Category: Fencing

Top 12 Things to Consider Before Building a Cattle Handling Facility

Posted on by Twin Rivers Media

By Robert Wells, Ph.D.

Former Noble Research Institute • Senior Regenerative Ranching Advisor

Properly designed and thought-out facilities will be safe for the producer and animal and will allow for cattle to be easily worked in a timely fashion.

The cattle handling facility is at the heart of most every ranch. The quality of the facility and its ease of use can determine the enjoyment or frustration of use and dictate how often you work cattle through it. Properly designed and thought-out facilities will be safe for the producer and animal, handle cattle with ease, require a minimal number of personnel and allow for cattle to be worked in a timely fashion.

There are multiple design principles that can be used, depending on the cattle-handling abilities of the personnel and their ability to understand “cow psychology.”

Here are the top 12 factors you should consider prior to building a new facility.

1. Use Type

Consider the species and type or class of animal for which the working facility will be used. Will it only be used for cattle, or will you need to handle goats and sheep, or horses, in addition to cattle? If it’s only cattle, will it be used only for a stocker operation, or will you need to process cows, bulls and calves through the chute as well? The size of cattle worked will dictate how wide of a raceway you need. Finally, do you plan to rope and drag calves, or process through a chute? Roping and dragging calves will require an area large enough to do so.

2. Bud Box or Solid-Sided, Curved Designs

Both Bud Box and solid-sided, curved designs are effective. In general, the curved, solid-sided-fence facility, in my opinion, allows the cattle handler to make mistakes and recover without adversely affecting cattle flow. If you are in the wrong position yet the animal cannot see you because of the solid side, it may not affect the movement of cattle. A drawback to this style is it is more complicated and costly to build because of the curves and the added expense of the solid-sided fences.

The Bud Box system uses the animal’s instincts to your advantage. It works on the principle that animals will want to return to where they have been if they cannot proceed further. When they turn around and head back in the direction that they came from, the animal is diverted down another alley or raceway leading up to the working chute. The drawbacks to this system are that it is typically not recommended for novice cattle handlers, and if handlers are out of place, they can impede cattle movement.

3. Location

It’s all about the location. The working facility should be central to most pastures and easily accessed, either using lanes or along adjoining fences that help funnel cattle into the facility. Having a corral situated where cattle have to routinely enter and leave on their own will facilitate penning them on working day. 

One example is a catch pen situated between pastures that cattle must walk through when rotating from one pasture to the other. It could be a central watering location or where feed and hay are fed to the animals. If you plan to use the facility to hold sick or freshly received animals for a few days, then having shade from trees along the fence might be beneficial.

4. Materials

There are numerous materials that a set of working facilities can be built out of: drill stem pipe, highway guardrails, cable, sucker rod, cattle panels, wood. All have their benefits and drawbacks. In general, metal building materials will probably outlast wood. Cable fences are not well-suited for working and crowding facilities. They flex too much and can allow calves to get through. 

Likewise, if you have to quickly climb a fence to get away from an aggressive animal, cable fences will not support your weight well enough to allow you to quickly escape. Make sure any drill stem you purchase is not magnetized, as it makes welding difficult. Also, make sure the drill stem is not radioactive or excessively rusty if it has been used in drilling activity. 

Graduated cattle panels have smaller hole sizes on the bottom of the panel, making them difficult to climb when in a hurry. If using sucker rod, consider welding a clip over the rod to the line post. Experience has proven that welding a sucker rod only to a post will result in a broken weld.

5. Utilities

Having access to electricity and water is beneficial but not necessary. If you plan to use an electric branding iron, access to land-line electricity will eliminate the need for a costly and loud generator. 

If you have electricity available, you can have a small room located next to the chute to store medicine and vaccines in a refrigerator. Additionally, you can have hot water to help clean up the equipment after use.

6. Cover and Shade

It is beneficial to have cover over the working chute in case you have to work the cattle in extremely hot or inclement weather. Additionally, you may decide to have a portion of the pens covered in case you need to hold a quarantined or sick animal in the facility for a length of time.

7. Slope

The working facility should have a small degree of slope to allow drainage during and after rainfall events. The slope should not be so great that erosion or channeling will occur after the grass has been trampled down. 

Additionally, consider the degree and direction of the slope when planning where you will back up a trailer to the pens. Backing across a slope when muddy may result in the trailer sliding sideways. Trying to pull up a muddy slope when loaded may be difficult, too.

8. Calf Chute, Palpation Cage, Gates

Buy a chute that is large enough to handle your largest animal, including your bull. It may be necessary to restrain the bull to treat a foot or to conduct a breeding soundness exam. Remember, bulls are longer and thicker than a cow. Many of the economy-type chutes are not designed to hold a bull. Also plan for a palpation cage at the end of the chute to allow a safe access area for a veterinarian so he or she doesn’t have to worry about getting run over by the next cow in line. The cage will also be handy if you have to treat a hind foot

Design the facility with options. It is much easier to work 2- to 3-month old calves in a calf chute than in a large, cow-sized chute. Do not skimp on gates! Make sure they are heavy and well-built. Plan on gates between adjacent pens and from the alleys. Having gates between pens allows you to open up adjacent pens to create one large pen when needed. Use headers across the top of the gate to ensure it stays in line and does not sag, so it opens and closes as it should. Make the headers high enough that you can drive equipment or ride horseback under them.

9. Access to Roads

You should plan to have all-weather road access to the working facility to enable you to load and unload cattle even in rainy conditions. However, placing a set of corrals right off a county road could enable cattle thieves to bait your cows into the pens and easily and quickly load out and steal animals, so keep that in mind.

10. Size

The size of the facility will be determined by the activities needed and how long you plan to hold cattle there. If you are just using the pens as a holding area while working the cattle, each cow-calf pair will require a minimum of 35 to 45 square feet. The larger the calf while on the cow, the more room that will be required.

11. Number of Pens

One of the biggest design mistakes we see is a facility without enough holding pens. It is always good to plan to have at least one more pen than you think you need. At the minimum, three pens are needed. You will need one large pen to hold the cattle when they are first caught, and then preferably two more to sort calves and cows into. This will also allow you to have an open pen to catch the animals after they have been worked so that they do not get mixed with unprocessed cattle. Designing an alleyway alongside the pens that leads to the chute allows you to sort animals out of the alley and into the pens. Additionally, the alley can be used to hold cattle temporarily.

12. Other Considerations

Build with flexibility in mind:

• Design the facility so that expansion will not require a major overhaul.

• Make the design modular so more pens can be added alongside existing alleys.

• Make the raceway leading to the chute adjustable to enable it to be wide enough for cows, but can be adjusted down so that a calf cannot turn around in it.

• Do not design the facility so that   
the chute turns out into the pasture. If you miss a head catch on an animal, you cannot easily recycle it back around.

• Set all posts at least 3 feet down into concrete.

• If concrete is used under the chute, extend it at least 6 to 8 feet past the front of the chute. Make sure the concrete is heavily grooved to provide traction even when covered with mud and manure.

• Reduce shadows that go across alleys by running alleys east and west if possible. Cattle do not have depth perception and may view a shadow as a hole or trench, causing them to balk.

Visit, Plan, Visualize

As you design your handling facility, go see as many other working facilities as possible in person. Talk with the people who use them, and ask what they like and what they would change. Draw your design out on paper, and then lay it out on the ground to scale. Use marking paint and survey flags to help you visualize the layout before building. Then walk through the layout as you would when working cattle. It is far easier to make adjustments in the planning stage than after everything is built.

Try This Simple Stocking Rate Assessment as You Begin Regenerative Ranching

Posted on by Twin Rivers Media

Sponsored by:

How do you know how many heads of grazing livestock your ranch can support while still taking good care of your land? Hugh Aljoe of Noble Research Institute discusses overstocking, overgrazing, and a quick way to determine carrying capacity.

During Noble’s courses on regenerative ranching and regenerative grazing, our facilitators often get questions about knowing the proper stocking rate. What’s the correct number of livestock on your property for a given time? How do you know if you’re overstocked?

Let’s start by understanding the concepts involved. Then, we have a suggested method that can supply a ballpark answer on stocking rate to help ranchers get a good start with regenerative ranching and grazing.

Being “overstocked” is not the same as “overgrazing.” Neither is desirable.

When it comes to grazing-land stewardship on a ranch, two concepts need to be fully understood and managed: “overstocking” and “overgrazing.” These two terms are often used interchangeably, but they refer to two very different conditions.

Overstock is the condition of carrying more livestock than the land resource can sustain, either short-term or long-term. The term applies to the property or land resource under grazing management.

Overgrazing pertains to the plants being grazed. It is the repeated grazing of a plant before fully recovering from a previous grazing event. Overgrazing occurs one plant at a time, and overstocking occurs one management unit (pasture or ranch) at a time.

Improve your land, your livestock, and your livelihood… Today!

Build resiliency and profitability for your ranching operation in your land.

There are situations where pastures are both overstocked and overgrazed – no surprise. However, contrary to conventional thought, pastures can be understocked and overgrazed simultaneously. This is often the case when a rancher sets a conservative stocking rate for a ranch. Yet, the grazing approach is either continuous or rotational, with only a few pastures. Pastures will have under-grazed and overgrazed plants present in these cases. The more-preferred plants are repeatedly grazed, while the less-preferred plants are left ungrazed until the livestock are out of the more-preferred plants. Over time, the preferred, heavily grazed plants have reduced energy resources and vigor and eventually die because they never had the opportunity to recover.

Stock appropriately for your land resource

When we approach regenerative grazing, our objective is to be stocked appropriately for the weather events and conditions of the land resource. We also need to graze the pastures appropriately, allowing them periods to rest. Proper stocking and grazing management allow for more uniform utilization of all the plants, minimizes repeated grazing of plants during a grazing event, and allows complete recovery of more-preferred plants (which usually require more extended recovery periods than the less-preferred plants).

The first step in regenerative grazing is to ensure that we are not overstocked—that our initial stocking rate is not greater than the current carrying capacity. In this context, carrying capacity is the total forage produced over time that can be comfortably allocated to grazing livestock in a specific area.

Determining an accurate carrying capacity can appear complicated due to the number of variables involved. These variables include assessing total forage production based on:

• total number of grazeable acres

• estimates of actual forage production by pasture and soil type

• forage type

• forage management

• precipitation and weather conditions

• distance from water, etc.,

and then allocating a percentage of the total production for grazing (for example, 25% grazing utilization for native range, 50% grazing utilization for introduced pasture). While doing this thorough assessment at some point is important, we don’t want it to impede our efforts to succeed at regenerative ranching.

Feeding Hay

To assess overstocking, look at how much hay you feed

The good news is there is a simple assessment you can use to determine if you are stocked at a level greater than your carrying capacity based on current management and current weather conditions. The amount of substitute hay you feed per year can indicate your grazing management and stocking situation.

Hay feeding to increase carrying capacity means a producer is supplying forage, usually purchased, to substitute for the lack of enough natural forage production on the ranch. We need to examine this closely.

For every month of hay that is fed above what is planned (assuming the economic feasibility of the hay), the ranch is overstocked by at least 8.3%. By the same token, for every one-month livestock are made to “hustle” for forage on range or pasture (hustle being defined as livestock grazing behavior to find the next bite of forage after most of the leaf material has been removed from a pasture), you’re also overstocked by at least 8.3%. The 8.3% is simply one month divided by 12 months times 100%.

 

Build resiliency and profitability for your ranching operation in your land.

If a ranch is stocked correctly, there would be enough grazeable forage at the end of the growing season to last until spring green-up. Grazeable forage ideally should last 30 days into spring. That way, livestock can graze last year’s forage (with some new growth within the stand), while the already grazed pastures recover or regrow at the beginning of the growing season.

For most producers, there will likely be a need to feed some hay for extreme conditions or occasional situations where hay is required or desired. In some climates, hay is needed during the winter due to the depth of snow cover; elsewhere, bale grazing is used for desired hoof impact. However, for many producers, especially in the South, hay is expensive to increase the carrying capacity. That is why producers should carefully evaluate the cost of hay and minimize the need for substitute hay feeding.

Overstocking can take a toll on ROI and your land resource

Substitute hay feeding does not apply only to the additional livestock numbers stocked above carrying capacity. It applies to ALL the livestock on the ranch.

Consider a ranch with a carrying capacity of 100 cows, but the current herd consists of 120 cows fed hay for 1.5 months. No substitute hay feeding is required at a stocking rate – the number of livestock present on a property for a given amount of time — of 100 cows. However, at the actual herd size of 120 cows, it is not just the extra 20 cows that require hay; all 120 cows will need to be fed hay.

Let’s generalize and assume one round bale of hay per month of hay feeding. Then, realize that the extra 20 cows cost the ranch 20 cows x 1.5 months of hay and 120 cows x 1.5 months of hay, which equals an extra 180 bales. At $100/bale delivered and fed, that is an additional $18,000 direct cost to the cow enterprise, or $900 for each of those 20 cows over carrying capacity.

Will the calf production of the additional 20 cows cover all their other direct costs plus the additional $900? Not likely, even in a good cattle market. There is an argument that one can prorate the cost of the hay across all the cows as one examines the enterprise. But take a critical look at the incremental increase in costs relative to the increase in revenue as well as the implications for the land resource of overgrazing—the whole picture.

In regenerative ranching, we assess both the direct cost and the cost to the land and ecosystem. There is a point of diminishing returns for both economic and ecological outcomes where the additional production units cannibalize the returns to the resource. Unfortunately, it is usually after we ascertain that we have passed that point of diminishing returns.

Start regenerative ranching with a stocking rate below carrying capacity

When you begin regenerative ranching and practicing regenerative grazing, you should give yourself the best opportunity to succeed. A great place to start is to ensure that the stocking rate on the ranch is below the carrying capacity of your pastures and other growing forage.

Use this simple assessment of fed hay and “hustle” to quickly determine your carrying capacity and adjust your ranch’s stocking rate as needed. It can also help you determine a safe place to begin regenerative management on your grazing lands.

 

Hugh Aljoe

Hugh Aljoe serves as the director of ranches, outreach, and partnerships. He has been associated with Noble Research Institute since 1995. Before coming to Noble, he managed a 3,000-acre, 1,500-head cattle operation in Texas. Hugh received his master’s degree in range science from Texas A&M University with an emphasis in grazing management.

Tips for Building Fences in Difficult Terrain

Posted on by Twin Rivers Media

Tips for Building Fences in Difficult Terrain

By Heather Smith Thomas

Building a good permanent fence can be challenging in rocky, frozen or swampy ground when it’s impossible to dig post holes efficiently, or set posts with a tractor-mounted post-pounder. Regardless of the type of fence, it will only be effective and durable if posts are well set. People who build a lot of fences have come up with innovative and effective ways to get the job done.

Fencing In Rocks
If terrain is too rocky to drive wood posts, metal T-posts are often used, since they are much smaller in diameter and can often be driven farther into rocky ground. If a person can get them down past the “shovel” portion, they are usually deep enough to hold.

If you need to set larger posts, like brace posts, in rocky ground, you might look for other options. A small rock drill is more portable than a jackhammer, since it doesn’t need compressed air. An electric drill can be used for drilling holes into concrete or breaking up concrete, and has various bits—including 1.5 inch chisel bits for drilling into solid rock. “This drill rotates and drills at the same time and can make a hole exactly the right size for a metal T post,” says Thomas.

In solid rock you only need to drill down about a foot and drop the metal post into the hole and it is tight and secure because there’s no give in the surrounding rock. For a brace post you can make a deeper hole using extra-long bits that can go down about 30 inches.

In rocky terrain where it’s not too steep and there are lots of surface rocks, you can create an above-ground basket/cage of rocks as a brace to anchor the fence. “Stacked rocks can be secured with net wire, or you can make a net-wire cage to put rocks in. A cage 3 to 4 feet in diameter makes a solid anchor to secure your wire and stretch it from there. If terrain is too rocky to set wood posts, you can usually put steel posts into the ground deep enough to hold, using rock baskets every so often for braces,” says Thomas.

Pilot Post
When using a post pounder to set wood posts along a challenging fence-line you can use a metal “post” to create a pilot hole. The metal post will often go down through rocky ground if it’s not solid bedrock, whereas a wood post would be forced out of line or shatter. Roger Swanson, a rancher in Lemhi County, Idaho, many years ago created a 7-foot metal pilot post, 3 inches in diameter. This can be driven into the ground with a post-pounder, creating a hole to start the wood post into. The pilot post is solid enough that you can drive it into just about anything but solid rock.

Thomas has made several of these for his own use. “A person can drive that pilot post down as far as possible, then pull it out with a tractor or skid steer loader. Then, you can insert a wood post into the pilot hole and drive it—forcing it into the slightly smaller hole—and the post will be very solid and secure,” says Thomas.

Pipe Posts
Some people use pipe posts; oilfield drill-steel pipe is great for making braces in rough terrain and won’t burn up in a wildfire. In western regions, fires destroy many wood fences, but pipe fences are still standing; the pipe posts will last more than 50 years. A person might have to replace the wire if a really hot fire goes through and makes it brittle, but the pipe posts will still be there and won’t have to be replaced.

Dick Iversen (Timber Creek Ranch, near Culbertson, Montana) has had a lot of experience building fences and hiring fence builders. “We had a huge flood in 2011 and had to replace 7 miles of fence on our river bottom. Then we had a fire during the summer of 2017 and had to replace 6 miles of fence between us and the neighboring ranch, in rough terrain,” he says.

For permanent fences he now prefers posts created from oil field drill-steel pipe. “This is great for making braces.” Oil field pipe is surplus and usually reasonable in price and is easy to cut with an electric hand-held band saw. “If I’m cutting pipe in a place where there’s no electricity, I use a little portable Honda generator,” says Iversen.

“Once a pipe post is in the ground, the ground tends to rust it to the soil around it, and it’s very solid. It’s very difficult to pull it back out. These posts work really well for corrals,” he says.

Todd Hermanson (Hermanson Fencing Company, Inc.) built Iversen’s new fences. Hermanson has been building custom fences for 40 years, in three states. He used to do traditional fences with wood and steel posts, but now does mostly pipe fencing, using discarded drill steel piping from the oil drilling industry. With a jack-hammer type hydraulic post pounder that he invented, he can pound pipe posts into any kind of terrain—solid rock, frozen ground, or bogs.

“This kind of fencing started with us. We took Bobcat hydraulic cement breakers and modified them to use for pounding posts. It was trial and error, but I have a guy in my shop who is good at making things. We came up with a system to do this kind of fencing—and it has caught on like crazy,” Hermanson says.

“The only thing that might shorten the life of these posts would be alkali ground that tends to eat up metal. It takes 2 minutes to pound another pipe post in. Even when repairing fence, if there is a broken off or rotted-off railroad tie, we don’t have to dig it out; we just pound a pipe post right down through the middle of it. This saves a lot of time,” says Hermanson.

In difficult terrain, this system is equal to none. “When we put fences across creeks or gullies. It’s very cost efficient and will be there a long time.” The pipe holds much better in places where it would be hard to brace with wood posts or the traditional steel posts.

The pipes are much stronger, and take less time to install. “You can put in a pipe brace, with the right equipment, in 10 to 15 minutes, which makes it a lot cheaper; a double H brace with wood posts or railroad ties takes more than an hour, and even longer to install in rocky or frozen ground,” Iversen says.

Steep Terrain
On steep slopes that are risky for a tractor, often a person can use a pounder mounted on a skid steer or a track machine, since it has better stability than a tractor and can go up relatively steep slopes without tipping over. Some people walk beside a track machine and drive it from the ground with a joy stick; you don’t have to be on it to drive it. This is safer, especially going through areas where it’s too steep to take any kind of vehicle or tractor.

This is handy for one person fencing alone because you can drive it as you walk beside it, and stop it where you want to set a post. This can save time and labor and one person can set a lot of posts.

Bogs And Swamps
Metal posts can often work when a fence has to go through wet areas and sloughs where it would be difficult to drive wood posts. If a bog is not too deep, you can use 7-foot T-posts that go far enough down to hit solid ground where they could hold. In some situations where the bog is too deep to hold posts, a person can build an above-ground jack fence. Building any kind of fence across a bog is often best accomplished in a dry season, or in winter when the bog is frozen, so you can get around in that area with a machine to set posts, without sinking into the mud.

Frozen Ground
Winter is not the best time to build fences that require posts set in the ground, but sometimes a person has no choice. There are times a fence must be repaired or a new fence built, regardless of the weather. Frozen ground can be challenging for setting posts, and cold weather is hard on machinery.

In cold weather, some people set metal posts instead of wood posts, since wood posts tend to shatter if the ground is solidly frozen. “With a jack-hammer hydraulic post pounder, however, a person can usually pound wood posts through a foot or more of frost (especially if a pilot post is used to start the hole) and then go on down to desired depth, and pipe posts will go even deeper,” says Thomas.

If frost is too deep for driving posts, fire is a common way to thaw ground for post holes.

“Old metal tubs or half barrels work well to make these little ovens. A cutting torch can be utilized to create small vent holes along the bottom edge (to draw air in, to keep the fire going) and a 5-inch-diameter hole in the top of each oven for the smoke to come out,” says Thomas. Fires can be set under several ovens, on the spots where you need to dig a hole or drive a post, letting them burn while working on other parts of the fence, and the ground underneath may be thawed within a few hours. In places where frost is really deep, scoop out the embers after the fire dies down, dig down through the thawed dirt, put the embers or coals back in, and add more wood.

Another method is to use hot water. One fence builder who had to set posts for a feedlot on frozen ground used a pressure washer with hot water, sticking the wand into the ground at those spots, slowly melting the frost down to the depth needed for setting posts. It was faster than fire, but still time-consuming for the hot water to melt its way down that far through the ice.

Above-Ground Fence
Another alternative in terrain that’s difficult or impossible to set posts is a jack fence (buck fence) or worm fence. A worm fence is created by stacking logs or large-diameter poles on one another, interlocking in two directions. The finished fence is a continual series of corners/angles. A short, small-diameter pole or short board is nailed or screwed to the logs/poles at the corners, to keep them stable so they will never shift around.
A pole jack fence (poles nailed/screwed onto jack legs) works well where ground is too rocky or boggy to set posts, but in windy country must be anchored so it won’t blow over. Fence jacks should be treated on the bottom end of those posts, to keep them from rotting. They will draw moisture, especially if built over swampy ground.

Portable Fencing
Temporary fences in winter or on rocky ground can be created with portable metal panels that interlock and don’t require posts. Portable corrals also have this advantage.

Portable electric fence can be installed with step-in posts, even if the ground is frozen, inserted into holes made with a cordless, battery-powered drill. For this type of fence it’s usually best to use portable posts made of metal rods, rather than the plastic step-in posts because the metal ones are less apt to break. You can add screw-on insulators to the rebar after you pound those in.

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