to keep the soil from compacting as much when it dried, too, and the good news was that I'd see the girls pulling worms out of the dirt.

We'll soon be building a new run in a sloped area to hopefully prevent some of the standing water/mud problem. For walking paths, we've resorted to gravel. Doubt you'd want that for your run but it's been working well between the house and the run. Just a few really slick spots left that we need to fill in now.

 

[ki4got]

We're in Virginia with the same sticky red clay problem. Have been on the same property for almost 30 years and have been working with some muddy spots the entire time. And, yes, sand seems to get sucked into the muck in no time.

Wood chips and organic matter have worked well for us. We got a pickup truck load and put them in the muddy spots. We really piled them on and - while some of them were sucked into the mud - it seemed to change the soil texture and allowed for better draining. We kept piling the organic matter in, just make sure it's not "hot" mulch. Mostly wood chips, straw, and ton's of leaves, which the chickens loved. We even bagged leaves in the autumn to dump on muddy spots in the winter. It was almost like doing the Deep Litter method but in the run instead of the coop. That seemed to keep the soil from compacting as much when it dried, too, and the good news was that I'd see the girls pulling worms out of the dirt.

We'll soon be building a new run in a sloped area to hopefully prevent some of the standing water/mud problem. For walking paths, we've resorted to gravel. Doubt you'd want that for your run but it's been working well between the house and the run. Just a few really slick spots left that we need to fill in now.

thanks... that's what I've been doing, but in some of the pens it kinda builds up fast, you know? so I was hoping to find a 'quick and easy' solution. yeah right.

guess what i'm going to do is more of the same. I've got plenty of old hay available for next to nothing (2 year old round bales, barn kept but dusty), and I may use some landscape timbers and rebar to set a bit of a wall on the low side and fill it in with some dirt from other areas of the property, layer with the hay, and adding shavings on top for them to dig thru. the houses are going to be raised anyways so no worries about that part. wire floor for the summer, lightweight rubber matting for floors in the winter, if necessary, with shavings. then i'll probably do a landscape timber edged walkway with gravel, or those molded concrete / quickrete paving stones. I've got the molds for both cobblestone and brick-type look, so would just need the concrete mix and a friend's electric mixer.

I saw a neat coop idea on another thread (cochins) about someone else using sod in their pen. I may do that on a smaller scale with some orchard grass seed (on good soil) and hay mulched over the top. I discovered if you lay 1/2" hardware cloth over the hay, they can't dig the roots up, so it tends to survive a bit better. you just have to section off the area for a bit to let it get a good foothold first.

 

[ki4got]

lol this is what I needed... suggestions to get my sluggish brain back into gear.

keep them coming, maybe something better will pop out.