08/17/08, 01:16 PM
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: Zone 7
Posts: 10,539
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I do rotational grazing with 100 plus head of beef cattle and I have lots of paddocks. Actually I have two types of fence for interior paddocks, single strand high tensile and the flexible plastic twine with 9 conductors of fine stainless steel conductors. The high tensile is used for the more permanent paddocks and the twine is used to limit or expand the permanent paddocks on a temporary basis. For the high tensile I use permanent corner posts that are recycled metal guard rail posts bought at surplus. For line posts with the high tensile I use the fiber glass 7/8" diameter drilled every two inches bought from Kencove. For the temporary twine fences I typically fasten them on each end to the permanent high tensile fence. Then I run the temporary twine using the small pigtail step in posts with the insulating tubing over the "curleyque" end of posts. These are great for temporary fencing. Many of my paddocks are rectangular in shape by intent. These long rectangles let me readily use the twine to make temporary cross fences to control the amount of grazing available to the herd depending on time of year and weather. In the Fall I have few or no obstacles when it is time to overseed the pastures. This makes for faster clipping the pastures also. It has taken me a long to to determine the best manner to arrange my paddocks for my use and I am still learning. I suggest you use the twine until you determine the layout best suited to your needs. I failed to mention, I do not have gates to these paddocks. Instead, I take a length 1 1/2 inch rigid PVC and cut a V in one end. I place the PVC tube over the 7/8" fiberglass line post after removing the "hairpin" that holds the wire to the post. I then lift the high tensile wire and place it in the V. This permits the animals to walk under the wire and it gives them a wide area thus reducing paths in the grass. I can move the animals all over the farm using this technique. Here is a pic of the temporary twine connected to a permanent high tensile wire. You can see the types of posts also. The green fiberglass post is no longer used here. Now I use the white drilled on 2 inch center posts. The reel the twine is on is a cheap $5 extension cord reel from Lowes
Here is one of the PVC pipes used as a gate over the 7/8" posts. I place these 7/8" line posts on 60 ft spacings. Look real close and you can see the high tensile wire over the head of the cow on the right. These are dated pics and the cattle have just come out of a hard Winter with poor feed following a major drought.
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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!
Last edited by agmantoo; 08/17/08 at 01:53 PM.
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