Managing Mud In Pastures

Too much surface water, very little vegetation, manure, and lots of hoof traffic. This is a recipe for a muddy pasture. It’s a pain for owners, unsightly for the farm, and it’s no picnic for the animals, either.

Melissa Fery is an Extension small farms assistant professor with Oregon State University. She says mud is a serious problem because it causes foot and hoof problems, and creates an environment for pests and parasites to flourish.

Abundant vegetation is a good mud manager, so pasture rotation is one solution. Having a "sacrifice lot" is another.

"Also work towards building a heavy-use area or a paddock with a footing material like gravel, or some type of wood bark product, something so animals can be up and dry, and then manage that area," says Fery. "So pick up the manure on a regular basis, pick up the wasted feed so that it doesn’t continue to add to the problem."

Good drainage is very important. Inspect your runoff system and make sure rain gutters on nearby buildings aren’t dumping gallons of water into the pasture.

If there is a low area where water tends to collect, Fery says to keep the animals away from it when conditions are soupy.

"This is because animals walking over the area, especially heavier animals like cattle or horses are going to compact that wet soil, and it will lead to an area that just doesn’t produce well. So that should be an area in your pasture that you would try to avoid when the conditions are wet," she says. "Perhaps you could use some electric fencing of some sort to exclude animals from those areas."