Curious to see what other people have built for round pens? Lots of different styles online.
I have a 50’ on with four-board fence, but 50’ is a bit small for my taste so I am considering building a 70’ one elsewhere on my property.
Four board is, of course, quite expensive. Also, two years into my own farm, I am HATING the upkeep that board fencing requires. I swore up and down I wouldn’t put any more up, and as the existing board fence gets replaced, it’d be with wire mesh. I currently have some board fence, some wire with top board or top electric wire, some three-strand electric.
I’ve seen a few on Google done with batten strapping, and they look quite nice, but I’m unsure about the safety of a non-rigid round pen structure.
Then I looked at solid plywood walls, which is about as expensive as boards, but maybe less maintenance? Then I read something that you’re supposed to leave enough room under the fence for someone to roll out of the pen to safety in case of emergency. Can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone do that, is it that necessary? Because then I thought of doing wire mesh to match the field it would be placed next to, and just one top board. I guess I could install the wire mesh a couple feet off the ground?
I purchased the horseguard round pen kit. Its 60’ but I’m sure you could easily get the extra materials to make it bigger. Their 60’ kit was only $400 plus t posts and was installed in one day. Super easy! I don’t electrify it and I haven’t had any issues. Actually my horse tripped once and fell over sideway onto the fence. It flexed and bounced right back and he didn’t have a scratch on him!
We built our 60’ round pen back in 2003 on a very limited budget. We used landscape timbers as posts (augured holes + concrete), 100’ of 48" welded wire, and double top boards made out of 8’ pine dog eared pickets (like you use in a privacy fence). We only made one mistake - using those pressure treated landscape timbers. We should have used traditional 4X4’s instead. The timbers have rotted at the ground on 1/2 the pen now. 
But it looked lovely for a good 10+ years.
We built our round pen a railing height of 5ft 6 inch . It is a 20 meter diameter. Rails are 6 inch wide 5/4 rounded edge treated boards installed with 6 inch breaks on 4by6 posts… this was built nearly twenty five years ago and is still there with little sign of wear
Five years ago we stained the wood and that has been it.
We did install a section of wind screen over the railing since the round pen is used mostly as an additional paddock these days. The screening is the wind break material that was replaced on from a high school baseball diamond
as for
Then I read something that you’re supposed to leave enough room under the fence for someone to roll out of the pen to safety in case of emergency.
never thought about that because if the horse was that unsafe it would have been disposed of long before hand
The round pens we have used have all been made out of portable panels, the cheaper ones with many smaller bars.
We were using them to start border collies herding, why the many bars at the bottom, to keep the trained hair goats in there.
The panels were special order, nine bars, 5 1/2’ tall and at 10’ long only about 90#.
They are easy to move if we need some panels somewhere else.
Ours comes out to 59’ diameter.
We never get very wild with horses, so no horse ever hit the panels or much less tried to jump out or attack anyone, so the panels are still like new, no bent pipes anywyere.
You may check the prices of portable panels.
May not be as much as you think.
Those are very much self standing, may just need a post or two by a gate if you don’t use a bowgate.
We built a 68’ round pen using 12’ pipe panels that are 6’ high, 5-rail and attached wooden boards around the bottom as a kick board. It is large enough to ride in.
Ours is also constructed of the portable pipe panels. It’s about 25 years old and still in good, usable condition.
An advantage of the panels is that we’ve been able to easily move the round pen, although it’s been in its current location a very long time.
I boarded at a facility that had a round pen with solid wooden walls, high enough that people outside the pen couldn’t see inside of it; I considered this lack of visibility a possible safety hazard for an occupant working with a young, green or rank horse.
Thanks everyone! I should have added I really don’t like the pipe panel look, myself. I definitely want wood posts, going to use 4x4s.
Since it doesn’t sound like anyone felt the need to have space underneath to roll out, I think I’ll go for wire mesh and batten straps up top for height, replace with boards in the future when I can afford to.
Here’s an in-between option if you want a solid wall that I thought was interesting and saved a link a while back: pipe frames made to accept full plywood sheets: https://www.noblepanels.com/cow-cutter.htm
Ours is 80’ diameter. Home built by us. Big enough to free jump in, big enough to ride in, big enough to make the human tired keeping in position to drive a sloth-like horse forward. Fence is 5’ high, haven’t had anything jump out of it yet. 2 X 10 rough cut plank fencing, solid on the bottom part, spaces between the upper planks. Posts driven into the ground with the post pounder. Love it!
I went through chubby Baird gate co. A 60 foot round with 6 foot no climb panels was 1200 bucks delivered and their panels are so light we set them up ourselves in less than an hour. That also means we can pull panels and use them elsewhere if we need with no hassle.
it’s one of my favorite things I’ve bought for the farm at this point. We looked into the board fencing option and I’m glad we didn’t go that route.
I so wish the pipe corral barns around here had something more like this. This is genius.
Totally not DIY (or cheap) but I ran across this and wow… solid white oak but it’s portable panels pinned together:
http://www.greatoakequine.com/Round-Pens.html
(They also have some really interesting stall fronts – double gates across the front in interesting designs.)
