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Discussion on Sinkholes in pasture
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Member:
lindas
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Posted on Monday, Apr 7, 2008 - 5:33 pm:
Hi everybody. I've read all the posts about groundhogs in pastures...but I don't know quite what to do with this problem of sinkholes coming up in my pastures. Our home is about 40 years old, and our 5 acres of pasture used to be the back yard, as the original owners had about 90 acres. We are the first people to put livestock on this land. We only own the house and 8 acres of the original estate. Three years ago we began preparing the former yard as a pasture and moved our horses on it about 1 1/2 years ago. I had never noticed any problems with the pastures, but last summer at the end of the summer DrOught we began to find sinkholes all over the lower (largest) pasture. These are terrifying holes, about 4-8 inches wide and 2 to 3 feet deep. Real "leg breakers". We fill them in with sand (so grass won't grow on them and we can keep an eye on them.) I have started walking the pasture about once a week, and did not find any more during the winter. Thought the problem was solved and then, with the heavy rains this spring, we found 3 more...one of which was HUGE! I got my dad to come and look at it...he is a construction engineer and has dealt with these things before. He thinks that years ago when the land was forested, the previous owners took the lazy way of clearing the land, and just cut the trees off at ground level and mowed over them. Now the tree roots have rotted and sunk, and the holes crusted over on the top, but the cavitations are present under the ground and they open up during excessively dry and wet spells. Needless to say, this is terrifying. These things open up without warning, and in the summer when the grass is thick they are hard to find. Fortunately only one of my pastures is affected, but the other one is just a little 1.5 acre paddock. According to my father, any depression in the ground is suspect, and there are a lot of them! We have a course of action to try to deal with them... First we are walking the pasture daily and putting flags on any depression or suspicious area. Next I will take an iron pipe and probe each depression. If the pipe breaks through we will either dig it out and fill it in or, if it is a small defect, flag it with PVC pipe so the horses will stay away from it and we can keep an eye on it. I'll still have to walk the pasture weekly (at least I'll get my exercise!)
Has anybody else dealt with this type of problem before? If so, were you able to solve it and how?
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Member:
ekaufman
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Posted on Monday, Apr 7, 2008 - 9:07 pm:
Hi Linda,
I bought a place that had formerly been infested with prairie dogs and bad abandoned fencepost holes. I take the brute force approach and drive my tractor around with a bucket load of fill and fill them as I find them. When I first bought the place, I brush hogged so I could see them and everything else. Some critters (we call them hootenannies) keep digging out some of the holes.
For your pasture, I would spend a few minutes trying to determine whether you are looking at old stumps or possibly old fencelines, since a fenceline would allow you to predict future hole locations. If there's a pattern to the holes, it would make your life easier.
But my best advice is to lunge your horses before turnout and throw hay around until they get very familiar with the pasture. That way, they'll hopefully be moving slowly enough to see the holes and avoid them. Most horses are quite good at avoiding pasture hazards, though I would worry about them also.
- Elizabeth
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Member:
imogen
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 6:25 am:
Erm... a lot of horses and cattle will also dig holes of the size you describe. I just get stones I dig up in the garden and fill 'em in. Tractor and loading box help greatly, but can be done with a wheelbarrow! I would put soil on them not sand.
Imogen
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Member:
lindas
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 6:29 am:
Thanks Elizabeth...oh, I wish they were fence posts. We checked, but there is no pattern. I do worry about the horses breaking through the thin crust while running. I like the lunging idea. Will try that to keep them calm until I am comfortable that I have found them all. -Linda
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Member:
lindas
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 6:31 am:
Thanks everybody.
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Member:
scooter
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 7:06 am:
Hi Linda I have sink holes also, we live where they use to mine. Some of the holes are VERY deep where the cattle are, I always worry about loosing a calf down them.
Where the horse pasture is they are more like you describe, I fretted for a couple years about them...filled them with rock and marked them.
I then got lax and don't bother much with them anymore.
The horses know where they are. They graze that area low and I have never had a problem. They run through that pasture quite often and I see them avoid the hole areas. I guess they have more sense then we give them credit
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Member:
cpacer
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 2:56 pm:
How about this for finding a sink hole --
was trotting along on my little course I've outlined in my front yard a couple months ago and my horse took a nasty stumble. Went back to check out what he tripped on and discovered a large dark hole that was too dark and deep to really see what was going on inside.
When my husband got home we reinvestigated with a flash light--turned out to be an old well, about 3 feet wide and 30 feet deep lined with rocks. My horses leg went right in it! The entire hole was only covered with a few inches of dirt this entire time, and we've gone over it plenty.
Geez, the thoughts of how bad that could have been still keep me up at night and I'm now suspicious of every dent in the ground. I no longer wonder how the heck people manage to fall into wells anymore.
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Member:
jowidner
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 6:38 pm:
cp - That is one scary tale! When I was a teen, my friends and I used to love to explore old abandoned home sites that we came across while trail riding in the woods. None of us fell down any wells or cisterns, but I'm sure they were there and we were just plain lucky not to stumble into them.
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Member:
lindas
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Posted on Tuesday, Apr 8, 2008 - 11:34 pm:
Wow! That reminds me of growing up in North Georgia and riding my horses through the woods that happened to be infested with mica mines. They are like wells, and many of them had been covered years before with just a piece of plywood or something and forgotten. The leaves fell over them and the wood rotted, and often you just could not see them. Every once in awhile you would hear stories about some kid falling in them. Of course we could not be bothered with sticking to the trails...we were too young and stupid! And besides, trails were for the old folks. Guess I got lucky cause I'm still here, and my old Paint horse Piper lived well into his 30's without a scratch.
Yes, these sinkholes have got me in high gear trying to repair things. Guess I can cancel my gym membership because I'm going to get lots of exercise filling these things in!
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