[RC] Pure Clay & hogs fuel--NOT! - Mary KraussI'm currently paying many dollars to have cedar removed from my round pen. The sub-base is clay, the base is packed rock, and the footing was cedar--recommended by our otherwise infallible arena- construction guy. He gave and we took poor advice. One horse or another falls once a week. The stuff is terribly slippery when wet. We're replacing the cedar with sand, no fabric. The bigger arena (yep, that's right, we're putting in a BIG arena--wahoo!!!! :-) is clay, felt (not road fabric), packed crushed rock, then sand. You might want to invest in the USDF's Arena Manual. Best bucks ever even if they did staple the pamphlet together inside out..... The thing is packed full of up-to-date information in layman's language. Bottom line--clay is bad, sand and gravel are good.Might be cheapest to throw quite a bit of gravel over the clay and call it good--as long as the use is only a paddock and it's picked clean consistently--the gravel is great for their feet-- rescues their hooves from constant sogginess and hardens 'em up at the same time. I live up in N. Washington and have dreams of inheriting a gravel quarry. Good luck, Mary K. p.s. the fabric is spendy and unnecessary for a paddock it seems to me. We didn't even wait for the muck to dry, nor did we remove it-- just kept adding gravel. It's clean and dry year-round now. Hint: no leaving hay, manure, tree debris, or other organic material on the surface. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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