Rural Heritage August/September 2025

by Donn Hewes W hat a great week to sit inside and write about the mud on our horse-powered farms and how we deal with it. The forecast for the next five days is showers followed by rain, followed by thunderstorms, followed by a brief clearing (may miss us!) followed by more showers! Why would I want to write about this, you might ask? There are two important considerations that I want to share. First is the mud’s impact on our horses, and second is the rain and horses’ impact on the land. If you think I am going to suggest that I don’t have mud and you shouldn’t either, guess again. I haven’t won the Mega Millions yet. Having kept four to eight draft horses at a time for the last 25 years in central New York State, I have seen some mud. My biggest concern for a long time has been its impact on the horses. This is what I have found: some mud is worse than other mud. The mud doing the most damage to my horses was where they were eating while standing in it, or standing in it while waiting (waiting to eat, waiting to go in, etc.) While they stand in this mud, they poop and this becomes a concentration of manure, mud and gravel of various sizes. It is this concoction that caused all kinds of hoof problems for me as I was getting started years ago. I battled a long string of abscesses, hoof rot, mites, and white line disease well into the summer from paddock conditions that started in the spring. Mud, Mud, Everywhere Mud

Heavy rains have made the paddocks, and the lanes leading to them, a mass of pugged ground.

Rural Heritage

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