Pipe Corral

[Littlejohn]

Hello all, I've been given some cost share money to build/re-build a working area. I have enough pipe from a demolition job to build the corral, but what I'm not sure about is how to space the pipe horizontally, and how far apart to space the vertical upright pieces to help tie it together.

My plan was to hold the bottom pipe off the ground 3" or 4", then place the rest of the pipe so that the opening between each pipe is about 7" till I get to 6 feet tall, with vertical uprights about every 10 feet. My cows are commercial (angus / herford cross) cattle.

I've searched, but not really found any info on the recommended spacing of the pipe. In your experience, is a 7" spacing ok all the way up, or should I start tighter and increase the height on the way up? Is 6' tall enough, or should I go higher?

Thank you for looking at my post, and any insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
John R

 

[backhoeboogie]

Congratulations on getting the pipe. You're fortuneate.

You did not say what size the pipe is. Most of the folks in this forum talk in outside diameter size. e.g. 2 inch pipe is 2 3/8 inch O.D. so they call it 2 3/8. They refer to 2 1/2 as 2 7/8 etc etc.

I would not put a bottom pipe any lower than 12 inches off of the ground personally. I foot spacing from there up shold hold anything.

Don't know what type of cattle you are dealing with but I have seen tiny cows go over 6 foot fence. If you are dealing with relatively docile cattle, 6 foot should be good. My portable working pens are only 5 foot 6 inches tall and they hold all of mine just fine. If one ever went over the top, I'd haul her to the sale barn.

 

[Littlejohn]

Thanks for the reply. All the pipe is schedule 40, most of it is 2", but I have some 3", 4" and 6 pipe to work with.

Thanks
John

 

[dun]

This might give you some ideas
http://gobobpipe.com/continuous_fence.htm

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

This might give you some ideas
http://gobobpipe.com/continuous_fence.htm

Wow, wouldn't I love to have THAT!!!
12" off the ground if good. And 12" apart will hold them in. You might get cows sticking their head thru a 12" spacing tho. 6' is a great height.

 

[bird dog]

I hope you are a good welder and torch man. That is a lot of coping. I built mine with the uprights on 8' centers. I then put a bottom rail about 16" off the ground. The center of the top rail goes 48" above this. I then welded a 52" x 16-0 wire cattle panel over this with the 4" opening in the wire hanging over the bottom rail 4". This leaves a about a 5-5 high fence with 12" under the bottom wire.The wire is welded on about 12" centess and gives it a lot of strength. I have had cows jump onto the top rail to try and go over but since it has no give they can't (so far anyway) get their butt over. The first set of these i built I also put in a center rail but it is not necessary and I left it off the next set except in the chute area. I like this design because nothing sticks their head through but they are easy to climb when you need to get out in a hurry. A lot less welding and painting and the galvanized wire looks good and holds up well.

 

[Kingfisher]

If I go to the farm this weekend I will take some pics of what we just built. We built the panels at the house and then assembled them at the farm.

 

[dun]

This might give you some ideas
http://gobobpipe.com/continuous_fence.htm

Wow, wouldn't I love to have THAT!!!
12" off the ground if good. And 12" apart will hold them in. You might get cows sticking their head thru a 12" spacing tho. 6' is a great height.

That's what we used to build the bull pen last summer. Had to fabricate my own gate though.

 

[grubbie]

I hope you are a good welder and torch man. That is a lot of coping. I built mine with the uprights on 8' centers. I then put a bottom rail about 16" off the ground. The center of the top rail goes 48" above this. I then welded a 52" x 16-0 wire cattle panel over this with the 4" opening in the wire hanging over the bottom rail 4". This leaves a about a 5-5 high fence with 12" under the bottom wire.The wire is welded on about 12" centess and gives it a lot of strength. I have had cows jump onto the top rail to try and go over but since it has no give they can't (so far anyway) get their butt over. The first set of these i built I also put in a center rail but it is not necessary and I left it off the next set except in the chute area. I like this design because nothing sticks their head through but they are easy to climb when you need to get out in a hurry. A lot less welding and painting and the galvanized wire looks good and holds up well.

Almost exactly what I did....makes a great corral. I added 4 sucker rod horizontals in the crowding areas.

 

[spoon]

The continous pipe fence looks great but is would seem to me that it would be harder to use on steep/hilly land. Mind you I'd love to have a corral made of that stuff.

 

[dun]

The continous pipe fence looks great but is would seem to me that it would be harder to use on steep/hilly land. Mind you I'd love to have a corral made of that stuff.

I thouhgt it would be too but it isn;t. Where you have a sharp break you have to cut the fence to correspond with the angle and the metal pieces that go inside each pipe to keep them aligned I just cut a notch in so I could bend them to the right angle. 99% of it I put up by myself alone and had a friedn of mine coming along behind and do the welding.

 

[novatech]

The continous pipe fence looks great but is would seem to me that it would be harder to use on steep/hilly land. Mind you I'd love to have a corral made of that stuff.

I thouhgt it would be too but it isn;t. Where you have a sharp break you have to cut the fence to correspond with the angle and the metal pieces that go inside each pipe to keep them aligned I just cut a notch in so I could bend them to the right angle. 99% of it I put up by myself alone and had a friedn of mine coming along behind and do the welding.

Ditto
I like to build on a slope. It allows the water to drain out and not be so muddy. Only problem is making sure the design does not interfer with the gate swing.
I am currently getting ready to disasemble some pipe pens that were installed in the 60's. They were second hand from a sale barn at that time and are still in good shape.
The pens I built on a lease pasture I aquired the same way.
If pipe pens are built and maintained correctly they will last darn near forever.

 

[dun]

The continous pipe fence looks great but is would seem to me that it would be harder to use on steep/hilly land. Mind you I'd love to have a corral made of that stuff.

I thouhgt it would be too but it isn;t. Where you have a sharp break you have to cut the fence to correspond with the angle and the metal pieces that go inside each pipe to keep them aligned I just cut a notch in so I could bend them to the right angle. 99% of it I put up by myself alone and had a friedn of mine coming along behind and do the welding.

Ditto
I like to build on a slope. It allows the water to drain out and not be so muddy. Only problem is making sure the design does not interfer with the gate swing.
I am currently getting ready to disasemble some pipe pens that were installed in the 60's. They were second hand from a sale barn at that time and are still in good shape.
The pens I built on a lease pasture I aquired the same way.
If pipe pens are built and maintained correctly they will last darn near forever.

Around here the only level spot is were it was leveled to build the house. When we built the new haybarn, with a little bit of leveling we got it down to only a 3 1/2 foot fall in 100 feet. For all intents and purposes that's level

 

[dcara]

Just to be sure... You might want to check with your funding partner on material requirements. My Cost Share money has always came from the USDA's NRCS branch and they always required that new AND approved materials be used. On one of my fencing projects last year their specification for installing 2 3/8 inch steal posts for braces specified the posts be mounted in a 3ft deep 3 ft diameter hole filled with concrete! The concrete would have cost twice as much as the post. The spec for wood posts (which I ended up doing) was that the hole diameter only had to be 6 inches larger than the post with a minimum brace post diameter of 6 inches. Line post minimum diameter had to be 4 inches. In both cases the holes had to be inspected before and after post installation. Tamped in dirt had to used with the wooden posts. And even though their published spec said I could use either Western Red Cedar or Bo-dark (also called Osage Orange) the inspectors said they would only sign off on the project if I used Bo-dark. Otherwise I would have to go through an appeal process to protest the field inspectors recommendation which would take quite awhile. I had/have plenty of both on my property from which to make the posts but finding Bo-dark trees with 8ft branches of the required diameters that were straight enough to make posts was at least 5 times as much work as it would have been had they let me use the cedar. On the other hand, if I had used cedar I likely would have been replacing them in about 10-15 years. Conversely, when I bought this particular piece of property there were still bo-dark posts used for house foundations on it that were easily over a hundred years old.

 

[lavacarancher]

Pretty much been covered but I'll just add the spacing should be such that the animals will not be able to get their heads through. Always seems to me they can get their heads through an opening and then never figure out how to get back out.

As far as the distance off the ground I'll second Dun and BHB. No need to go that low to the ground. In fact I wouldn't put the bottom pipe any closer than 18" to the ground. I've never seen one try to crawl under a fence - mine always try to go over or through the fence.

I just got about 4000' of 2 3/8" (OD) but I'm going to put three horizontal with cattle panels.

Good luck with your build.

 

[Brute 23]

I've worked with a little of every thing. All pipes saddled in, a couple pipes and cattle pannel, a top runner and sucker rod welded to the side. They all work. I really like the ones with 2 7/8 posts and a top runner. Then weld sucker rod to the side. It goes up fast, easy, and works just as good as any other.

 

[Calman]

We built our corral out of 2 7/8 schedule 40 pipe posts 10ft apart and 3ft in the ground 12in hole filled with cement.All gate posts are 12ft high with brace across the top.Top rail schd 40 2 3/8 6ft high.Used the continuis fence 48" high 5 rail 20 ft long.12 in from the ground.Made gates 12 ftx5ft 12" from the ground out of sch 40 2 3/8. Going on 2 yrs now and still strong. Gotta keep the hinges oiled on the gates though.

Cal

 

[1982vett]

Pretty much been covered but I'll just add the spacing should be such that the animals will not be able to get their heads through. Always seems to me they can get their heads through an opening and then never figure out how to get back out.

As far as the distance off the ground I'll second Dun and BHB. No need to go that low to the ground. In fact I wouldn't put the bottom pipe any closer than 18" to the ground. I've never seen one try to crawl under a fence - mine always try to go over or through the fence.

I just got about 4000' of 2 3/8" (OD) but I'm going to put three horizontal with cattle panels.

Good luck with your build.

In the chute area you may want to go alittle lower if you run baby calves thru it....but in the pens you need to plan for the day YOU may need to crawl under that fence to get out if a cow or bull gets you down.

 

[Texas Gal]

....and remember the older you get the more space you need to crawl/roll under the fence.

 

[Littlejohn]

Hello All, thanks for the replies. I've check, and the pipe i have will work for the requirements of the cost share. I'm going with the pipe on 12" centers, up to 6' high, all but 1 gate is 12' wide. If i have problems with them sticking there heads through it, I will come back and add some cattle panels. I've spent the last couple of nights laying out the corral (I'll try to load my drawing in this post, the dotted lines are how the gates will swing). I didn't go with a sweep tub to try and keep the cost down for now, but my opening should be big enough to add one latter if i'm not happy with what i have.

Goals/uses for the Corral : Bull pen, couple of feeder calves pen, working area for AI, Shot's vacs, etc. My heard is not very large, so if I can get 3 or 4 at a time in the headgate/chute/working alley at a time, i think I will be happy

Thoughts