How the heck do I set up my fence for rotational grazing????

[danmcph]

I have a completly rectangular piece of land that is totally flat with no trees etc. Think Idaho potato ground. This makes it 1.2 acres which is perfect for 4 goats. I thought I would fence the exterior perimeter and then divide the interior into 4 seperate paddocks to rotate the animals through.

Here is the rub. I am new to animals and electric fence. I can figure out the perimeter wire and how to do that.

How do I do the cross wires? I don't know how to use the one charger I have to power the perimeter and the cross fences both. I don't know how to make it easy to drop the cross fences in order move the animals to a the new piece without depowering the perimeter. Also, what other info do I need to know. Thanks for helping out a newbie.

 

[goodhors]

For a rectangular piece as you describe, I would make smaller areas on one long side, like a stack of small boxes inside the larger box.
Then on the other long side, is an "aisle or lane" going from the front to the back fence. The smaller areas can have gates or wires to close
them off on the short side of their box shape or used to go across the lane to outside fence. Goats go down the lane from barnyard or
night pen area to your smaller "box" area to graze in. When the "box" is grazed down, you close it off from the lane and open then next
box up the lane for grazing. You rotate thru the stacked small "box areas" and then start over with the first one near the barnyard.
Goats graze both the box area and the lane. You could consider the lane as a 5th paddock, let them just graze it for a day or so to clean
it up nicely if they have been ignoring it.

Am I making this layout clear? This is hard to describe with no photos! 4 small box/paddocks sounds like a reasonable amount for the area and
just goats inside. Lane actually adds a 5th grazing are, securely enclosed for the goats to use. You will have to watch how low the grass
is getting, to figure how quick to rotate them out. You don't want the grass down to dirt, takes too long to grow back up.

Making a lane allows you to only need one water tank up at the barnyard area. Just opening or closing the gate to the boxes lets the goats
use the area you want them in, with little work to change things quickly. Depending on your goat's skill at getting out, the gate will need
to be solid or just some hot wire with spring hooks to go across the lane. Maybe hot wire will work for you as the fence for making the smaller
grazing areas.

You may want to mow after moving goats out, which keeps weeds from setting seed and evens up the grasses they didn't use. Sometimes
they have a "bathroom area" which they won't graze even though it looks like GREAT grasses, so you have to just keep mowing it. Grazing
animals seem to LIKE new growth best when they have a choice. Most will over-graze the new growth into dirt and ignore the tall, dried
stuff which has little or no food value. Mowing keeps the grass growing, doesn't let it go to seed, which allows the plant to go dormant for
the rest of the season!! So if seeds are allowed to set and dry, your pasture may be gone for this year! Mowing tall and often, prevents grass
dormancy. I mow my pasture at 5 inches tall, never let it get taller than 8 inches. I am lucky to live in an area which usually has good rain
to keep the grass coming on. I don't know your area, so keeping pasture productive may require other steps. I have horses, don't let them
graze things lower than 3 inches before taking them off the pasture. Horses are limited on grazing times because they will get obese, so only
about 12 hours a day grazing time, which does stretch out the grass available. Might be helpful with your goats if needed, to pen them up part
of the day, stretch out your grass availability.

 

[kfacres]

4 goats on 1.2 acres won't need to be rotational grazed.. they won't be able to keep up the way it is... I like to consider an acre to be roughly 208 x 208... which means your pens are going to be fairly small.

2 strand, or 3 strand hot wires in the middle. 4 strand perimeter.

Alley ways are wasted space. I like the pie shape effect for my rotational setup.

 

[redtailgal]

do you have plans to have a "clean" area, meaning a place to put them when you worm them?

I've tried to keep a separate area to put my goats after worming them, so that they drop their wormload in a place other than where they are grazing.

Rotational grazing works wonderful, even in a small set up and you can make a pass thru cheaply by using a "Gap hook" in your fenceline.

Let me know if you dont know what I'll mean and I'll try to get you a pic.

 

[secuono]

To keep the inside fencing hot, you just need a wire in ground or suspended in the air above the gateway. It will continue the electricity no matter what.
Drawing I made.
Yellow is hot wire overhead.
Black is pipe underground w/insulated wire in it.
Red is hot wire.

 

[danmcph]

What is a Gap Hook?

 

[kfacres]

What is a Gap Hook?

plastic coated spring handle electric fence used for a gate.

 

[redtailgal]

We run our fences very similar to what Secuono kindly drew out for you, however, we do not run the wire above the gate because It gets in the way of the tractors, we just run a buried line if we are doing a "hard gate"..........meaning an actual gate.

Many times we just put in a gap.

The following link should show you an image of a handle similar to what we use: http://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-9377-dare-gate-handle-with-1-12in-tape-tensioner.aspx

Here is an example the what it looks like (ours is stouter):

http://www.outdooressentialsllc.com/images/ELEC6.jpg

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/beef/images/baa10s01e.jpg

http://www.rappa.co.uk/images/products/large/185b.jpg

You just unhook the wire using the insulated handle, carry the wire out of the way, and then rehook it back in place when your through.
I've got a diagram I want to show you, that will give a good example of why I like to use this type of gate for rotational grazing. it will take me a couple minutes to draw it (I'm not nearly as talented as Secuono, so please forgive my lack of skill)

be back in a minute......

 

[redtailgal]

Secuono puts me to SHAME!!!!

ANyway.........

This is similar to how I have my goats set up. The black lines are solid electric fencing, with with buried wire covering the "gaps".

Now, we build the fence leaving a uniform size "gap" in the fence where we need gates......we do about 6 feet to allow for tractors and the like. Then we take an appropriate sized length of wire and attach one of the insulated handles at each end of that wire........ending up with a non attached fence piece with a handle on both ends. On each post at the gap, we have a place to connect those handles in, which leaves us with many configurations on how to use the gap space. The different colors show a few of the different ways we can divide the pasture.

This pic would be taken from above.......see the "hook-in" on each post? YOu'd take each end and hook into the appropriate posts, we've actually taken and used two gates, for example right now I have the ones represented by the pink line AND the gate represented by the red line up, but soon I'll take the "red gate" down and let the have that area as well.

I hope that made sense. The metal end of the handle would hook into the electric portion of your fence, giving you an electrified gate, so there would be no "testing" the gate. We run a four wire fence.......so our gates are four wires as well.

Let me know if I need to explain this better.........