Suggestions for fencing HUA

[oscarsteve]

I've qualified for some NRCS EQUIP help. As part of that, a well has been drilled and I'm getting ready to start laying pipe to the locations for 3 watering facilities. I'm going to use 4-ball freezeless MiraFount waterers. Each of these watering facilities is required to have a Heavy Use Area (HUA) surrounding it. The HUA's will be 34 ft. x 36 ft with the waterer in the middle. I know the NRCS requirements for all of those things. However, I need help coming up with an efficient design for how to best fence around the HUA's. Rather than putting the waterers in the middle of a fenceline (where they only have access to half of the waterer from any given pasture), I'd like the cows to have access to the entire watering facility no matter what pasture they are in. Two of them will be serving two pastures each and one will be serving 3 pastures. I'd welcome any suggestions on a fence design around these areas. Thanks in advance!

 

[kenny thomas]

Some here fence an area like you describe with 16ft cattle panels and wood posts. Make it large enough that most of the cows can go in at once. That makes a great catch area if you have a health problem.

 

[dun]

Some years ago we had a similar deal. I just built it with ga gate into each of the individual pastures. Close one and open another.

 

[mrvictordomino]

I've qualified for some NRCS EQUIP help. As part of that, a well has been drilled and I'm getting ready to start laying pipe to the locations for 3 watering facilities. I'm going to use 4-ball freezeless MiraFount waterers. Each of these watering facilities is required to have a Heavy Use Area (HUA) surrounding it. The HUA's will be 34 ft. x 36 ft with the waterer in the middle. I know the NRCS requirements for all of those things. However, I need help coming up with an efficient design for how to best fence around the HUA's. Rather than putting the waterers in the middle of a fenceline (where they only have access to half of the waterer from any given pasture), I'd like the cows to have access to the entire watering facility no matter what pasture they are in. Two of them will be serving two pastures each and one will be serving 3 pastures. I'd welcome any suggestions on a fence design around these areas. Thanks in advance!

How many head will you be running in your rotation. I have 4-ball waterers in the fence line with two balls serving 60 mature cows, no issues.

 

[oscarsteve]

Right now I have a total of 50 cows and calves, but in the process of building my numbers (slowly). I know the 4-ball waterers are a little "overkill" for my numbers, but I'm getting a really good deal on them. Fencing a perimeter around the HUA and waterer to create a "common" area from any of the pastures would give me more flexibility with how I could subdivide the pastures into smaller paddocks with polywire. It allows me to more intensively manage their grazing.