Help with H Frame Pallet Fencing

Hi Everyone

I have used the H Frame pallet fencing design from your website as I believe it is a great idea and is saving me money (always a plus). So far I have been using the design to make a sheep yard to pen my dorpers and a couple of merinos (the merinos are strays) in so that I can check them each night and hopefully catch the merino strays and remove their wool coats. I also want to use it to fence my car park area as it is turning out to be foal proof unlike every fencing idea that the fencing stores have come up with.

The dorpers have broken the fence apart, ripping the screws out of the adjoing pallets. I originally blamed this on my horses who I have had to apologise to. I caught the dorpers having an itching party last night.

Would anyone have any ideas as to a solution, I was thinking longer screws, but I am not sure that will even withstand the pressure they are putting on the pallets and I would like to come up with a fix before I do more fencing projects and incorporate the idea(s) into them.

Thank you for any help

Shahtess

Sure - electric line on the inside of your pallet paddock. Place one line at nose level and one at ankle level, that should do it.

If they have no trees - I would also add some pallets secured together to form a structure, place it at the center of their area for them to scratch on or sleep under - whatever ever they like.

Hi Jami

Please note there is no power on this property and anything that is left there eg solar energisers for electric fencing would be stolen (no house, I visit daily). There are a mixture of young trees (max 5 years old) and older trees, not a lot, but about 30 of them on 55 acres, they are preferring the pallets.

You mentioned building them a scratching structure, what shape/design would work?

Thank you

Alicia

Shahtess Thorne wrote:I have used the H Frame pallet fencing design from your website

was trying to check it out and can not find anything,
can you please point me in th right direction?
thanks

Check this out EV

https://permies.com/t/8617/critter-care/fence-pallets

thanks
the search and I - two worlds collide ;/

Hello Alicia,

Lean two pallets together to form a A-frame. I secure mine by cutting scrap ply-wood into a wide triangle and screwing this at the top front and back where the two pallets touch. You may want to add some wood bracing along the bottom, from side to side - front and back for more reinforcement. This makes a small place to go into for shade as well as to rub on. Some pallets are square, while others are rectangle giving a longer side - run the long side up giving more height to the A-frame. If you have bigger animals you can secure the pallet A-frame to a base of cinder-blocks giving the structure more head room.

You can use pallets to build a climbing structure for goats too, but happily I don't have climbing animals.

I've used this same set up for a dog house - adding a floor and covering with a tarp, and for a covered compost bin - adding 3 walls under the A-frame. I use long screws to attach the pallets to each other.

I use pallets as doors into our electric pig enclosures, turned on their sides so we can just step over. I use pallet wood to make gate like doors for the sheep, cow, alpaca electric areas. And I've taken pallets apart and used the planks to fill in between the slats of sound pallets to make solid floors for my hay barn/enclosure.

Oh and one more - I like to use the A-frame at the end of a stack of fire wood, it braces the long stack perfectly until I'm ready to use the wood. I have a lot of trees, but rarely are they perfectly lined up for a nice big stack of fire wood. So I find one to use for one side of the stack and then use the pallet A-frame for the opposite end - perfect!

The are very useful

I have used the pallet fence idea around my main garden to protect it from my livestock in case they escaped their pasture area. Yes, they know about the garden and make a beeline for it. The pallet fence is effective against my horse, donkey, and most of the time against the sheep. But I do have one ram who just pushes against the pallets until the bend or collapse, then climbs over, leading the rest of the flock. So I'd have to say the pallet fences are not reliable on keeping out a smart sheep. As for goats, forget it. My goats laugh all the way as they jump over the pallets. They see the pallet fence as an amusing plaything on their way to munching down my garden. So I eventually gave up on the pallet fence and hot wired the livestock pasture to prevent fence breaks and damaged gates due to feral pigs. Oh yes, the pallet fence was very effective in keeping feral pigs out of the garden. I don't know why, but they never broke through. They can put holes in my stock fence, but for some reason they never challenged the pallet fence. Go figure.

So I have used sturdy pallets to make pig effective pig pens. The young pigs have never escaped the pallet fence pens, but the adults have knocked them down when scratching themselves on the pallets. That was solved by running a hotwire inside the fence at pig level. I use a solar fence energizer which is blocked from view by sitting inside a beat up old wooden box. The solar panel is exposed to the main sunshine. So far in 9 years nobody has bothered to trespass, look inside the box, and steal the charger. Of course the pigs aggressively squeal whenever someone approaches (here-comes-the-food squealing), so they are their own watchdog protection. Nobody can sneak up on the pigpen unnoticed.

We have two large pallet fences that keep in our Great Pyrenees, cows (Jersey, Holstein), mini horses, Nigerians, ducks and geese. Chickens and turkeys use the top of the pallet to fly up and out with no trouble.

Building a pallet fence is a piece of cake. Simply overlap the ends of each pallet and drive a nail diagonally through the top. Sometimes the pallet will crack if you don't use long thin nails and hammer gently (see pic for crack) Next hammer one nail through the top middle and bottom middle sections of the board. The nail will stick out the other side. Just hammer it down so the point is flush with the pallet. See picture you will see the nail and the cat. If you look closely you can see a head stanchion attached to a pallet frame where cows are milked.