Farming and Mud Management

Mud is a big factor in farming. (If I can make this interesting, I want the Pulitzer.) To the casual farm visitor, mud is just avoided. It appears to be kept behind fences that contain it nicely. You stay on your side of the fence and it stays on its side of the fence. Every bodies happy, right.

Well..., contrary to appearances, farmers spend a large part of their time trying to keep mud off the farm entirely with varying degrees of success. In fact, farming success, is inversely proportional to the quantity of mud on your farm. This can be quantified in the equation: PSuc x 1/mud= ASuc where PSuc is potential success, mud is measured in cubic yards and Asuc is actual success.

You have to be careful here because this is similar to the equation for the farm life: LSuc x mud= ALSuc In this case, LSuc is Life sucking, mud is still measured in cubic yards and AL Suc is the actual amount of sucking your life does.
In this case mud is a multiplier.

One would think that animals like mud since they always appear to be standing in it. Well, the same two equations apply to all mammalian life forms on the farm and appearances to the contrary, they hate it too. They really, really hate it. Yes, even pigs. True, pigs will use it to cool off if they don't have a beach or swimming pool, but most mud occurs in the late fall, winter and spring, when the mud is cold. Try this experiment, it will give you the idea. Put your boots on and go stand in the middle of an acre of mud. Now, take your boots off and walk around. Not much fun is it. Most hoofed animals have the equivalent of an unwaterproofed leather shoes on. If they pass through mud quickly, it isn't too bad. Standing in mud however is hard on them. They get hoof rot. Hoof rot is athletes foot on steroids. Now you can see why PSuc x 1/mud= ASuc. If you consider that most farm mud contains a large sucking component, you can see why mud management is so important. (I am leaving manure out of both the equations for simplification.)

The last few days, we have been fighting hoof rot in the goats. They had a small but strategically located mud patch and developed some interesting cases of hoof rot. The solution is trimming away the affected areas until the rot is gone, dipping their hooves in a solution of zinc, or copper sulfates, and eliminate the mud. So this morning, I will go out with a shovel, the tractor and Kris(someone has to run the shovel), and try to eliminate the mud in the doorway to the goat barn.
The goats, I am sure, will appreciate the improvement.