[zackyb]

Hello

I have my pigs in two fields and this horrendous rain has caused part of them to flood and they are so water logged !

I started keeping pigs early last year so have had my first winter, but even the terribly cold weather was not as bad as the wet and the mud. Our soil has a lot of clay and the ground is a combination of mud soup/swamp/icerink/quicksand!!

I am searching now  on line for bulk basic woodchip to help absorb the water, make the ground more manageable for them to walk on and feed and to get into and out of for feeding and checking etc!

Any advice greatly appreciated, any contacts or recommendations for cheap woodchip suppliers also much appreciated. I am in the Leeds 25 area, near Selby, York, Leeds, Tadcaster area.
 
Thanks very much

[robert waddell]

just think what we Scots have had to endure last summer and almost every year
woodchip wont absorb water      woodchip and wood bark once they could not get rid of it but with bio waste recovery and large scale woodchip boilers it has risen in price and is very scarce   one company was selling it for £65 per builders bag

[bloomer]

just remember wood floats!!!

[MAK]

We had a mud puddle where the pigs step outside - I chucked a lot of very old hay in the mud that the pigs trod down. The only trouble is that it baked in the sun and turned into a slab good enough to build a wall.
It really did absorb the mud though.

Wood chip wood just float away.

[zackyb]

Thanks for your feedback so far. Have put a small amount of woodchip/mulch/bark stuff down and it is working a treat so far.

[harry]

i would expect the wood chip to totaly disapear in a day with pigs walking on it..... it will get sunny soon mine dries out in 3 days of sun its 6inches deep mud now but even with todays sun its drying out

[redborneschoolfarm]

Why not try your local aboriculturist? They often send their chippings to landfill, ours have been more than happy to donate chippings for flower beds and the like. Woodchip won't do much to absorb the water though, straw is better but will bake like concrete. Might be better to ride it out.

[High Farndale]

Hello

We have two saddlebacks helping to weed and prepare the garden soil for planting - it was a jungle they've enjoyed demolishing.

I looked into local bulk wood chip supplies and found J&S Vicary. I was actually parking outside a BATA country store before asking for prices and one of their lorries just happened to drive past...

I've asked a good number of questions via email and they've always responded promptly: http://www.jsvicary.co.uk/

Tonne bags start at £22 each, depending on the type of wood. It's worth buying a good supply to cover the delivery charge (of £85 in our case).

They're located between York and Hull.

[dyedinthewool]

Hi,
When i first had my piglets they had to go into the spare hens pen  ( 30' x 30') - part grass, previously mowed it to keep it short for the hens so was much like a lawn...and part had beautiful clean woodchips 6" deep evenly raked...
With in two weeks the piglets had 'snouted' up the grass - the woodchips had disappeared into a morass with the soil below they loved the chips because they were easy to dig up.  Holes appeared some 1' deep.  Once it started to rain the the whole pen looked like the somme.  Then when we had a hot sunny spell for a week it all went like concrete.
We moved them to their proper pen morethan  Twice the size and with in weeks that was also dug up and with even more rain became a bog.  I used the dirty straw from their house to make walk ways just to get to the fence - hoping that will rot down along with the dung.
I think that what ever you put there they will dig it up at least straw does rot down were as woodchips/bark take a lot longer to decompose.