Feeder Pens

Is 4 ft too tall for a feeder pen? They are made from welded wire. What's the magical height to keep cows out but let deer in? I seem to be getting quite a few pics of deer standing on the outside looking in.

4 feet is not too high if the pens are large enough. It may keep younger fawns out, but any adult deer can jump a 4 foot fence with ease. 3 foot seems to be the minimum height to keep cows out. If you keep the corn from being slung outside the pen, you'll reduce your chances of cattle hanging around. If you have hogs, 3 foot may be too short to keep all of them out. We have a few that can jump 34 inch hog panels, so we run barbed wire around the top. The additional barbed wire probably gets our height to 42 inches.

Ok if 3 ft will keep hogs out I may cut one section down to about 38-40 inches tall. The pens at about 30-35ft by 30-35 ft.

i build my pens in a circle at least 40 ft in diameter minimum for the deer to be comfortable. 30 is a little tight, but if square, will be roomier than a circular pen. The smaller pen may be your issue. Because deer have a social hierarchy, the less dominant deer won't be comfortable in a smaller pen with tne more dominant deer. The less dominant deer will cruise around the outside, while the dominant deer controls and even protects the interior of the pen from the less dominant deer. Cutting the height down to 40 inches should be fine and still keep the cattle and hogs out.

I will do that and I may pick up some more T- post to make them a little bigger.

28-30 inches tall will keep out most hogs.

We built our pens out of cut down cattle panels. You can step over them they are short enough and they have kept all hogs out except the ones small enough to go through the holes.

Cattle are a different story.

I use 4ft panels myself and the deer have no problem getting in. I cut two of the strands on the bottom to allow pigs to come in. I enjoy eating hog as much as i do deer so i want them to be able to come inside.

I really enjoy hunting and eating hogs, they are great table fare when cleaned/prepared properly. We just have so many hogs that they would beat the deer off of the feeders. Since penning our deer usage and most importantly buck usage of feeders has increased.

Pen is round made from 7 cattle panels overlapped one hole spacing and connected together with the u-bolt cable ties at each joint and T-post at the joints. The buck in the pic is 4 years old and he had no issue going in the pen at 5 either,

Those deer have to jump 2 fences like that for the corn since that 70 acres is fenced with the same panels.

i had mine at 4ft tall and after a few months of the deer walking around it, i cut some sections down to 3ft and as soon as i did that they starting going in the pen.

If your just worried about cows do a simple 2 or 3 strand wire fence... I use them a lot around here when its a long haul to bring everything in.

Its much cheaper also

I've had good luck with barb wire pens for cows, but this lease is suppose to have a bunch of pigs on it and I'm trying to keep them out.

Depends on what type of cows they are. Longhorns will jump 4 foot fences to get in there, but string a strand of barb wire above that and you will be safe. And don't put alfalfa inside the feed pen. We did and here came the cows.

For pigs run under 4ft panel you can go to about 3ft and put a strand of concho along the top of the panel also

We make every pen a circle with 36" tall panels 10 minimum and 12 is better. We also cut every T-post to be level with the pen. If you make them right you only have to make them once. We have a lot of cattle and hogs and not one has ever got in.

nice looking pen. that's about what we did except we didn't cut off the t-posts to be level. we've even knocked down the height a bit to make it easier to step over. other than small piglets going thru the wire holes we haven't had any issue with the larger hogs trying to go over. we've been using 8 panels to a pen. its worked well. notable change in the deer activity returning to feeders once run over by hogs. as much as I enjoy hunting a few hogs its really encouraging to see that many deer.