Designing Your Cattle Pen
A set of cattle pens is a process with a lot of questions. Initially the pens’ location. Having it strategically located makes a difference. Are you going to rebuild an old set of pens or are you starting from bare ground? Is this going to be a set of working pens at the headquarters or a gathering pen in the pasture?
If it’s going to be a gathering cattle pen in a pasture, more than likely it will be located near the gate access to the road so trucks can get in and out.
If you would be free to have more of a choice for location, remember cattle drive easier into a cattle pen going uphill rather than downhill.
Understanding the Objectives of Your Cattle Pen
You want to ask yourself a few questions to understand the objective of your pen: will it be for vaccinating and processing or will it be for gathering and holding? Will it be for cows/calves, yearlings, bulls or multipurpose? Will you be doing a lot of sorting or just need one big pen and one smaller pen?
You can also ask yourself, how many head are you expecting to hold? You need to know how much allotted square footage per head you will need? There is a difference in footage if you’re going to hold your cattle for a day or overnight.
You can find calculations per head square footage from Dept. of Animal Sciences at Colorado St. University under direction of Temple Grandin, they have pre calculated tables.
Next, how many sorting/holding pens will be most functional? The length and width of your alleyway and how are your pens going to feed into your alleyway? Roughly draw out a design and get an idea of how many gates you expect will be needed. If you have too many gates that’s not really a problem, if you don’t have enough that is.
Get somewhat of an idea of the flow you have in mind, the cattle come in one gate, funnel through the alley and chute, then where do they feed to? Another holding pen or back to the original pen? What type of cattle will you be working with, mild dispositions or energetic/wild?
There are cattle that require a 6’ tall or taller fence with a pipe top-rail, or some never “try” a standard 5’ tall fence. Don’t underestimate a 5’ tall fence, it isn’t a short fence when you are standing next to it.
Preparing Your Pen’s Ground
If you are starting your cattle pen from bare ground, it makes a substantial difference if the ground is level and not sloping. What appears to the naked eye as level isn’t necessarily so when marked with a transit. The builder of your fence is putting all effort into having your top-rail level all the way through your cattle pen. This means if one end of your pen is higher than the other, the low end of your cattle pen the fence itself will be elevated off the ground.
You then will have to come back and fill that gap with ground material. If you are building on ground that's not level, it makes a significant difference on how your gates swing and look compared to the rest of the fencing. Sloping ground also leads to bad erosion and ruts in your cattle pen. You will never regret leveling and preparing your ground before starting your pen.
In Summary
Location of your cattle pen and what is the ground condition like, sloping or level?
How many head of cattle are you wanting to hold? Are your cattle gentle or excitable?
If you’re going to be doing a lot of sorting, that will require more pens, or are you looking for one big holding pen with a smaller feeder pen into the alleyway.
Getting started with a rough drawing of the pen, alleys, gates and so on. The more you study it and think about it, the more detail you will be able to add to it.
As always don’t hesitate to call, message or email us Tough Bar Fence. We are more than happy to help you figure out the best layout. For more tips, check out our blog!