Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Doug Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net>]

Food for thought on fencing for meat goats and other livestock -- intended for seed, garden, & animal husbandry e-groups.

doug

Strong, durable, long-lasting fences are a must for Boar goat containment!  A herd of Boar goats that are hungry, horny (or both ;-) will jump up against your fence, walk along leaning their weight hard against it in order to scratch themselves, and ram into the fence with their horns trying to break through.

Good livestock fencing isn't inexpensive.  It's a one-time, up-front cost that can be budgeted as a long-term investment & deducted against any livestock sales income on your tax return. (Include a Schedule F tax form.) 

To contain our goat herd we use heavy duty, 12-gauge wire, five foot tall, horse fence with two by four inch rectangular openings. (Not the thinner, welded wire.)  12-gauge, 2" X 4" wire horse fence is commonly available.  We go to our local Home Depot Pro Desk and ask them for a bid (on orders exceeding $2000.)  They fax our request to their home office and generally phone us the next day to offer a 10% discount.

We've tried using standard wire "field fence" (47" tall with smaller openings at the bottom & larger openings at the top) which is less expensive.  But goats will constantly push their heads through the openings trying to get to a plant on the other side of the fence and then get their horns / head stuck (sometimes at night or on the back-forty where you can't hear them crying.)  Also, small kid goats are able to leap out through the larger openings in a field fence; and small predators, such as bobcats and coyotes, can squeeze through the larger openings.

We know herders that say they're satisfied with electric-net fencing for goat containment. Electronet fence is probably fine when you're in need of a temporary pen. But we live in a highly fire prone area and our mini-farm is off the power grid & solar-powered -- so we're always looking for ways to be more fire safe and to reduce the demand on our solar-electric system by conserving electricity when and where we can.  We prefer a stronger, more permanent fence.

We keep a couple barking guard dogs and a guard llama with our herd at night which wards off predators -- including mountain lions which can easily leap over a tall fence.

A strand of barb wire attached along the bottom of your fence will help discourage digging underneath by stray dogs and coyotes.

Horse fencing comes in 100' rolls.  At the Eldorado Goat Farm we install a 7' X 2-3/8'' metal terminal post in concrete at each end of the roll with 1-3/8" angle braces.  Pound 7' terminal posts 2' into the ground every nine or ten feet in between the end posts.  Use a 2-15/16th" or larger galvanized metal post for hanging your gates on.  Moore Fence (located in Perris, CA) makes our gates to fit the widths of each opening.

Goats will eventually eat everything down to bare dirt if left too long in the same pen.  Therefore, keep your herd culled and move / rotate them from one pasture to the next frequently.  Regularly moving your goats from one pasture to the next will help native plants and grasses to recover again and again, and enable you to "dry farm" more sustainably for years to come.

Boar goats are a win/win/win way to provide your family with fun, husbandry skills, increased food security, and wildfire safety. They can substantially ease your work load (mowing and weed trimming) too.

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