Couple of simple questions: schedules and fencing

This is the fencing that my neighbor woman and her kids put up. It was easier for them to do this than roll fencing. And yes, animals will get used to feeding on any schedule you put them on. I know of a Very large Milk farm, they run 2 separate herds 2 milkings for each herd, the place runs 24 hrs a day.

I have never seen the combination panels before. Around here they only carry hog or cattle panels. Looks like they are pretty pricey!

I fenced our whole pasture with cattle panels. I used wooden posts with a metal t-post in the middle. We have goats & cows. It works great! Yes, more expensive, but I like that I can remove a panel if needed to get through. We also had a tree fall on the fence & instead of having to restretch the fence we can just replace the one panel. Haven't had any problems with anyone tryig to steal it. I also put thi sup with my son helping me. No need to find anyone to help me stretch it & I just did sections at a time. I have one more section to cross fence.
As to schedules, yes, they will adjust. I milk at 8:00 & 8:00 usually.

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Wendy, those are exactly the reasons I want to use panels instead of roll fencing. It's just me, panels will be easier for a single person to put up, I would imagine.

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As I stated earlier, parameter fencing should be permanent, cross fencing can be "portable". Panels will be more expensive than a permanent fence (but you will save $$ by not having to buy gates). On wooden posts, two eye-bolts and two shackles on each end of a panel will create a handy hinge to use them as a chute to move livestock from one paddock to another. The panels will allow a lot of flexibility in how you set up your paddocks. If your original plan turns out to be not ideal, a little labor can correct it easily, without purchasing anything else. Flexibility may be the key word in justifying the added expense.

As far as getting animals to adapt to your schedule, they are somewhat flexible. You need to remember that we schedule our lives around a clock...animals schedule their lives around the sun. Feeding them at noon, and midnight won't work.

One of our dairy farmer friends milked at 12 and 12 when his kids were in school so he could go to their activities. He changed the milking time slowly and his production stayed the same.

Panels are 16' long, no problem if you have a trailer to transport them.

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Nah.
Woven wire is bulky and cumbersome, but you can do it yourself. Rig something up in the back of your pickup and unroll as you go.

So far as scheduling, I've been in ranching for 20 years and have never gotten up early to do chores. Seven AM is plenty early, IMO, though lately we've been getting up at 6 to get the kids on the bus in time.
I can't see where 9AM or 10 would be any different.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

To me, panels are harder to handle alone.
You can roll wire out on the ground easily by hand

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I've got some of those stock panels that are made for horses. They are 16 ft long, 5 ft tall, and the squares are 4 inches by 2 inches. That would be the best panel for a perimeter fence, but they are really spendy.

They are also a lot easier to move with 2 people. One person can drag them, but they are heavy and prone to catch on every bump and weed. It's so much easier to pick them up and carry them.

You would need good solid posts. If you don't use anything but pound-ins, a heavy animal can actually bend the fence over. You need to have heavy wooden posts every so often.

I've worked with both and I don't think the field fence is any harder to install. The hard work is the posts and you have to do those for either type fencing.

Both types of fence are easier with 2 people, both both types can be done by one person.

I suggest that you price it out, because for the price of cattle panels, you can probably pay someone to install field fence for you-- or for a lot less, hire a young farmer to work with you and install the fence.

This summer, my son and I installed 600 feet of game fence wire in 2 days. That's 7 ft tall wire and lot more work than field fence. So if you got a helper, you wouldn't have to pay him all that long.

That 2 days did not include the posts, but you can do the posts by yourself and just get someone in to help stretch the wire. Hey, maybe you could even hire a helper who owns the stretcher and come along so you don't have to buy those.

Something else for you to take a look at: New Zealand fencing. Also called High Tensile fencing. It's a system of heavy gauge electric fencing that is a permanent installation. Very good for confining livestock and keeping coyotes out.

It would be easy for one person to install, because nothing in the system is heavy or large.

You still have to install all those posts, thought. Although I think the posts can be pretty far apart.

I need to buy some panels to make a cattle 'settling pen' and even the lighter weight 12 foot panels are $79 each. Thats almost a grand for a decent sized pen. (They are still on my list)

I fenced in the whole 10 acre pasture with Gallagher High Tensile Fence for about $3,000 in material last summer.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

I bet electric poultry or goat netting would cost less than panels and work as well if not better. Electric does a great job or keeping things in and other things out - even humans, to a point. You would have to maintain the line to keep weeds from grounding it out, and that could be a royal pain if you're leaving it up all the time, but it's pretty easy to install (I'm a not-very-big woman and I move our 164' poultry net by myself all the time) and if a tree falls on it, it pops back into shape once you remove the tree and maybe tighten it a little. If you're considering horses, stay away from high tensile.

On schedules, well, I do things differently than most, I guess... I *intentionally* do NOT feed on a schedule. (I'm not talking about dairy animals, of course.) If your animals are on a schedule and you're even a few minutes late, you've got a bunch of upset, stressed critters who are more likely to get into trouble and/or behave badly because they're all riled up. I mean, they can get outright neurotic! So I feed AM and PM. By AM, I mean sometime before noon. By PM, I mean sometime before 9 (or maybe 10 in the summertime). If I fed late in the morning, I feed later in the evening to space things out. This way, whenever I head out, the critters are like, "Oh, hey. Is it time to eat? Cool!" Instead of, "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, feed me, Feed Me, FEED ME!!!"

I used to feed on a schedule, and worked at boarding barns that were on a schedule. But without a set schedule, the animals are happier, I'm happier, things are flexible if DH has to take care of things (his schedule is rigid and different than mine) or if we are both away and have to have someone else care for things, etc.

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My random, hopefully-entertaining and educational blog: Black Cat Farm

The reason for feeding early is so that animals have time to digest then GRAZE again BEFORE the heat of the day.
The panels are a pain and way expensive but will work.

If there's grazing available, why would anyone be feeding when there's a "heat of the day" anyway?
People feed livestock in order to supplement insufficient grazing . Ie, winter...

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Down here you can get insufficient grazing in the summer, 105 degree days, no rain for 3 months, dormant pasture...

I just did 2600ft of 48" non climb horse fence 2"x4" grid woven wire, with posts at every ten feet, T- posts with every 4th post a 4" wood post, all 36" deep, all 8 foot posts, leaving me an extra foot of post above the fence wire for a hot wire etc. later for right around $10,000 total.

That included $3000 for paying a couple guys to help and about $1000 for renting a bobcat with an auger and an indutrial post driver for the T-posts to make it a little easier, no a -lot- easier.

That's about $3.85 a foot total for a nice fence.

I could have done it myself for under $3 a foot but it would have been a long hard job. Much easier with 3 people.

Materials, posts and wire etc., were only about $2.30 a foot total. The panels discussed it seems to me plus the posts and clips/wire would likely come out right about the same price. Normal woven field fence in 4"x4" or 4"x6" or such would likely end up significantly cheaper per foot.

I also agree with other folks at least for my area, the hard part is the digging and setting posts by far.. A roll of wire is not really any harder to handle than a panel. And renting tools to dig holes and pound posts is worth every penny, worth well more than the cost if the ground is like mine, and hand driving T-posts is all but impossible.

True enough. Which is why I said "insufficient grazing" since drought can create the same situation.

However, both the poster I was responding to, as well as the OP, live in Illinois. Ie, most of the time, livestock is fed because it's winter.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Does that sound overpriced? I was quoted $6,500 by a local installer and I know that there is no way I would have gotten everything just like I wanted it for that price.

This is a permanent fence with 4 strands of high tensile wire and 1 strand of horse braid rope on top. The field is not square so there are about 10 'corners' which are each made up of three 8 foot 6x6's and two 8 foot 4x4's for braces all treated plus assorted springs and tensioners.

I used the Gallagher composite pre-drilled posts every 30 feet or so to support the fence wires and rope. I used about 3,500 feet of wire plus the rope.

The cost also includes two 12 foot gates and two 16 foot gates with 2 way latches to allow access to separate areas for rotational grazing.

The energizer and 300 feet of undergate/runout cable were fairly pricey too but you get what you pay for.

[[....Does that sound overpriced? ...]]]

No, unfortunately, that's cheap fencing. (meaning bargain priced, not poor quality). Sad fact of life, fence costs money.

The only thing that costs worse than fencing is doing it wrong or cutting corners the first time and then having to redo it, thus paying twice.