Questions about Fence...

[Conni]

We recently bought some land we are considering putting a few calves on it & maybe a horse at some point and possibly a goat?! I am wondering what the best type of fences are for cows/horses? Can you put them in the same pasture or do I need to plan to keep them seperated?


Thanks for any advice! We are in no hurry. Just now researching the cattle breeds, etc... Obviously we cant buy anything until our fences are in place.

Thanks again!

Conni

[JeffNY]

Electric works excellent, we use it and some respect one single stran, while others need 3. The herefords we have respect one stran, on or off, I don't think they want to find out if its on or off. Now whatever your budget is, will depend what you want to use. I would use T-Posts for the corner posts (strong, and can be pulled against when you tighten the fence). The polyfence works well, its visible and delivers a shock as bad as the regular wire. Do not use aluminum, it sucks, it is weak, we bought a spool, and the price matches its crappyness.


Now here is one option, recently we put in 1000' of fence, 2 strands are cable, 1/8th" galvinized cable. The top and bottom is the cable. The reason why? Deer. If a deer runs into that cable, it will be in for the surprise of its life, cable has a lifting strength of 1700lbs, deer weigh 130lbs or so around here. Heck calves weigh half that. It does work though, took a wire to see how it sparks. It shoots a spark out across a T-Post, visible in full sun. The cable is tricky, it won't tighten like other types of fence, due to its weight, but it sure is strong. Cable cost me 50.00 for 1000'. But if your fenced area is more than 1000' total (250x4), don't bother. The polyfence is good stuff, you can tighten it a lot easier than wire, you can tie the ends (tape the ends when your done). You can roll it up like rope, also moving the fence would be easier. Now if it will be permanent, high tensile would be an idea, but if you didn't want to sink posts, as you might want to move the pasture, polyrope would work well. There is also the tape fenceing, decent looking stuff but the polyrope gives one hell of a shock, as mentioned above.


Now as far as intermingleing cattle/horses etc. Yes you can, build the fence high enough for the horse, but strong enough for the cattle. That polyrope would work for both. Important thing is to put in 2 - 3 grounding rods, as it will increase the power of the fence.
Oh and if you use T-Posts for corners, put a T- Post centered between the corners, with those fiberglass posts between those, makes for good support.

Jeff

[Conni]

Thank you so much for your replies!! This helps alot.