Couple of simple questions: schedules and fencing

What can I say, I price fences based on barbed wire. lol

So yeah, $3G sounds HORRIDLY expensive for a mere 10 acres.

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

Often grazing wont fill ALL of a animals needs and they will be supplemented.
Its pretty common in the dairy industry.

Why's that? I loved doing our pasture that way as I was able to do it by myself. I had no problems with them & didn't find using them to be a pain at all. This is our perimeter fence around our 3.5 acres & we have not had any problems with it at all. It is permanent as much as any other fence is.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

Also, goats looooooooove to eat on the other side. Woven wire here would be stretched out in no time. Now they stick their heads through & eat on the other side without it hurting the fence or stretching it out.

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I can't believe I deleted it!

But the OP isn't IN the dairy industry.

BTW, on ranches it's common to feed cattle in the afternoon so that they calve in the daytime. Feed them in the morning and they're more likely to calve at night.
But the OP isn't on a ranch, either.

For the vast majority of people, any feeding schedule they choose is the one that works.

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

I milk my goat at around 8:30am and then anywhere between 9pm and midnight, and she does well with the slight variation in evening milkings

When?!? When will I learn that asking livestock people about fencing is going to give me just about every possible answer?

Actually, lots of good info here, thank you!

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I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
The Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Op wanted information to make a choice with I told her one reason why,you told her another.
Just outta curiosity how do you know the op isn't and wont be in the dairy industry?

Beef cattle and sheep here. In the winter we feed around 8:00 am and 4:30 pm. When grass comes on, they're on their own.

As far as fencing, we have a mixture of wood plank, woven wire and electric with solar boxes depending on the terrain and area.

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frugaltable.com
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Living a rich life frugally....

LOL, I'm not in any industry at the moment, unless you're in the market to buy a valve for a natural gas pipeline...

Anyway, I like to read all the differing opinions. It's all pretty moot at this point anyway, since I'm not even in the right part of the country for me to start doing anything.

But, questions pop into my head, and need to be answered, or they drive me nuts for days.

carry on!

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I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
The Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Well to stay on track I'd like to hear about what folks are using for temporary fencing on pasture and why..

I have a nice perimeter fence, but what's good to use for temp fencing to rotate around a smallish pasture?

Milking should be done 12 hours apart give or take 30 minutes. You can choose which hours those might be. I used to milk at 7 & 7 but switch to 8am & 8pm this past fall to accommodate my kids evening programs.

Routine is very important to the mental health of your animals so find a routine that works for you and stick with it.

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Wags Ranch Nigerians


"The Constitution says to promote the general welfare, not to provide welfare!" ~ Lt. Col Allen West

When you wake up in the morning do you want to wait a few hours for breakfast? They don't either.

Milking needs to be done every 12 hours for a cow, a goat can adapt to once a day. When I was milking a cow she was waiting in the stall every morning at 7, and again every evening at 7. My best milk goat was always waiting to be milked at sunrise no matter what time was on the clock. That's what they were used to and as long as I stayed on schedule it worked very well.

Cattle panels won't work for small stock. Goats will get their heads stuck in the large squares and you'll start finding them hanging from the panels. There are goat panels which have smaller openings, but at a premium price. If you use the large openings, you'll need to line the fence with chicken wire to keep the smaller animals safe. No since in making a double fence, so it's best to go with a proper fence in the beginning.

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Temp fencing. I am thinking of the electric sheep netting. I know several people who are using it for hogs. They love it; it takes minutes to set up a new paddock. It can be set up in odd shapes to fit terrain, trees, water holes, etc. Very flexible, fast, and not expensive. You do need to walk the perimeter with a weed whacker every so often to keep it from shorting out.

Umm, didn't work on my cows!

I have 1 cattle panel between the barn and the gate. I could have jumped the electric wire over the gate, but figured it would be just as easy to do cattle panel for that last segment. Bad idea! Even though I put 3 T-posts along that 16' stretch, the cows leaned on the panel (to get at the tasty flowers growing just out of reach on the other side) and buckled it.

Gotta rip everything out and re-do it next spring ... grrrr!

My goat pen is made out of cattle panels and they work fine for that, but my goat is pretty well-behaved. (Not all are.)

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"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

LOL Yep I bet a LOT of us here feel your pain!


Now back to your regularly scheduled thread;