Heavy use areas help protect pastures from soil compaction during the wet months and overgrazing during the summer. Designing a heavy use area properly can help you prevent mud, manage manure, maximize chore efficiency, and protect animal health and water quality.

Tips on installing a heavy use area

Pick a dry, well-drained area away from existing steams, ponds, wetlands, or other water bodies.
Choose a location that will make chores like feeding and manure pick up as efficient as possible.
Consider accessibility for your own vehicles and others, such as gravel and feed trucks. Size gates to accommodate tractor and truck equipment.
Size the area large so that it’s large enough for animal movement and comfort but small enough to easily pick manure. A minimum size would be 400 square feet per animal for livestock in general.
Use footing material suitable for your area and soils, and placed over geotextile fabric. Animal-friendly hog fuel, wood chips, 5/8-minus gravel, or sand are common choices for footing.
Install gutters and downspouts on all buildings and divert water away from heavy use areas. Use swales or subsurface drainage on the outside of the confinement area if surface water threatens to enter.
Protect downspouts from livestock damage.
Provide adequate outdoor lighting.
Select fencing material with safety in mind. Electric wire provides the most flexibility in terms of maintenance and adjusting the size of the area. Other fencing materials can be supplemented with electric fencing to protect both the livestock and the fence.
Eliminate protruding nails and bolts. Remove loose and hanging wire. Consider covering T-posts with caps and covering in a protective sheath.
Leave a grassed or vegetated buffer on the downslope side of the heavy use area to filter sediments and nutrient from runoff.
Once a heavy use area is installed and in use, be sure to pick manure every one to three days and enclose animals during the wet months or when pasture is grazed down to three inches or less in the summer.

Questions?

Your local conservation district can help you pick a site, determine the size you will need, and provide other technical assistance on design. Snohomish Conservation District farm planners can be reached at 425-335-5634 or farmplanners(at)snohomishcd.org.