New Here - Have some fencing questions

[pogo0685]

Hi everyone! I am new here and have some questions about a fence. Right now we have one horse that is in a 150' x 75' run. She needs a bigger home, its made of t-posts and field fencing. We are also set to get 6 goats sometime in June, well we have to get them by June, the people that have them are moving to another state at the end of June, so the sooner the better. So I need to figure out how to do the fence the best possible way I can but for the least amount of money. The area I have marked out for it is 750' x 260' give or take a bit because I was measuring this by myself with a newborn strapped to me and a toddler running around the field. This comes to just about 4 1/2 acres. I was thinking of leaving the area I have for my horse now intact and making that the "night time" pen and doing the rest of it with electric wire, from what I heard I would need 4 strand electric, this will be for them to get out in the daytime and graze. People say this is the cheapest way to go. Does this sound like a good plan to you guys? Also out of the pen I will be taking out a chunk of it for my boy goat (will be two goats when I can find another one). I know that his fence will need to be something like field fence with electric wire because it will share a fence line with my girls. I plan to use the goats for milk and meat, so I was also wondering if the goats sharing a fence line will affect the taste of the milk. Maybe I should put that question in the goat section, im not sure. Anyway, glad to be here!! I hope to learn a lot from you all that have more experience with this than I do.

 

[Lupa Duende]

I just replied to another goat fencing post!

We use cattle fencing, four foot high and that's it. Goats are like little boys..., if they REALLY want to go someone they will. Two of my girls came to me feral last year and they are the cuddliest things now because I feed them by hand give them a scratch whenever I can. They wait at the school bus stop for the children!

Four foot cattle fencing and lock them up at night to keep the coyotes confused.

 

[CCassity]

I would say field fence for the goats 4 strand electric fence won't keep them in. If you want it safe for both your goats and horse add two strands of electric one on the top and one about a foot off the ground to keep your horse off the fence. I have 5 sheep behind field fence and last year had a horse in with them I ran hot wire to keep her away from the field fencing. Worked get also keeps coyotes and neighbors dogs out.

 

[perchie.girl]

If you can possibly wing it use field fence and hot wire for goat containment. One hot wire low for the goats and one high for the horse. The deal is with four strand electric fence Yeah you will keep them in but you wont keep stray dogs out. And if and WHEN the power goes out for what ever reason there goes your goat contiainment..... Cattle panels are good for cattle and goats and sheep but not for horses. The upper holes are too big and a hoof can get caught in them. They do make an all purpose panel which has smaller holes and if I were to be able to get my hands on them I would use that for the small paddock areas for the goats and horse.

I am going through a similar process of combining horse containment with goat containment. My horse is a 2000 lb Percheron and I have a 75 by 100 corral for her made of 1 7/8 diameter pipe made of fifteen gauge steel. She can stand and put her hoof on the middle rail and bang it if she wants attention. I am going to line the corral with horse anti climb fence to contain the goats. then I will extend access for the goats only to the Chaparal and HUGE rocks at the back of the horse area. They will be serving brush duty only..... my little reprobates.... LOL.

But my biggest worry for them is loose dogs. I have had a pack of six run up and down the fence of their current yard and almost give them a heart attack. I cant do hot wire here in the desert without a special setup because its too dry to make a ground. My place is in a corner of the Sonoran Desert about two miles from the Mexican border.... 10" +- annual precipitation. So driving a ground has to go about ten feet deep.


so short suggestion.... use hot wire to begin with but plan on adding field fence later. T posts should have a rounded top cap added to protect the horse from getting skewered Great part is there are hot wire insulators that serve as a Tpost cap.

deb

 

[pogo0685]

Thanks for all the replies, I have had to change my plans for now, we have decided to not stay here and we will hopefully be moving in the next 3 months, but it might take 6, so what we are going to do is expans the current pen and just keep with the field fencing and 2 strands of hot wire there, and then when we move we are going to move to the mountains where we will be looking at getting 2-3 feet of snow on the ground at a time so I don't think electric would work up there anyway, so we will have no choice but to go with field fencing with a few strands of hot wire. Will hotwire keep bears and mountain lions away? We are also getting another horse this month because my friend lost her place and her horse has nowhere to go so we will have 2 horses and 5 goats.