Flexible fencing layout/material ideas

[Libby2563]

I just had a dry lot installed in my pasture. It is going to have an auto waterer (yay!) and a shed. The idea is to be able to open and close gates from the dry lot to different sections of the pasture, so I can rotate grazing areas but they will always have access to shelter and water. My pasture is divided into three sections now, of about an acre each, so I was going to fence it with no-climb mesh and put in three pipe gates like I have elsewhere.

But I started wondering if I should do something less permanent, at least to start, in case I want to divide the pasture into more sections. Is that a good idea, and if so what are the best ways to do that?

The only ideas I’ve had are corral panels or T-posts plus Horseguard. I do have some corral panels but getting enough would be pretty expensive. I use Horseguard for my cross-fencing, with step-in posts since it’s all straight lines and they don’t challenge it. I like it for that purpose. But I’m not crazy about T-posts and I don’t much like tape gates, though I think something like that might be my best option.

Any other ideas I’m missing? I do need the gates to be wide enough for horses to pass through safely at liberty, so hanging a lightweight 4’ gate like this thread discusses won’t work. FWIW, this is for 2-3 horses plus a mini-donkey.

[ElementFarm]

we have exactly the setup you describe in your first paragraph. The run in shed and a water trough is in a small paddock. Three sides have gates that open to larger 1-2 acre grass fields. By choosing which gate to open, we can rotate which field the horses are grazing, but they always have access to their shed.

works great until you get too many horses and need to split into two turnout groups, so we are currently looking at bids for a second, duplicate run-in. But for a long time, the setup worked perfectly.

A lot of folks like the more temporary fence solutions, either for cost or because they’re not sure yet what setup they want. I would rather spend the money once to do it right, rather than spend $$ now, plus all the labor, only to have to spend $$$ and all the labor again to redo it right.

I attached a picture of our setup. The red line is the paddock with the run-in shed (20x24). The yellow lines are the gates and the orange lines are the grass pastures, all 1 - 2.5 acres each.

[Libby2563]

Element: thanks! Are you happy with the size of each pasture? How many horses do you have in there? I see what you’re saying about doing it right the first time. I just don’t want to spend a ton of money on something as permanent as no-climb with a top board, then realize I need more gates or something. Maybe I could split the difference though and put in double-wide gaps for each of the three gates, so they could become six if I needed them to. Hmm…

[ElementFarm]

yes, we are happy with our pasture sizes. We generally had 3-5 horses/ponies in there and depending on how fast the grass grows (weather dependent) we usually have good grass for them to eat most of the year Mar-Oct (we do plant winter rye every fall to increase grazing opportunity), as long as we drag/mow/maintain/rotate.

We have no-climb with a top rail for all the perimeter fencing. Cross fencing is mostly 3-rail split rail. You can always concrete in additional posts throughout the fenceline so you could put additional gates in later if you want. All of our fields have at least two gates (including the ones to the small run-in shed paddock). It works just fine for us. We use the primary gates for bringing in/out horses, and while I’m a believer in “more gates is better than not enough” as long as I have something wide enough to get my tractor in, or a truck, I’m fine.

[Libby2563]

Okay, Shutterfly is misbehaving so I put two pics of possible layouts on my blog: http://thesmallhorsefarm.blogspot.com/2015/04/rotational-grazing.html. The top pic, with 3 sections, is what it’s been like this year, with them on each section for 2-4 weeks. It’s been better than allowing them full access to the whole 3 acres, but there’s still room for improvement.

Maybe I could put in 5 gates instead of 3 (the blue lines in the pic), to preserve the option of having 5 sections. I couldn’t do more than that anyway because things would get too tight. Worst case, if I kept it in 3 sections I’d have double-wide gates. But at least I’d have a little more flexibility.

5 sections, shown in the bottom pic, would allow each area to be grazed for shorter intervals and then rest longer. I worry a little about the narrower ends near the dry lot, but the gates will be choke points anyway.

[csaper58]

Remember you will need gates to access for mowing and other maintenance. It might be hard for a dump truck or fertilizer truck etc., to get thru the dry lot,

[JoZ]

Libby in your diagrams it looks like fences move between the three-pasture and the five-pasture set-ups. Wasn’t the reason for the double gate to keep the fencing in one place (so the five-pasture set-up just ADDS two fences, doesn’t move the others)?

[Libby2563]

[QUOTE=JoZ;8863060]
Libby in your diagrams it looks like fences move between the three-pasture and the five-pasture set-ups. Wasn’t the reason for the double gate to keep the fencing in one place (so the five-pasture set-up just ADDS two fences, doesn’t move the others)?[/QUOTE]

Yes, that was the idea but as I played with it on the satellite view it wasn’t working very well. Also the sections would end up unevenly sized. Tried six too but then the areas near the dry lot get super narrow. Since I just use step-in posts for the cross fencing, shifting them isn’t too much of an ordeal and it’s not something I would plan to do often.

Csaper: Good point on gates and I will keep that in mind. The double wide gates would help with that. Unfortunately though, it’s hard to find someone to treat such a small acreage here so I do most of it myself anyway. The lime truck is the only thing I need to allow for and that’s not very frequent so I could always take down some cross-fencing in a pinch.

Thanks to all for the input! I think this idea is growing on me but I’m open to others as well.

[ElementFarm]

Personally, I like the 3 sections better.
If you have enough horses for “2 herds” than the 5 would be good. But for 1 group, I would prefer the 3.
Mostly because:
-my horses like to run and play in their t/o, not just eat. I’d rather have them have more width, and not just length to run.
-I do my own mowing, and the narrow fields are a pita to mow–more turns, slower, etc.
-less fencing, and since I do the permanent, nice looking fence, I’d rather save the money and have fewer fencelines.

I think with one turnout group, 3 pastures gives you enough options for rotation.

also, I dislike double gates. I would prefer to have one longer-span gate. The double gates always seem to have the ‘loose gate’ get moved out of position, and it sags or the foot gets stuck/bent. I would just get gates wide enough to drive your truck through (we have 12’s and they are adequate) and just do one gate per pasture.
I would also do one gate per shared fenceline so you can get equipment/horses/you from one pasture end to the other without having to walk up the whole way to the shed-paddock.