Goat Fencing in the Woods

I am racking my brain looking for the solution to fencing an area through our woods for two Kinder goats.  It has a lot of dense underbrush and is uneven so an electric fence would not work.  What should we use to fence rough and uneven ground that would keep our binders in?  

I can't think of any portable solution, unless you did some clearing along the electric fence lines. We use 115cm high hinge joint fencing, the uneven bits get pegged down with more fence posts, and it looks a bit wonky in places, but it does the job, not portable though.

One idea might be to fence off a larger area, the goats then clear a lot of the brush and then it's easier to divide into smaller paddocks.

Invisible Pet Fence and fit them into collars maybe

I cut a path through our woods with a brush cutter, Then I use welded wire fencing.  

if you don't have predators in your area like coyotes you could put them on a picket line or if you have the time you could herd them thru your woods.welding fence works well like john said.Rock jacks work well if earth very rocky.I've seen fencing thru solid rock before..It's good to ponder sometimes a wiseman once told me.You got this permie.

Take a chainsaw to your brushy fence line and clear it if you want to go with electric.  Goats can be hard to contain with electric though, you gotta make sure they respect the hot wire.  

We've found that field fencing is the cheapest wire fence per foot; it's around $175 for 150 feet last I checked.  This is the fencing that has 6x6" holes tapering down to 2x6" holes near the bottom.  It's heavy gauge and usually 4' tall.  In some ways it's way more durable than welded wire, and in some ways it's not.  Welded wire will start coming apart if a goat or other animal works it too much.  My goats have mastered tearing welded wire apart.  So woven wire, like the field fencing, is the solution for them.  Except the field fencing has such big holes that it's not vertically sturdy.  It's easily crushed and warped if it's not fixed tightly to posts.    

The solution we use for both goat and pigs is field fencing with 2 strands of hot wire.  One down low and one at chest height for the goats.  The field fence then doesn't have to endure abuse from the animals, but you're not relying solely on a hot wire to contain everyone.  You can even add a hot line on the exterior of the fence to fry curious predators!

As mentioned above, you could also create 50 or 100' run lines through the forest; they're pretty cheap at a hardware store.  Lash the line between two trees and have one goat per line.  Clip their halter to the runline's pulley with a 3' lead (that they can't chew through) and the goat can now run that length of the runline, and also a few feet on either side of it.  I like to do this with my goats in unfenced areas that need the brush taken back.  Then in the evening I can put them back in their secure goat yard.  This method is portable and doesn't hurt the trees you hook the runlines to.
 You gotta make sure that their lead is short so it can't get tangled up in the brush.   And only 1 goat per run line!  They will readily hog tie themselves together if you run them too close to one another.

Edit on the run line idea:  We've used conventional dog run line wires with pulleys, as well as dog tie out leads.  Tie out leads are cheap online, like ebay.  You can pick up a 50' 120lb rated lead for under $20.  Sometimes what I do is clip one end of one lead around a tree about 5-6' up, then on the open end, clip it to a 10' lead.  Then the open end of the 10' lead gets clipped to another 50' lead, and the open end of that lead to another tree.  So what I have is 2 lengths of 50'~ run line, and a 10' barrier space between them.  This allows me to put the goats on the same path and same setup, but it keeps them far enough apart that they don't get tangled, if that makes sense.  Short 3-5' leads are hard to find but can be made for less than $5 at the hardware store.  Just get some rubber coated security cable by the foot, some wire clasps and some fastener clips, like the lobster clips.  Mount a clip to either end of the 3' cable and pinch the wire clasps closed.  Boof!  A short cable lead!  You clasp the lead to the coated dog tie out lead and the goats can zip up and down the length of the lead the same as a dog tie out lead/pulley setup.  Hope that makes sense

I'm having the same doubts around here. The tethering seem to be the cheapest, easiest solution. My concern is about the goats getting tangled around trees and brushes. May work better if the run line is fixed about 1,5 meter from the ground. My first thought was to start with just one animal, but most people say that goats doesn't go well alone. So I must think about double the structure. Saw a video on Youtube showing two goats in the same run line. Doesn't look good.

leonardo moresco ramos wrote:I'm having the same doubts around here. The tethering seem to be the cheapest, easiest solution. My concern is about the goats getting tangled around trees and brushes. May work better if the run line is fixed about 1,5 meter from the ground. My first thought was to start with just one animal, but most people say that goats doesn't go well alone. So I must think about double the structure. Saw a video on Youtube showing two goats in the same run line. Doesn't look good.

Tethering works if you're willing to pay attention and trouble shoot.  Actually...  Goats in general only work if you're willing to pay attention and troubleshoot xD  Anyway.  I like to suspend the run lines between trees and use the short lead to help prevent tangling.  If you just clip a 50' lead to a goat's halter you're going to have a giant mess on your hands.  Their run line must be suspended off the ground unless they're just in open pasture (but even then they excel in tangling a lead on clumps of grass....).  Definitely don't want to put tethered goat near one another, they will absolutely make it their first priority to tie themselves together....

Thanks so much everyone.  Its rare to see anything online about fencing through woods, but I understand goats love the woods!

We mostly attach our fences right to the trees.  Sometimes we staple or screw things in, other times we repurpose twine.  Twine is nicer to the tree in the short term.  For a temporary fence it won't hurt the trees one bit.  But if you leave it on and the tree has to grow into it, you could hurt the tree.  Whereas staples and screws and nails wound it in one spot, but they can often times cope with it well enough.  We've used a lot of manufactured insulators as well as home made insulators out of scrap black irrigation pipe.

Hi Deb,

We basically do what Jen has stated above. I really like her idea of using dummy twine lines. Our dummy lines we used the electric wire, just didn't hook them all up.
The twine sounds a bit more affordable than having to get all the clips. We did add a few dummy lines, where there drops in the fence due to elevation change.

When we use trees as post, we slid the hot wire into some black plastic irrigation tubing that is stapled to the tree, and any old hose will work.

So, I'm in a similar situation. We are off-grid with periods of cloudiness, so electric fencing isn't really a reasonable year-round solution. My idea is rotational grazing, but bringing them back to our barn every night. Does anyone else have experience with this?

Hi Stacy,

I have an excellent Border Collie  and an Australian Shepherd,  but I still bring our goats in to our backyard corrals.  The coyotes are too big of a risk.  

Thanks John,
I expected as much. We have cougars, bobcats and some wolves in the area, so I'm thinking definitely the barn overnight. Our barn doesn't have a door, so I'm going to have to figure that bit out first. And still planning on having LGDs.

Jen, wow, you have the goat thing figured out!  Have wanted to try goats for clearing brushy areas that I want to turn into pasture, but the challenges of containing goats has held me back. Someday I will have the necessary infrastructure!