How well does the Geotextile fabric work?

[Lady_Counselor]

I did a search, but nothing specific to this question came up. To those who use Geotextile fabric, how well does it work?
How long does an application last?
What sort of base/fill did you use?
I am dealing with a lot of mud and muck this winter, already. I have a guy scraping the sacrifice area and laying down river sand tomorrow. That should get us through the rest of winter and mud season.
I think I want to install geotextile next summer. Around the feeder, the gate and waterer, and a path from the gate out. I have clay over gravel, so drainage can be iffy in spots.

Any advice? Things you would have done differently? I am looking at Lowes for the fabric; is that good enough or are there other companies who specialize in animal footing?
TIA.

[demidq]

I assume you are planning to put gravel of some sort on top of the geotextile? I don’t think it is meant to be used by itself, but rather as a base to prevent gravel from being irretrievably mixed in with the mud.
I think there is a similar product aimed at livestock people called “cow carpet”.

[Lady_Counselor]

Yes, I would use the recommended base and fill for it. I am on a riverbank, so we have pockets of clay and gravel.
The sacrifice paddock has a gravely base. My landscape guy says that might be fine for the installation. We will know once it is dug down.
He hasn’t done paddocks before with it. He’s done driveways and such. I was hoping to get input from those using it as to the effectiveness and how they had it installed, and what, if anything, they would do differently too.
I have heard of Cow Carpet. I am trying to figure out how different it is from the Lowes products, mostly because I can pick up at the local Lowes and save the shipping cost. If it is significantly better for this, then that will be what I use.

[Frog_Pond]

If you have a large area to do, I would look for the cheapest source possible and I doubt it’s Lowes. I think of that stuff as high priced retail, oriented for gardeners and small home projects. Farmtek sells it in bulk and it is the same product, but whether or not it’s exactly the same in terms of thickness, weave and durability, I don’t know. I just had about 100’ of geotex laid down on our dirt road that turned to deep mud this fall – an excavator scraped it, laid down the geotex, and covered it with tailings (fist sized rocks), 3/4" gravel, and stone dust. It’s fantastic. It’s a wooded hillside in an area that is mostly granite ledge and streams, and general bogginess so it’s actually more like miraculous that this process stabilized such a large area. It’s taking a lot of abuse from trucks and going strong, despite all of the rain lately. I was very lucky that my barn site work and this road repair was done by an excavator who is a horseman. If you can find someone that has done paddocks, I recommend talking to them. Good luck.

[Guilherme]

For sourcing try your local Co-Op or Soil Conservation Service office. Our SCS sells it at government cost (about as low as you can get).

We’ve got it down around our equipment barn and it really works well. We will try it next year on a couple of “runways” that get quite muddy and difficult to navigate in our very wet weather.

G.

[alfonsina]

Relevant topic for so many of us now! I’m interested in this discussion too. There are some manufacturers of flexible plastic grid panels that are laid over a base layer of fabric, and then filled and actually overfilled with gravel. The plastic grid is to keep the gravel from migrating down inclines. Lighthoof is one of these, but their website seems to be down right now. Am curious about people’s experiences with these systems too.

Stopped once to chat with some road construction contractors who used a seemingly great fabric that was a plastic felt, but unusual to me as it was at least 1/4" thick, so hopefully extra strong. Saw another one recently that was of rather thick strands of plastic, maybe almost 1/8" wide, semi-melted into a coarse, relatively open fabric that was about 1/2" thick. Would love to learn the best options.

[Calvincrowe]

Do not use landscape fabric from a big box store! No! Get thee to a erosion control company–you local ag store or extension office can point you that way. I put down real geotextile cloth over hard-packed natural soil (a bit clay-ee, a bit soil-ee) 7 summers ago. Simply rolled it out, and put down my gravel. I chose “crusher run” or “screenings” size–pretty small, very angular, clean (no dirt). Basically, it’s what falls out/through the screens when the pit is crushing bigger gravel into smaller gravel. Super on feet for horses, packs nicely, but stays porous so water drains through. If your sacrifice area has a bit of a slope, it will be best. Honestly, I don’t see the need for the “dig out the soil, put down cloth, lay on your footing”. I love my paddock! You MUST clean the organics off it daily–all the loose hay, poop, leaves, etc. Otherwise, the organics clog the cloth and it no longer drains. And your gravel turns into a nasty, soupy mess. I have had to replenish my gravel once since we put it in. I keep a 4-6" depth over my cloth. Love it.

[Ghazzu]

I agree about getting it from a better source than Home Despot, but when I had a mire outside the dutch doors at my old place, I did what you are planning OP–removed the muck, laid down a layer of crushed stone, then put the geotextile over that, followed by a few inches of stone dust, which was then compacted.

It worked beautifully, was easy to pick manure off of, drainage was excellent.

It appears to be holding up for the new owners, as well.

I’m planning on doing the same thing around the gates in my pastures at my current place in the spring. (In fact, still have quite a bit of the big honkin’ roll of geotex that I brought with me when I moved.)

[Simkie]

Why shouldn’t you buy from the big box stores? Is it just cost? Lowes certainly looks to sell something that’s identical to the “cow carpet”:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_204109-11764-38119_4294650403__?productId=3316324&Ntt=eotextile&Ns=p_product_price|0&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_price|0%26Ntt%3Deotextile%26page%3D1&facetInfo=Nonwoven%20geotextile

[Calvincrowe]

I got mine direct from an erosion control company for half that cost, that might be the best reason to not buy from a big box store :lol:. That is very similar to what I used, so if that is the best/only source then go for it.

[Simkie]

I’m absolutely down for half that cost, I was just wondering if there was some other reason the stuff from big box stores wasn’t up to the job Awesome! Cheaper!

Because of this thread, I found my county’s soil and water conservation district and I will contact them about my “feedlot” for my horses. Thanks, guys!!

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=Simkie;7913174]
Why shouldn’t you buy from the big box stores? Is it just cost? Lowes certainly looks to sell something that’s identical to the “cow carpet”:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_204109-11764-38119_4294650403__?productId=3316324&Ntt=eotextile&Ns=p_product_price|0&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_price|0%26Ntt%3Deotextile%26page%3D1&facetInfo=Nonwoven%20geotextile[/QUOTE]

I’d say cost would be the major issue. When I bought my last roll from our local Co-Op (12 months ago) it was less than half the Lowes cost. IIRC SCRS was even less (by about $30/roll) but they didn’t have any in stock. The Co-Op will also sell by the foot; I don’t know if Lowes will or not.

G.

[CourtneyANYC]

I have it in 3 of my 5 sacrifice paddocks. After a year, two of the geotextile paddocks look great. The third (that contains a busy body horse) is a mess. Horse has pawed and pulled it up, then dragged it around, kicked sand over it, ripped it…I hate it. Worse, I can’t drag the turnouts because any little thread of fabric that pokes through gets caught on the drag and then my tractor pulls it up. And they MUST be dragged!

I’m not a fan, but if I didn’t have the hellion gelding I probably would be. Depends on what kind of horses you have. If I could do it again I’d do all five with 2.5" of packed stone dust covered with 4" of sand.

[Jim_in_PA]

Geo textile has been a “standard” practice in land construction for a long time and for good reason…it keeps soil from infiltrating up through the stone that makes up a surface or is the base layer for one. Soil infiltration creates…mud.

For folks who are having an issue with it being dug up…it wasn’t installed under a deep enough base then. A few inches of stone, etc., is not enough for a proper footing and there should also be a well compacted, interlocking base over it. In driveways, that’s typically 6-8" of 3/4" modified installed and rolled before the surface layer goes on, for example. For a paddock, I’d probably put down 4-6" of modified, compact it well, and then put in stone dust footing. But that’s me…

[Simkie]

I thought this white paper was particularly helpful when I was trying to figure out just what went into install:

[URL=“http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/aen/aen79/aen79.pdf”]http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/aen/aen79/aen79.pdf

Not putting enough fill over the fabric seems like a good way to really hate it!

[gypsymare]

it comes in different weights measured in ounces per square yard… 8-10 is midweight, 10-16 is heavy weight for hard use. Some of the stuff in the box stores is 4 or less and won’t last very long.

[Chall]

Wow, I thought one of the requirements was you had to create a swale, ditch or run off-path to give the water a place to run off to (poor sentence structure there sorry).

So it can be used without that and still work?

[SharonA]

In my limited experience, which was life-altering for the better, you don’t need a swale or ditch. All you’re doing is replacing a foot of organic material that turns to mud in wet weather with a foot (or less, depending on your situation) of clean inorganic material that water will simply drain through and go where it was going to go anyway. You have to use the geotextile fabric to keep dirt from infiltrating up and your gravel from sinking down. Can not even tell you what a difference it made to the quaking mud pit of despair in my horse’s paddock. Transformed it into “no issues land.” I did fabric, covered with four inches of large gravel, covered with six inches of stonedust. Dry, clean, well-draining… it was awesome.

[ShotenStar]

I’m another GeoTex fan – did my sacrifice paddock a few years ago. I did find that in a few Very High Use areas (around the hay feeder and one door) that I needed to add some ring mats to keep all those hoovies from digging in too deep. I prefer ring mats to solid rubber mats because the ring mats did into the stone dust and stay in place better.

star

[Jim_in_PA]

[QUOTE=Chall;7914252]
Wow, I thought one of the requirements was you had to create a swale, ditch or run off-path to give the water a place to run off to (poor sentence structure there sorry).

So it can be used without that and still work?[/QUOTE]

It’s a best practice to control ground water and direct it away from an area like a paddock, etc. The purpose of the textile is to prevent soil infiltration into the footing, not to control water.