Goat fencing for the poor...

RE: electric fence.
I think everyone that sees it is amazed that it works. I have several pastures fenced with 4 or just 3 wires. I used the 17 ga. It is soft and easy to work with by hand. It is just hand tightened. But I did find nice plastic in line tensioners at TSC that work easily. My fences keep in Nubians, Boers, and sheep. My charger is a 2 joule. rated for 50 miles.
Hope this helps

One of our friends uses 3 strand electric, super cheap posts, and the wires are all strung up without any real tension.

That works for him for the most part. They did have one bottle kid that would sneak out and come visit the house, though.

In his case, the place that he was fencing had pretty good sight lines to the house, he has and outdoor farm dog to alert if there is trouble, he's far away from road traffic, and his area doesn't have much trouble with stray dogs. All his fence needed to to was serve as a training aid and then as a reminder, so it was plenty.

We went the full blown super duper fence because most of our land is out of sight, we have a mile of frontage on a road that would be a goat killer if someone wandered into it, and we figured we'd fence once and then switch into maintenance mode for the next 30 years.

It was a good choice for us, but if I was going to go super cheap, I'd temporarily fence a small area with plenty of wires (cold and hot), cheap posts, and let the goats learn all about how unpleasant an electric fence is. Then I'd move on to bigger areas with lots of good eating and less secure fencing. Out of sight, roads, and predators would encourage me to beef up the fence some, though.

Lynda

We use 5 strand orange electric twine. 4" round corners, and t posts. Fenced about 2 acres for under $200. As long as the goats are completely surrounded by it it works great, but anywhere we connected up to existing fiend fence (OLD field fence) they found an escape path, which leads to the orchard, garden and front porch. As far as the power bill, it's minimal.

For more opinions,Try this: http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/sea...earchid=373739

I've been thinking of using pallets for a fence. I'm curious; about how big do you think their fenced pasture was?

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Shae in Arkansas

Everyone has been so extremely helpful. I really appreciate all your advice. My question...A few of you have mentioned a person can can pallets for free. Where does one look, especially in an area I am new to. And how are we holding thes up? Steel fence posts I assume. I love the idea, though, becasue actually, it would create a bit of a privacy fence since my pasture isn't far fromthe house, and I need a windbreak north of the house, or I should I say, a snow-catcher.

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Try an electric fence.

The visible pasture was perhaps 2 acres-it winds around behind some houses so it's hard to tell the total acreage from the road. If I recall correctly, they used the green metal fence poles to hold them in place-but they were inside the pallets & barely visible. I suspect they chose that option for privacy as it is on a fairly busy road.

Around here (unless they are using a pallet exchange program) some local companies have a hard time getting rid of pallets. Where I work excess pallets are thrown in a dumptster every 2-3 months and we PAY do get rid of them. (I take them home to stack our woodpile, hay, etc. on). I would put an ad in the paper advertising you are looking for standard 40x48 pallets, good/decent condition, will haul away for free. You might try checking with a trucking company, also, (yellow, roadway, Overnight, ect). Sometimes they show up on our dock with as many as 10 pallets the driver is trying to dump off at one of his stops.

Pallets are a high priced comodity.

Many pallets companies are back yard barn operations. They take or buy used or broken pallets and rebuild them.

They get 8-10 bucks a pop and NO ONE seems to be able to keep up with demand.

If you can get lots of free pallets I would get them and sell them. Used pallets to these places nation wide adverage 3-5 bucks each for light broken to decent.

A Pallet fence can be the most expensive fence money can buy.

Happy goats don't want to leave. We have field fencing with barbed wire on top. They have never gotten out. Cattle panels are expensive but very effective.

daytrader, around here those pallets people sell have to be 40"x48", and I don't see a lot of them because people do sell them.

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Shae in Arkansas

We were in the right place at the right time...an auction. Bought @1100 feet of 4' and 5' page-link fence for $130! Put up on locust posts down to the ground with a hot wire on top and one 8'' off the ground...NO PROBLEMS! They have plenty to eat, shade, fresh water and shelter...Boers...Joan

Hi Dlangland-

If you are concerned about the cost of electricity to run your electric fence, you can get a solar powered fence. They are a bit more expensive than the others, but your cost is fixed, so you will not have that varied cost each month. Country Supply has them, so does your local farm store.

As for the pallets, we have gotten them free (we stack our hay on them). We got them from a place in Des Moines that has a sign noting free pallets. I can PM you with the address if you ever get down this way. Also, we got one free from Menards in town.

Good luck!

T