Fencing layout

Morning everyone. We are fencing the second pasture this fall that I seeded last year and had a year of growth on. I just want to get some ideas and opinions from others on what might work better or differently than what I thought about. We are doing Dexter's. We are strip grazing them and moving based off forage use. The blue is for gates. We have a small catch pen with chute and headgate, not much to it. We are going to have to move water by tote to the new pasture until we get a tank setup which is our plan for irrigation and watering. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and Ill get you an answer. Open to any suggestions with how you made things work. Thanks!

Have you seen the no fence fencing.
https://www.nofence.com/irtual fencing
' We work to make it easier to get livestock out on pasture, and to keep them there.'

When we bought our homestead we fenced the whole property then as needed cross fenced.

You plan looks good to me.

I have seen grazing plans that have a permanently accessible water supply… I wish I could remember the trick.  Maybe it will come to me soon.  I think it was Greg Judy who I heard it from.  Ha ha on me!  I went looking for it and found this video, he explains the opposite!, why you want to move the water source.  So don’t listen to me!  Here’s Greg Judy:
Lots of experience and sharing information
https://youtu.be/eYKv55kDZr8

Are you planning to subfence within your 2 enclosures, or just move them between the two ?

If they’re moving to new ground every day, the cattle get more value from the same volume of feed if you make them wait a few hours into the new day to let them into the new area.  This works because the brix rises as the sun shines on the plants following night time when photosynthesis isn’t occurring and the plants themselves are metabolizing the previous day’s sugar to support their own life processes / respiration.

I use Nofence collars with my goats - they are an absolute Godsend. They are humane and effective. I watched the technology develop over a few years and am so pleased to see it has matured. Fences require constant maintenance, taking you away from so many other chores needed to keep livestock. Definitely look into them.

I plan on breaking them into smaller paddocks moving every day or two based on the forage. That is good to know about moving later in the morning, I did not know that. Currently their water and shelter is on the sandy portion of pasture 1 at the top near the house. It doesn't hold any forage well so figured I would turn that in the sacrifice. When I move them to pasture two I would be trying to do the same concept might be a little harder though because of the overall shape of the pasture.

Hello Richard,

Your plan looks good!

I've been grazing cattle for a few years and here are some tips I give when asked about grazing cattle.

Put gates in corners. Gates in the middle of a fence run can be hard for some cattle to understand.

kencove.com and premier1supplies.com are good places to find fencing supply. They also have watering suppies like quick connect and floats.

Rubber hose will be better in the long term. Cheap hose and connections are good today but seam to break when its least ideal. I buy a roll of 3/4" rubber hose from a green house supply and cut what is needed. Jobe float valves have pipe fittings. I once converted pipe fitting to hose fittings. I realized I could run the hose right off a barbed pipe fitting off the tank and make less connections. The less connections you have with watering systems the less connections that can leak.

Nathan Drager
Drager Farms

Richard, glad I could help.  I am not against  sacrifice areas.  When I had only a two acre place where I grazed 3 or 4 milk goats, I figured if I tried to do it without a sacrifice area, I would slowly end up sacrificing the whole place, one part at a time.

It makes sense to use the sandy part that doesn’t grow any forage as sacrifice.  However, over time, your cattle are going to be increasing the fertility of that sandy patch,(simultaneously depriving the rest of your soil of the same fertility.)  

As you fine tune your operation, you might come up with a way to move your watering set up around, because the cattle do tend to  manure and urinate next to the water… Right now, I imagine a water tank and trough on a trailer might work, especially in summer, if you have freezing winters… but I don’t know, you would have to level the trough every time you moved it… 🤷🏻‍♀️ just a thought, maybe not worth keeping.

I just want to say don’t expect yourself to come up with a prefect setup from day one.  It’ll be a dynamic process, eternally changing.  Get a good enough system that you can start, and trust that you will be able to make adjustments, once the cattle are moving around in the system.  Start with the idea that you will fine tune the system as the cattle show you the opportunities for improvement .

And enjoy the process.

Hello Richard,  I’ve raised a few Dexters for the last 10 years or so.  Curious as to what your growing in your fields?  Often what you’re growing is more important than what’s eating it.   Bit of chicken and the egg.  Greg Judy’s excellent, Gabe Brown’s ‘Dirt to Soil’, great guides as well as ‘Stockman Grass Farmer’.  Dexters love to browse vertically and a way to increase feed is grow vertical.  A few trees, bushes high enough they can’t quite get to the top will give shade and and feed.   If you give them the best food the they’re happier, fields happier, fences are more effective.  Cheers