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interesting discovery...cheaper lighthoof panels?

Around The Farm
#1

So I am definitely redoing my paddock in the spring and have been looking into options. I found lighthoof. I also found for the 600 square meters I need to do that lighthoof is INCREDIBLY expensive. On a whim I decided to peek around alibaba and found this:

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=ground+stabilization+grid&viewtype=

They also have the square panel ones but they’re significantly more money. If this isn’t the exact same product it is a very, very similar one. Has anyone ordered this product off Alibaba and tried it?

I’m going to hazard a guess that at least some of the manufacturers of ground stabilization products for paddocks are ordering from the same suppliers.

1 Like
#2

Update: lots of horse blankets on here. Some of the minimum order quantities are as low as 6. For those of you who want horse blankets.

#3

So, my old barn owners from my last boarding barn did their entire dry lot in the rubbery style grid they show in the middle 3 pictures on the top row of that site. They purchased theirs from Amazon.

They scraped and roughly leveled the lot, put down crush & run/stone dust/screenings (whatever you want to call it, don’t know the exact size), laid down those grids, then filled them with pea gravel.

It looked beautiful. I can’t tell you how it held up to horse traffic because after they completed it, they never once put a horse in there. It sat vacant the last couple months I was at the farm. :lol:

Pea gravel would not have been my first choice for footing to fill the grids. The barn owner wanted pea gravel because she read online that it is good for hooves; which is true for bare feet (not so much with shoes). But she was relatively new to horses and I don’t think fully understood the biomechanical ramifications of a deep pea gravel paddock.

#4

Most all of these products, when bought commercially, say NOT to fill with pea gravel. Since it is smooth, it can’t lock to itself, it won’t hold up long term and eventually the panels will shift. You are supposed to use 3/8 or less angular stone with fines. Once that is down you put footing over top if you want to use it as an arena. Ideally there is also geotextile underneath.

When you compact it all down there shouldn’t be a deep, moving layer like if you just put down pea gravel. The cells keep things from shifting so the footing stays even over time.

These setups hold up well when done properly. I’m going to guess hers did not hold up since she filled it with pea gravel, contrary to the instructions, instead of 3/8- crusher run with fines like you are supposed to.

I’m curious if anyone has experience ordering from Alibaba though.

#5

I don’t but added this to my favorites as I want to do some new stalls with runs soon. I used the Lighthoof panels in 2 very high traffic areas and just love them. I put down geotextile, the panels, fines, then tamped with a tamper, then some more fines on top. Works great but expensive so I am interested in this too.

#6

How much did you end up spending on this just in gravel and geotextile? I am talking to a geotextile supplier right now too. We have a lot of paddock to cover so doing the whole thing in lighthoof would be prohibitively expensive for us, and it’s looking more and more like a DIY option is going to be the most budget friendly.

Lighthoof likes to act like they are a revolutionary new product but geostabilization grids have been in use since shortly after the advent of plastics. Other companies do make them as well. Dupont manufactures one that is already backed with geotextile, it’s just expensive.

#7

I don’t really know because I just did two small areas by gates. I did put down gravel in the rest of the paddock and refresh it periodically. I spend about $1k a year on fines…sigh

#8

When I looked at this in the past (not at alibaba - never used it myself), many of the other stabilization products had larger cells than would be good to use for horses. Once I narrowed it down to products that were actually comparable in cell size and depth to the lightfoot stuff, the cost difference really wasn’t that great. So definitely make sure you are comparing things that are truly similar and will function properly.

#9

It’s not that it didn’t hold up; they elected to never use it. They completed the project, then never once put a horse in there.

#10

I’ll be interested to hear what you end up going with as well, I’m looking into doing the same thing this spring. I’m OVER the mud and muck and uneven frozen ground :frowning:

How big are the cells in the Lighthoof? I couldn’t find that info anywhere on their site.

These are a couple I was looking at:
https://bluestonesupply.com/products/lsg-3?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping

https://standartpark-usa.com/products/copy-of-4-thick-geo-ground-grid

https://www.agriculturesolutions.com/agtec-geocell-ground-grid-paver-4-inch-8-4ft-x-27-4ft

Good luck and keep us posted!

#11

We’re looking at putting a dry lot in the spring (hopefully, it’s drier then!). The last link said that it says on fill. Has anyone found this to be true? We’re looking to put in an irregular-sized lot, but not that big, and we came up with 78 cubic tons which is almost $4,000 with delivery. I’m wondering how you would do the calculations before you purchased the fill. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

#12

math is quite correct

expands to 9’ x 24’ providing 215 square feet per unit.

should be 216 sq/ft … 4 times 9 is 36 so that 5 on the end kind stands out

Dressage59

78 cubic tons

?? is that really cubic yards or is it just 78 tons?

#13

@clanter Oops! That’s tons. I spoke with a Vulcan rep and that’s what they gave me. Not cubic though according to their calculator on line.

#14

thanks, no big deal… the statement just stood out as one is volume the other was weight… statements like that were often included in a project’s scopes of work and I was constantly having to ask which is as it can not be both

#15

Thanks @clanter I’m just now sure how much gravel the hoof grid is saving you per their advertisement or how it can be calculated. I didn’t see any hard information given. Thanks!

#16

If you deal with someone from Alibaba… you’re probably ordering direct or from a distributor in China. If the initial order is quite small, do a test order and see what you get.

Alibaba started out for business to business transactions and while many sellers deal with individuals now, with smaller minimums, it can still be a little dicey getting what you think you’re getting.

I used to source stuff for my former business from Alibaba sometimes and always tried a small order, which vendors often refused to do. Could be changing, but don’t jump into a project thinking that what you find on Ali is guaranteed to exist, at that price, shipped to the US, when you need it.

1 Like
#17

What is the benefit to doing this instead of scraping out the topsoil and putting down stone dust and keeping the area clean? Looks like the only difference is that with this stuff you don’t need to scrape? You put down landscape fabric and then layer up? Is that really more cost efficient?

#18

you might want to ask for the load tickets to make sure you are getting what you paid for… I only suggest this as all of the commercial construction projects I worked on, haul tickets were required to prove what was delivered

Also I once was at one of my attorneys farm who was having a new barn built by a well known national firm who builds barns everywhere… he was commenting on the 100 cubic yards of dirt he had to pay for to level the site… I asked him where the rest of this one hundred yards was as the pile in front of us surely wasn’t 100 cubic yards… he said it was all there… no it cannot be … then he asks what should I do? Put a stop work order in place and lock the contractor out, get an engineer in here to measure this so you have a real opinion as to just what you have paid for … turned out there could have been no more than 50 yards.

#19

Bumping this. Has anyone tried it?

#20

Some of those on Alibaba look a lot like what’s in my dry lot. My contractor wanted to try a brand that was available locally and was not marketed specifically for horse use, and it has worked very well to prevent erosion. It was $2/square foot. Unfortunately I don’t know what the brand is. You can see pics here if you want: https://thesmallhorsefarm.blogspot.com/2016/10/dry-lot-construction-with-lots-of.html

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