Gating for portable fencing

[mstacy]

I just started using portable electric fence. I’m running four corner posts, staked out with guy lines. I put the posts about 60 feet apart (roughly 1/12th acre). My four cows can graze that down in 2 to 3 days.

Does anyone have any clever ideas for moving animals from one pasture to the next. So far I’ve just been leading them into the barn on halters, moving the fence, and then leading them back out. This works ok, particularly with docile animals, but I’d like to figure out a good way to leave them in the field and “open” the new fence and move them over before breaking down the old fence.

If you have worked out any ingenious gating and fencing methods for management intensive grazing I’d love to hear about them.

-Matt

[Rod]

In New Zealand they use a long pole or poles and lift the fence up to let the cows go under it. I use spring gates which work good. My paddock dividers are made from one strand of poly wire on push-in pigtail posts. This allows the calves to go under and get the new grass but keeps the cows which are taller back.

[OldKat]

@mstacy 10871 wrote:

I just started using portable electric fence. I’m running four corner posts, staked out with guy lines. I put the posts about 60 feet apart (roughly 1/12th acre). My four cows can graze that down in 2 to 3 days.

Does anyone have any clever ideas for moving animals from one pasture to the next. So far I’ve just been leading them into the barn on halters, moving the fence, and then leading them back out. This works ok, particularly with docile animals, but I’d like to figure out a good way to leave them in the field and “open” the new fence and move them over before breaking down the old fence.

If you have worked out any ingenious gating and fencing methods for management intensive grazing I’d love to hear about them.

-Matt

I may not be answering what you are asking, if that is the case; sorry! What I have done with good results is create a series of semi-permanent cells (paddocks) of any given size, 2 acres, 4 acres, whatever … size makes no difference within reason. I make these rectangular in shape, maybe 2 to 3 times as long as they are wide. I use high-tensile strength electric fence wire on T posts using Gallagher insulators. I try to keep the long sides as parallel to each other as possible.

I put a 16′ wire gap in both ends, at a corner for a gate. The “gate” itself is simply an electric fence handle, I like Snapper brand, on each end of a single wire. I put a hot loop on the posts so that I can attach the hooks from the gate handles. When I open the gap I lay one end on the ground, then disconnect the other end and roll the gap up and set it out of the way to be used later.

To graze the cells I stretch polywire tape, Turbo tape or similar, from one long side to the other using insulated gate handles on each end. This is like a really long gap. Between the semi-permanent wires I stretch the poly tape at whatever slice of the paddock I want, maybe a 1/6th of it, 1/8th whatever. I use insulated posts with a built in pig tail on top to hold up the tape, maybe every 30 feet. Then I go about the same distance down the cell and do the same thing again, this becomes my back wall fence.

The cattle graze in front of the first polytape fence until I am ready to move them. Then I unhook one of the gate handles from the hotwire on one side and drape it over an insulated post. Then I go unhook the other end so that the tape is no longer hot. After about the third time the cows see you doing this they will be standing there waiting for you to get the tape out of their way. Go past your old back wall fence about the same distance down the cell and set up the tape and posts that you have just pulled up for a new back wall. Takes maybe 10 to 15 minutes once you get the hang of it.

You can just walk the wire down the cell that way until you reach mid-point. At that time I usually start all over again coming from the opposite direction. This gives the grass in the first side time to recover. Hope this makes sense.

[mstacy]

Thanks for the ideas.

[Carl Russell]

Matt, we have several rolls, so we can build a new paddock next to the old one. If you make your old an new gates near each other, you can run a string from one to the other to direct the cows into the next gate. I find that once they are grazing I can often take down a section and string a new polywire to replace it, if I need to.

We also make large sections then use the front-fence back-fence leap-frog like OldKat described.

We also use the orange plastic extension wire reels that you can get at the hardware store to keep our string on, then it can be rolled up and reeled out very easy. Also try making your sections smaller, and move them more often, then your string can be broken down into shorter lengths so you have several fences that you can set up at the same time.

Carl

[Vicki]

OldKat, thanks for describing your system. I want to try that next year to improve my rotational grazing by breaking up into more cells.

[OldKat]

@Vicki 11377 wrote:

OldKat, thanks for describing your system. I want to try that next year to improve my rotational grazing by breaking up into more cells.

I guess you could put so many in and make them so small that it wouldn’t be practical, but that would be hard to do. I think the more cells the better.

If you search the Noble Foundation website they have some really good stuff on rotational grazing that they can mail to you, or at least they use to. Haven’t been on their site in about 4 or 5 years. If you live in Oklahoma or Texas their material is free, otherwise they charge for the stuff they mail to you. However, the cost is nominal.

The most fascinating thing I ever read from them is a study they did where they would vary the stocking density to determine recovery time of the grass sward. When they reached 42,500 pounds live weight or more of animals per acre (obviously rotating every few hours) they began to see Big Bluestem grow in pastures where it had not been known to grow in over 50 years. They speculate that grazing practices they were using simulated the large herds of bison that once were free roaming in the area. Apparently this somehow stimulated the Big Bluestem seed that was laying semi-dormant in the soil. That just blows my mind. It makes you really wonder; “what ARE the possibilities?”

Good luck with your grazing project.

[Vicki]

Thanks for the link and the info. I had heard about high-rate stocking or mob-stocking to rejuvenate grazing. The problem out west is not too many animals, but too few with no rest periods; so only the desired plants get harvested leaving the junk.

Even in small scale paddock you can see the mob-stocking benefits, if the area can rest and regrow. In Ohio, dormant clover and bluegrass come in right away unless it is way too acid.

[OldKat]

@Vicki 11609 wrote:

Thanks for the link and the info. I had heard about high-rate stocking or mob-stocking to rejuvenate grazing. The problem out west is not too many animals, but too few with no rest periods; so only the desired plants get harvested leaving the junk.

Even in small scale paddock you can see the mob-stocking benefits, if the area can rest and regrow. In Ohio, dormant clover and bluegrass come in right away unless it is way too acid.

You just described the county I live in and probably 90% the cattle operations in our area. With 60,000 plus cows in our county, there are quite a few. BTW: ours probably has the smallest number of cattle of any of the nearby counties; some go well in excess of 100,000 cows for January 1 inventory.

The practice of overgrazing is so prevalent here that I once had a land owner that I lease land from ask me why I left the grass so long on his place (it was maybe 3 to 4″ tall), because everyone else would graze their places short and he liked “the look” of a place where the grass was eaten down to the ground! This summer when we experienced the worst drought that has hit us in at least 50 years, some say 100 years … his was the ONLY place within probably 15 miles around that had cattle on it AND green grass. It was short, because they were hammering it pretty hard … but it never turned brown. He now understands why I do the things I do.

We got a few timely showers in July and August, just enough to keep his grass alive, and decent September rain so that his place just exploded when the grass got a drink. The other nearby places are just NOW starting to green up, but the growing season is done. I was there yesterday and his grass is lush (primarily K R bluestem) and the seed heads are 8 to 10″ tall and setting seed. So it was stressed a little, as they should be probably 14″ to 16″ tall. Point is there is SOMETHING there for the cattle, everyone else has zip.

His neighbor, whose place I also lease was commenting yesterday afternoon on how nice the other guys place looked and he asked “How come my place doesn’t look like that?” I told him that he never wanted me to set up any smaller cells, so I basically can’t control the cows on his 120 acre place; they eat the good stuff and leave the junk. He told me “Do what you want to do!”. Touchdown!!!

Guess it is time to start setting up some more cells! Amazing what seeing results will do for people.

[Robert MoonShadow]

I’m not sure, but I see no reason this wouldn’t work for cattle, as well as it does for goats…
I have 20 goats; I handle them a lot, and taught the mommas a basic idea: “Ggoooaaatttiiieeess!!” = oat/barley treat time.
I use electric netting in 165′ rolls – usually 3 or 4 rolls together in whatever configuration/shape is needed. When I move them over to the new section, I just turn off the fence, and move it; it doesn’t take very long (about 10 minutes per roll – I already have the outline planned & weed-eated down). The goats (and now, my donkeys), tend to just graze nearby; they never wander too far – in fact, I’ve had to deal with curious baby goats (and donkeys!) “helping” me – and when I’m ready for them to be put away, I fetch out the bucket, call “Donkey girls – ggoooaattiieesss” and quickly dump the bucket in about 10 pans. Critters in, stretch that last panel, hook it up & watch them settle in. Alternative for when they get out: it’s similar to what was mentioned by another = place a pole on the netting (or wire) and lay it on the ground; chouse them over & in – no need to unhook or turn off the fencing. (Learned this one from watching the 2 people here w/ 700+ head of goats when some get out).
I might add that when putting up a temporary fence, that instead of going to all the trouble of guys, etc. in the corners, that setting the corner post at an angle leaning outward adds tension to the line/netting – sufficient enough to last the several days it’s up in that place.
I hope this helps.

[blue80]

My neighbour uses a few center pivots on 600 acres for a 350 cow calf grass fed operation. They have a hot wire on the pivot and follow with another wire. The water trough is in the center of the circle, always accessible. He manages his grass on I think a 22 day cycle, just clipping the tops of the grass and moving the cows on. The cows always are on the pivot side with the fresh grass when it moves, so moving the fence is a leisurely way to spy the cattle.

We are looking into using hand/wheel lines as mechanical irrigation and rotational grazing and follow it with some light footed ruminants and turkeys.

Kevin

[Nat(wasIxy)]

We move our cattle to fresh grass every single day – we just have another paddock set up ready for them to move into, then dismantle the old one once they’re in the new on a set it up beyond the new one for the next day.

They soon get used to the routine and we just call tem through.

[Tim Harrigan]

I’ve just have my 2 steers now so I set up single strands of polywire about 25 feet apart with a moveable stand that spans the 2 parallel lines. Every day I move it anywhere from 10 to 30 feet depending on the amount of grass available. I like to make it so in 10 days to 2 weeks they are through that paddock and starting the next 25 ft paddock. That way they are not overgrazing the pasture and putting pressure on the regrowth. Overgrazing is a good way to reduce species richness down to bluegrass and white clover in this part of the country. The pasture gets better every year. It is very interesting to watch over time.

[Anonymous]

I’ve found that gates for electric fencing are largely useless and expensive. To get animals in and out raise the fence with an 8′ pole with an insulator at the end. To drive vehicles in and out drop the wire to the floor. By using this method your able to vary the points where the animals and vehicles enter and leave the field and so minimise localised damage. If you only attach the plastic insulators to the post at the top of the insulator they are easy to swing to one side to detach/attach the wire. When raising the wire free the wire from one insulator. Raise the wire on the post and tie the post with a bit of baling twine to the fence post, as easy as 1-2-3.

[Author]

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