Building a Pen. I need Suggestions (Photos?)

[paulandashia]

Hi Guys!

Well, we are moving into our new home in a few days.

Please, please, please dont make fun of my lack of knowledge. I am really trying to learn.

We are going to be building an enclosure for Nellie-Belle, and I need some suggestions.

Some people have suggested Barbed Wire, but I have heard so many horror stories about it, that it scares me.
I want to go with metal panels, but honestly, I cant afford those at $150-175 a pop.
I was also thinking about buying a bunch of 2x4's, and hammering them in rows of 3 from tree to tree as we have a nicely wooded lot, but I dont know if cows are like horses and will end up chewing the wood up over time, although, I guess, we can replace any that she might chew up (if they do that).
Here is a Sketch I made to explain what I mean. Except the wood and the Screws holding the wood onto the trees would actually be on the OTHER side, inside the pen.

I would appreciate any insight, sugestions, advice, whatever. Photos are ALWAYS a plus!
I need to make sure she is not going to be able to get out, I want her to be safe.

 

[3waycross]

Try using 16 ft welded wire galvanized cattle panels, and reinforce them top middle and bottom with 2x6' at least and 2x8's would be better. They should sell them at your local feed and farm store for around 20bucks figuring the higher freight in AK. Down here they are 16.95

 

[Jogeephus]

2x4's full length aren't going to hold a cow back if she goes to nibbling on the other side of the boards. They will break. You will need to reinforce between the spans. This will get expensive. Why not just put up an electric fence until you come up with enough money for your panels. Personally I like 5 strands of barbed wire but that's just me.

 

[bigbull338]

id use the 16ft 52in high wire cattle panels.an put your posts every 8ft.an if you can id get the 6.5 to 7ft tall t post.an drive them in the ground 2.5 to 3ft deep.an run a single bobwire at the top of the panels.never feel bad for asking the qs you ask.because you are truelly trying to an wanting to learn about cows.

 

[chippie]

You shouldn't use your trees as fence posts. It isn't good for the trees and the fence will not be sound.

If you can afford a board fence, buy treated corral boards. The boards are 1" x 6" and usually about 12 to 16 feet long. Regular untreated 2 x 4 studs will not hold up in the weather.

I found a link that explains how to build a wooden fence.

http://www.essortment.com/home/buildfence_sjav.htm

This is a good book to help you with your cow.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0882660667/?tag=cattletoday00-20

This is a link to a pdf brochure about Planning and Building Fences on the Farm from the University of Tennessee.

http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/pbfiles/PB1541.pdf

Our fences are 5 strands of barb wire on steel posts. We also have one pasture that is hot wire or electric fencing. We have not had any problems with the cows or calves with the barb wire. Our fences are wire because it is more affordable.

How many acres are you going to fence for your cow? I hope that your move goes smoothly.
Good luck!

 

[paulandashia]

Here is my main issue.

I dont have acres and acres of land like most of you guys on here to fence in.
We have a bit under an acre of land, and her enclosure is not going to be very large. And I want it to be safe, and sturdy, and confortable for her.
She is going to have a "Shelter" that we have already standing on the property. Hubby is going to insulate it, and double-up the walls to make it Stronger, in case she'll lean on it, or in it. LOL
We are also going to use it for milking her.

She will get fresh grass on a regular basis, as we have a rotating mower, and the grass that will be cut will be fed to her, on top of her regular feed. Our neighbors also cut grass with a non-gas mower, so none of the grass has any grose residue on it and it's freshly cut.
My brother is law uses Lwn mowers that cut the grass clean also, and he usually feeds it to the neighbors horses and goats, but now he is going to bring it home for Nellie.

I wish I had 10-20-30 acres to let her roam, but I feel blessed we have 1. (almost) LoL
I feel guilty not having a lot of room for her to play.

 

[cattleluvr18]

you dont need a lot of acres to listen to their suggestions. do what bigbull said except we put a hot wire around it on the inside so she wont touch and push on the fence. thats what most of our lots are made up of. works well and is reliable.

dont feel guilty about not having alot of acerage. cows dont need alot of play space like a horse. she will do fine. expecially with an insulated shelter. i thought my cows were spoiled just to have a shelter. lol

 

[novatech]

What ever you use put it inside the tree line or post line so the cow pushes into it. The wire panels should work for both the horse and cow.
If you have trees that will hold up in the climate like cedar then you could even build a post and rail fence.

 

[Jalopy]

The least expensive and functiponal would be an electric fence, That way you can get it setup and designed whereever you want and change it as you desire until you know where you want it. If you then decide not to use an electric fence later you can sell the charger. JMO

 

[grannysoo]

And..... read and study the posts on this forum. You sound new, so there's lots to learn. Good luck!

 

[chippie]

For the size of your pen cattle panels or a board fence would be good. Electric fence works well too. Once a cow touches it with her wet nose, she won't challenge it again.

One thing that I would be concerned about is that the cow will get enough forage. If she is on less than than an acre she may graze it down pretty quickly. You will need to supplement with more than grass clippings and feed. If the grass clippings are a lawn type grass, it will not have the nutritional value that a pasture or hay variety grass will have. You will also need to be careful whether or not the people put chemicals or pesticides on their lawn and the type of fertilizer that is used.

When we have to keep one penned up, she will eat close to a bale of grass hay a day (60 + lbs) in addition to her grain. Forage is very important for milk production.

PS. Cows don't really play like a horse or dog. They will sometimes act silly and gallump about if startled, but they are mostly a matter of fact type of animal. Their main goal in life is to eat ;-)
Also you may want to look into getting her a round bale of hay to munch on.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Something else to look at is continous fence panels. They are 20 feet in length and are easy to put up. You can put pressure treated wooden posts in the ground and clip the panels to them.
If you can't afford them then a four strand barb wire fence is the way to go.
Yes some animals do get cut up by them because they are goofing off or something chases them through it, but for cost it is the best option.

 

[Earl Thigpen]

Maybe I didn't read this right but you said (I think) you have about one acre of land? I think you also indicated you are going to build a pen INSIDE the one acre?

There aren't many places where one acre will support a cow. You will need to feed the animal every day and it will need to be something besides grass clippings. Hay, grain and mineral blocks will need to be provided.

If your one acre isn't already fenced, the cheapest, permanent way is with barbed wire. A roll of high tensil barbed wire will run about $30.00 and it contains a quarted mile of wire. For a five wire fence you will need about 3.5 rolls of wire or about $120.00. Put treated fence posts (or "T" posts) at about every 10' with good, heavy duty corner and brace posts. You will need 4 corner posts at about $30.00 each and 8 brace posts at $20 - $25 each.

To recap: 4 rolls wire $120.00
4 corner posts $120.00
90 line posts $360.00
8 Brace posts $200.00
Total $800.00

If you want a cheap, temporary fence you can buy a fence charger for $100.00, heavy duty (12 ga. galvanized) wire, insulators, "T" posts, braces for the corners and ground rod for about $250.00 - $300.00. And if the cow gets out of her "barn" in the Winter I suspect the electric fence will be shorted out with snow.

Any other type of fence will cost you more.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[chippie]

Something else. If she is used to being with other cows, she will probably bellow (moo) a lot after you move her because she will be lonely. It may throw off her milk production off too.

 

[RVF]

For your situation, I like the sound of the panels as bigbull suggested. Electric will work really good (it is all I use). Since you will be dealing with frozen ground (electric do not work well on frozen ground), you would need to run atleast 2 wires - one at knee height and one at hip height, one of the wires would be a ground wire and one would be live. When the cow touches the two wires she will get the shock. Personally I would go with 3 wires with the middle one being the ground wire. If the electric fence is built correctly, no cow will get out of it.

 

[CattleHand]

I dont know as much as teh rest of the guys here but what about just buying some cattle panels?

And reinforce it with posts? Doesnt sound like your cow is too wild from your previous posts so I'd think that would work. I dont think you would need anything 16 ft high. The cow from your previous posts didnt seem to tall, I'd doubt she'd try to jump that unless she was a little wild.

 

[grubbie]

Im not sure what horror stories you have heard about barbed wire, but in my opinion it will be the quickest, and cheapest to use. Get that up, then build a nice small corral as you get the time and money to do so. Just my opinion, good luck.

 

[CattleHand]

Im not sure what horror stories you have heard about barbed wire, but in my opinion it will be the quickest, and cheapest to use. Get that up, then build a nice small corral as you get the time and money to do so. Just my opinion, good luck.

I may be wrong but i think all she is doing is putting up a small enclosure. If not and you are fencing in a larger area I agree with barbed wire its all my grandpa uses. BUt you just got to use what works for you.

 

[backhoeboogie]

It costs $1485 to surround an acre of ground with cow panel, at our prices with that big of a volume. They are less than $1 a foot. If you go all T-Post construction you will need 110 T-posts and that would cost me around $450 because of what I buy. You can get the 6 footers cheaper locally but I don't buy those. You can always pull the panels and put them back. Reconfigure the pen arrangement etc. I don't know the prices where you are but I anticipate more.

If it were me, I'd go with barbed wire.

 

[gertguy]

Alaska, any grass?