Cattle pen questions

[saltbranch]

I am in the process of building a set of pens on our home place. I am putting Rail Road ties 4' deep and 4' apart, the ties are 10-12' long. I plan on using cattle panels nailed on the interior and I would like to use hwy guard rail around the top if i can find used some where in South Texas. If I cant find I will prolly go with pipe around the top, do you think I need to do the same in the middle and bottom too?. I am 45'ing the corners and plan running pipe for water troughs. I have 42 ties in the ground and hopefully will have the perimeter done in the next 2 weekends. I am going 100' wide X 65' deep. In my "big" pen I will have water and I left 2 trees for shade. I would use this pen for long term penning like weaning heifers etc. ( rail road ties last in this area, I have pulled ties up in old fence lines here that have been in the ground for 20 plus yrs and reused them, just saying this ahead of time because I know some have had bad luck in their area with RR ties)
Any other ideas or Suggestions?

Gates-- I want heavy gates and the heaviest I can find is 1" sch. 40 thats premade locally..is this heavy enough?. I am thinking 1.5" or 2" sch. 40 and hang off of 3" sch, 40 with the brace across the top welded and concrete post in ground. I like the idea of the "cowboy latches" for when on horse back and will have chain too. I am setup for welding so that is not a problem

The chute,alley and tub...if i get the pearson setup I am trying to buy, I plan to Make a "foot print" out of 3 or 4" pipe and fill with crushed asphalt, this will be the base I set the equipment on to keep it off the ground and help keep from rusting.

Any other ideas or suggestions? I want to go heavy or overkill now, rather than fixing stuff later.
Thank you

 

[Brute 23]

If you must use panels go 6"x6" squares. If your open to ideas go with boards.

 

[saltbranch]

I am definitely open to ideas.... I was thinking the cattle panels with the big squares, prolly the 6x6 I did not measure. I want big enough I can get a boot into, to get up on the fence in a hurry. My grandfathers has roll fence wire & boards.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Those gates will be fine. How are you attaching pipe to ties? Whatever you use for a top rail I would suggest it to be no less than 6 foot. Boards it panels are neither one ideal, but either is probably OK.

 

[saltbranch]

Whats the issue with the cattle panels?
How are you attaching pipe to ties? Weld bracket to pipe post and bolt into RR tie.
This is the basic style I plan to go with for the gates. I would use pipe and concrete into ground. Then a bracket to RR tie. I want the brace across the top to help keep the gate posts from settling over yrs and spreading out.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Whats the issue with the cattle panels?

Depends in your cattle, for some operations they may be fine forever, but some there not tough enough and won't last as good.

 

[bird dog]

On my cattle panel corrals I use a piece of angle at the bottom and weld the panel to it. My post are on 8' centers with a piece of square tube at the top, angle at the bottom. . Easier to weld the panel to a flat surface. You can get away with using lighter material by welding the panel top and bottom. It makes the whole thing like a truss. I use the cheap panels that have the 6 x 8 openings. They are easy to climb when you need to in a hurry.

 

[Brute 23]

Whats the issue with the cattle panels?

Depends in your cattle, for some operations they may be fine forever, but some there not tough enough and won't last as good.

They are hard on cattle IMO. Especially younger calves that get separated and don't know where to go... they run the edge of the pen and get tore up.

My choices... and I have all of them
1) pipe
2) boards
3) portable pens
4) cattle panels

 

[saltbranch]

Whats the issue with the cattle panels?

Depends in your cattle, for some operations they may be fine forever, but some there not tough enough and won't last as good.

They are hard on cattle IMO. Especially younger calves that get separated and don't know where to go... they run the edge of the pen and get tore up.

My choices... and I have all of them
1) pipe
2) boards
3) portable pens
4) cattle panels

Good Points and I can relate/understand. I really would like to run 3 rows of guard rails inside the pens. Brute if you come across any in your area please keep me in mind. I found some in Dallas, but checking SA and Houston next.Gonna ask Regional Steel in Victoria, they always have good pricing.
You guys have any pics you could post up to give ideas?


Thanks for the help everyone, never hurts to get a different point a view and learn something.

 

[saltbranch]

Dumb question, but I have to ask....Has anyone seen wire rope used for fencing in pens? I can get all I want of that, just not sure if it would be worth messing with.

 

[greybeard]

I used the portable tube panels, chain together. I don't keep any wild ones, so it's good enough for what I do. Pretty easy to reconfigure in case your original design doesn't do what you hoped for--which mine did not. After changing it 2-3 times I think I have it workable now and will put down cross ties and other posts to hold everything in place. And need to add 2 blocking gates--one at the end of the load chute and one just before the sorting gate. Only real bad thing about those tube panels is making everything come together without cutting any of them. I ended up with one little dead area between the sweep alley and the load chute because I didn't want to cut or bend any panels.
If I can get up high enough tomorrow, I'll take a picture of it.
The wing fence worked real good when we were penning to wean bull calves a couple weeks ago.

Saltbranch, a friend of mine uses wire rope for most of his fences. It works for him and his beefmasters, but he doesn't use it for his pen. Said he could never get it tight enough not to give when they got excited.

 

[saltbranch]

Thank you Greybeard and I would like to see the pics if you can. For the cable, they make what is called a Klein Grip, and you lock onto the cable and use a come along to pull it tight. Same concept as barbed wire, then you can use turnbuckles to finish up with and readjust with later down the road. If interested i can send the info,

Thanks

 

[greybeard]

I know when I was living out in San Angelo the state park used 3/4" cable on their buffalo/bison fences but they used 2" pipe on all the pens.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

I used the portable tube panels, chain together. I don't keep any wild ones, so it's good enough for what I do. Pretty easy to reconfigure in case your original design doesn't do what you hoped for--which mine did not. After changing it 2-3 times I think I have it workable now and will put down cross ties and other posts to hold everything in place. And need to add 2 blocking gates--one at the end of the load chute and one just before the sorting gate. Only real bad thing about those tube panels is making everything come together without cutting any of them. I ended up with one little dead area between the sweep alley and the load chute because I didn't want to cut or bend any panels.
If I can get up high enough tomorrow, I'll take a picture of it.
The wing fence worked real good when we were penning to wean bull calves a couple weeks ago.

Saltbranch, a friend of mine uses wire rope for most of his fences. It works for him and his beefmasters, but he doesn't use it for his pen. Said he could never get it tight enough not to give when they got excited.

No matter what someone is building a pen with, this is a good design GB.

 

[Dave]

Good Points and I can relate/understand. I really would like to run 3 rows of guard rails inside the pens. Brute if you come across any in your area please keep me in mind. I found some in Dallas, but checking SA and Houston next.Gonna ask Regional Steel in Victoria, they always have good pricing.
You guys have any pics you could post up to give ideas?


Thanks for the help everyone, never hurts to get a different point a view and learn something.[/quote]

If you do find enough guard rail to use 3 rows of it, you will want to run a board above the top of the bottom guard rail. I have seen cattle stick a hind leg out above the rail and them run down the fence. It darn near saws their leg off. Most any old board will prevent this. A piece of pipe would work too. Just something to keep their leg off that sharp edge of the guard rail

 

[saltbranch]

[/quote]If you do find enough guard rail to use 3 rows of it, you will want to run a board above the top of the bottom guard rail. I have seen cattle stick a hind leg out above the rail and them run down the fence. It darn near saws their leg off. Most any old board will prevent this. A piece of pipe would work too. Just something to keep their leg off that sharp edge of the guard rail[/quote]

Seemingly guardrail is very popular in North Carolinas and I can get a truck load for like 12 grand. I think I am going with pipe for my pens.Lots of used pipe around here. Never thought about the lower guard rail and the legs getting caught up in it. Thanks for posting that.

 

[greybeard]

In your chute and crowding areas, if you can get pipe cheaply enough, and then, just get enough guardrail for a middle rail or or one of the upper rails--depends on you size cattle-- to use as a bumper--where most of the stress usually comes. You can get by with a little smaller diameter pipe this way and still have a heck of a strong pen.

 

[Brute 23]

Three pipes... a top, middle, and bottom... with sucker rod in between makes some nice pens IMO.

 

[bigbull338]

but the welds break pretty often on the sucker rods.needing tobe rewelded alot.plus the risk of cattle an calves getting their legs hung between the sucker rods.

 

[Brute 23]

but the welds break pretty often on the sucker rods.needing tobe rewelded alot.plus the risk of cattle an calves getting their legs hung between the sucker rods.

I don't think you can blame the sucker rod for the weld breaking. ;-)