Moving sheep over wet ground

[spudnik]

I'm building a forest road between pastures, and it passes through wet ground. To minimize disturbance to the wetland, I'm debating between corduroy, and a tractor-wide elevated path of half-timbers set parallel with the road. Does anyone have experience with sheep walking, say 30 yards, on corduroy? On flat milled logs?

 

[Digger]

I've raised sheep, but never faced this issue. The only corduroy I know of is a textured fabric, so I'm dying to know more about that and Google hasn't been much help. I think the timbers would work if they can hold the weight of the sheep.

 

[FarmHand]

Trying to visualize this. Would it be a permanent solution or just walking them once? When you say wetlands are you talking about swampy wet mud or is there standing water?

 

[spudnik]

Trying to visualize this. Would it be a permanent solution or just walking them once? When you say wetlands are you talking about swampy wet mud or is there standing water?

In the summer there's standing water, slowly moving. It's frozen now, which is when I would build it. It would be permanent, lasting I hope up to 10 years. It would double as a logging skid trail. I have another, longer route which involves a stream crossing. VERY HARD to get sheep to wade through water. My question is how will the flock react to walking on logs, whole or half round? Corduroy is just whole logs side by side laid perpendicular to the direction of travel. We have spruce, tamarack, and cedar, 6-10" dia.

 

[MC]

We raised sheep when I was a kid. They hate water as I'm sure you know but they'll cross a bridge if it's wood. The perpendicular logs sound fine. If it's flat they should be fine. I'd probably put a couple logs stacked on each side so the sheep don't fall off the sides.

 

[Digger]

@spudnik Hey, thanks for setting me straight! I figured corduroy must be something man-made like a textured bridge and I never would've guess correctly. I understand what you're talking about. For some reason we always called them halves and wholes when I was growing up and it stuck with me. I'm glad to know the proper term.