Buck Pen

Buck Pen 

We needed a way to keep the buck away from his girls during the "off-season," but needed to keep our small pen open for birthing goats, etc. (that and he formerly folded down the cattle panel in there).  Also gives the flexibility of pasture improvement in the back by keeping the animals off of new growth.

Plans for the future will add a larger pen adjacent to this and maybe one at the downhill (West) side that'll connect the two and add a third pen.  All will aide in partitioning off ewes with rams in the fall as well.

Loose fences are dangerous fences - and loose goats are goats that breed outta season.  Big focus was to make it tight.  Time will tell.

The corner posts came from the railroad ties that were lining the driveway -- I selected the good ones since there's a reason the railroad tore them out...

The South side of the pen is using the existing field fence

Cemented in with the bottom of the post buried in soil to facilitate drainage

Chainsaw sculpting for the floating braces... next up a bear carved out of a stump... and it snowed last night

So they're not exactly floating braces when you cement the "floating" end in the ground

12.5 ga wire will turn into a big slinky real fast if you're not careful

Make a loop, wrap one end around the bottom of your post, notch the bottom of the brace, staple it securely (but not tightly) in place...

And tension the brace wire... don't use these kind...

Use these - while these require some forethought in fence construction, they don't require three hands to use... and when a goat starts biting your ear, you can stop what you're doing, shoo the goat away, get a soda, and get back to work

Striaght 'nuff

A truck makes a good tension anchor... when it starts to slide backward, you've tensioned enough



Fence

To reduce sag and keep the fence from getting crushed by goats standing on it or bent up by them scootching under, I wove high-tensile through the top and bottom and cranked it down good.  You can almost play the fence like a guitar.

Electric wire helps keep him off too...

Gate size was determined by the width of my disk harrow... the bottom of the pen has a small escape gate.  To do it over, I'd have put the big gate at the bottom as it's more of a pain to open and close a big gate.

Beginnings of a shelter

Our cold and wet weather always comes from the North and West -- I'll eventually add an half wall to the South side... looks like he enjoys it though!