Mud in corrals

[aplusmnt]

I hate to post a complaint about mud with all the problems others are having with drought.

But I am so tired of mud in corrals. Any suggestions on adding rock or someway to limit the amount of mud in your working pens?

 

[Nowland Farms]

I believe it's called geo-textile fabric and Cowboyup is correct, it will end the mud problems. I have the geo-textile fabric and 6" of crusher run gravel around my watering troughs. No mud even when we got lots of rain last year.

 

[curtis]

I'd rather have mud than dust and dust an more dust.
Did i say that its dry as a bone with plenty of dust?
11 inches below on rainfall this year.
38 inches below since 2005.
Yep, got plenty of dust.

 

[Beefy]

it might be cheaper just to move to georgia. you can have my cowpen. i wont need it for the cactus farm.

 

[aussie_cowgirl]

a feedlot i worked on with high traffic had the yards cemented with H shaped indents all in it so you still had grip. the downside being you had to hose it down after use. its harder to run on wet cement too.

 

[Howdyjabo]

The geotextile and crusher run works for us- Except in areas where there is manure accumulation. Get an inch or two of constant manure and the rock starts floating up into it.

 

[aplusmnt]

What exactly is geotextile? And where do you get it at? Does it come in dump truck loads. How thick do you put it?

 

[Caustic Burno]

I hate to post a complaint about mud with all the problems others are having with drought.

But I am so tired of mud in corrals. Any suggestions on adding rock or someway to limit the amount of mud in your working pens?

Build working pens on high ground so they drain

 

[backhoeboogie]

You can also build them portable so that you can move them around. Pin them together. It takes a hefty tractor to lift the chute and head gate but other than that it is a piece of cake.

 

[TheBullLady]

That's what we did.. built the pens up some so the water would at least run off the parts we needed to use consistently. We used 3' rock with road rock on top. Works great! When you hit the spot the rock runs out you're in deep trouble however!

 

[dun]

What exactly is geotextile? And where do you get it at? Does it come in dump truck loads. How thick do you put it?

It's a fabric that comes in rolls. Allows water to drain through but doesn;t allow stuff to come up through it (in theory)

dun

 

[ETF]

Landscape fabric (the black stuff you put down in flower beds to prevent weeds) is a type of geotextile. The exact appearance and materials depend on what you want to do with it, but basically it looks like fabric and comes in rolls or sheets. You lay it down on the bare soil then put crushed stone on top of it. Mirafi is one of the oldest manufacturers and their web site has a lot of information if you want to read up on it.

http://www.tcmirafi.com/

 

[Jogeephus]

I talked to a tree surgeon who was paying to dump chips. Got him to bring me several loads and I spread them around water troughs, in the coral or any other place where there was a lot of hoof traffic. It worked pretty good for about three years and it was free.

 

[john250]

I also recommend the geotextile.
We can get VERY wet here at times.
Geotextile + 3 or 4" of coarse rock (I use #2 limestone--thats a coarse chunk and lets the water drain down and away. ) followed by 3 or 4" of 10FF lime. It is more coarse than AG lime and it packs like concrete.
It is, in my opinion, very important to use the coarse stone for the base. If the water table rises into the lime, the lime turns soupy and the cattle carry it away on their feet. Also, do some site prep so that you unroll the geotextile onto a smooth surface tilted the way you want it to drain.
I'm very happy with a 100' * 50' pad I built this way. I feed hay there and me and the cows no longer eat in the mud.
Maintenance is good. I need to scrape the pad off and freshen it up with $500 worth of lime, but thats my first repair.
I recall spending about 3400 on this, 3 yr ago, but trucking affects rock significantly so you will spend more today.
My geotextile was black and came in 15' wide rolls. I got it from 50 miles away at a place which sells culverts and drainage pipe and such. I have also used a brand which comes in 7' wide rolls, if that works better for you. You'll have to google--I'm sorry for the lack of links.
In SE IN we get drought and we get mud. We complain about them without discrimination. But you can do something about mud. You can't do anything about drought. Start tithing is about the only response to drought. :lol: