Annual maintenance required on farm roadways

Now that grazing begins to get in to full swing, farm roadways will come in to frequent use.

Farm roadways are an essential tool in the belt of grazing farmers for animals and machinery access to paddocks and to increase utilisation of grazed grass.

Maintenance is required to ensure roadways do not fall in to major disrepair, but the most important factor with roadways (especially for dairy cows — walking twice daily) is to ensure a firm, smooth surface that will not have a negative impact on hoof health in the lead up to breeding.

Existing roadway repairs

Roadways should be repaired as necessary, with maintenance required annually or biannually. Particular attention needs to go to the most used areas of the roadway — the first 50-100 metres near the parlour or farmyard.

If it is found that this area is particularly hard to keep clean, then considerations should be given to concreting this area.

Caution needs to be taken when this is done as small stones can be dragged on to the concrete from gravel roads. When a cow steps on a stone sitting on concrete the stone can be driven up into the cow’s hoof.

Frequent sweeping of the concreted section, or a kerb to force cows to raise their feet before stepping on to the concrete, needs to be completed.

The most common roadway repairs necessary are blinding-off rough areas, filling potholes and drainage of roadways. Grass verges along the edge of roads should be cleaned off to allow the water on the road to drain in to the field. Where roadways are lower than the field, then they will have to be raised to allow drainage.

Potholes are caused by sitting water, and while a road may sit higher than the adjacent field, a crossfall from the centre or from one side to the other is required to keep water from puddling.

Generally, a thin layer of 804-type material (small broken stone with ‘fat’ running through it) can be used to bring up the road level to height.

The road should slope to one or both sides, with a slope of 1:25/2.3° recommended and finished off with a suitable surface material and compacted.

Quarry dust should be applied and rolled on to any rougher areas at a thickness of 50-60mm and should not have pebbles larger than 5-6mm in it.

Runoff

While livestock prefer a roadway that cambers from the middle, where there is a risk of runoff in to any watercourses, the cambering of slopes from the centre of the road must not be adopted.

As part of changes to the nitrates laws which came in to effect in 2021, roadways running alongside watercourses must ensure that the camber is away from the watercourse with soiled water directed to the field.

If you haven’t already completed this, then it should be done immediately.

Roadways on steeply sloping ground tend to suffer badly from rainfall, as streams of water flow downhill, gathering momentum to remove the top layer of finer materials from roadways and exposing the rougher base layers.

Where this has happened, the finer material should be replaced and angled ramps (to prevent build-up of soiled water on the roadway), shallow channels or cut-off drains at intervals across the roadway and in to the field will divert water off the road before it builds up volume and momentum.

Costs of repair

Teagasc estimates that a four-metre wide roadway, with 0.3 metre depth of 804 material will need one 25 tonne load to cover each nine to 11 metres in length.

This assumes a density of about 2t/m3 for the material used. A similar-sized load would cover 60 to 65 metres with a 50mm surface layer, for example quarry dust for blinding off.

The price of road-making material — both crushed stone and dust for the surface — is between €9 and €12 plus VAT/tonne, depending on supplier. Digger hire for a 13t machine will cost in the region of €40-€50 + VAT per hour, while most farmers will provide their own tractor and a trailer for drawing of materials.

A vibrating roller should be used to help seal the quarry dust, and will cost €100-€150 per day depending on size.