Getting ready to set up two All Seasons 300lb Broadcast Feeders and wondering if we have to fence them in if cattle are on the property. Would most likely use rebar or t-post on all 4 legs and they do have a varmint cage on them. Any of you guys had issues with cattle on feeders not fenced in?

Cattle don't have to be trying to do harm to a feeder, but it will happen given time. If there is corn on the ground, they will hang around. If they hang around and go to shoving on one another, or get spooked by something, they can and will knock over a feeder. A Hilte drill will make building a feeder pen much easier and give you peace of mind that you will never have without it!

Once they figure out that brushing/rubbing against the legs will cause corn to spill out and won't be too long before they bend the tee-posts. My experience says fence them out.

Plus they will eat all the corn. You need a pen. Mine is done with T-posts. I have the corners guard to other T-posts driven in at a 45 degree angle. This has worked for several years. Last year, with all the rain, I had to re-set the anchor posts.

16' cattle panels recommended to fence it off?

Hog panels are 34" high and work a lot better.

Im gonna chime in quick on this one cause I figure about 95% of the responses are gonna disagree with me. We have never fenced feeders and never had a problem and yes we have cows. I don't know that it matters where but we have hunted in NW Tx and run 25 to 30 broadcast feeders year round for corn for 10 to 15 years. Protein would be different but we don't feed it and that wasn't your question. We run tposts down at least 3 legs and usually 4 and wrap each high and low. No cow or hog has ever damaged one. Hogs will eat the corn but even though we have hogs they are nomadic and rarely monopolize any feeder long. But you didn't ask about hogs either and a lot of guys don't want to fence out hogs cause they like to shoot em. We have never had a problem with the cows eating the corn to any extent at all. My thinking is that their tongues are not designed to pick up each little kernel and its not enough bang for a cows buck to bother with it. Maybe if you dump a lot of corn in a small area they could get used to it and then have a problem. Every situation can be very different but bottom line in the real world in our situation its never been a problem. If you factor in the time and expense of the fence it is well worth trying it with out the fence. Anyone that has ALWAYS fenced may not know what they don't know. I know for sure that most are gonna disagree but Sick Train just consider trying it at first and you can always add it later. It you fence it first thing then you will never know if it was necessary. My 2cents.

A cow's mouth is too big to pick corn off the ground very well. They may stomp it all into the dirt but they can't actually eat much. But they can hang around and bother your targets and they can eat it out of a pile, such as if they knock the feeder over. Only time will tell but IMO better safe than sorry.

Fence it.

Thanks fellas. I'm leaning towards just fencing it off. We had a cheap plastic feeder out there for a short time and the cows knocked off the motor with battery, box and timer. Just didn't know if they would be able to do the same if these feeders have the varmint cage on them.

About the fence, I've heard that it's best to do a round shape rather than a square. Is this true and if so why?

well ive never had a "cheap plastic" feeder and we always use a rugged varmit guard so that just reiterates how every situation is different. If youre gonna fence then you will likely get a ton of good responses on here. Also, there have been threads before if you can go back and look. Lots of info if you wanna google. Billy Higginbotham TAMU AgriLife did a study you should easily find that's real good about all aspects of a pen. I think CKWRI and Noble and others have stuff out there as well.

we usually fence one and leave one unfenced ... I have found hogs to be more destructive than cattle, plus hogs can and will root the area under the feeder to where you will have a mud or water hole after a heavy rain. We have most of our feeders staked down with t-posts because as they get more empty, cattle & hogs will move them around and/or knock them over. Once they are on the ground, they will roll them around (hogs especially) trying to get more corn to come out not to mention banging/bending up the feeder, breaking off timer/motor box even with a cage. My last lease had cattle, probably too many for the acreage and they would come running when the feeder went off, graze around nibbling up stray corn here and there, never damaged feeder but was was really irritating was they would just hang around for hours and got to where we never saw deer while the cows were there.

as stated earlier, put up the feeder, secure to the ground and see what happens. If the livestock shows up and hangs out, fence with hog panels or cattle panels with notches cut out where the younger deer can jump in (~32-36" high cutouts)

I would fence it off more for the hogs than cows The hogs will root around and leave everything in a muddy and stinking mess if it rains.. Cows will sometimes hang around a feeder and I prefer them elsewhere.

If you don't have hogs use 3 strands of barb wire.

Depends on the cows, we've had some that'll go after the feeders for the corn but if the property is big enough and there is plenty of grass shouldn't be an issue. Unless the corn is piling up under the feeder they will have a hard time picking up the kernels. The annoying thing will be when they decide to camp out around your feeder for a couple days and you get 10 million pictures of cows or they decide to use the tpost that your camera is on as a scratching post and knock it off lol but that shouldn't happen too often if the property is big enough. FYI they can DESTROY a popup blind lol I've lost a few to them.

Whatever you do fence or no fence do not use apple scented corn if you have cows lol! They will destroy pen and feeder and never leave your area until you nuke it

My feeder is over 20 years old, the barrel is on a stand made out of 1.5" pipe. It has never been fenced in, the cattle try to mess with it, but it has held up over the years.

Is the shape of the pen really important? Square vs Circle.

An unfenced feeder ruined my deer season year before last as the cows decided my arena was the place to hang out, get a snack and sleep from about 3PM until 9AM or so, every day. The deer just stopped coming.

Now (different area), my hog feeder has hog panels off the ground about 2 feet to let the hogs in and keep the cows out and the deer pen has hog panels on the ground to keep hogs and cows out, but let the deer jump in. I have watched deer crawl under the fencing on the hog pen to get in there, I guess I need to put up a sign to let them know which one is theirs.

Make it round, otherwise if you show us pictures, we'll criticize you for your most likely, irregular shaped, square pen.

yep, hogs make a mess

Cows will tear up your feeders, empty your feeders, and eat corn off the ground under your feeders... I am in the process of fencing all of mine off with 10 cattle panels each.

I've got em round, oval, square and rectangular and other combined varieties ... main point is to have the pen about the same size as the throw distance of the feeder. I have an old 6vdc feeder that only tosses about 6-7 feet from the center of the feeder, that pen is made up of 4 hog panels as a square, been in place for about 4-5 years, no issue. Others range on up to about 10-12 panels, just big enough for 99% of the corn to stay inside.

They will eat the corn, they will be a problem. Been there done that many times. If they don’t destroy the feeder they will just lay under it or otherwise screw up the hunting. Use 34 in hog panels and use at least 7-8 per pen. It isn’t that much work and is worth it. If you want hogs or fawns in the pen then keep one panel about 12-16 inches off the ground and they can get in then.

If your feeder just happens to dump a lot of corn or let’s say all of it and a cow comes up and eats all of it and bloats or founders and dies the owner of the cows will not be happy !!!!! Just fence it off and be done The price of his cows can be priced out of this world !!!

Found this for ya. I had wondered the same about round vs other shaped pens.

https://discussions.texasbowhunter.com/showthread.php?t=348107

Reminds me of "Taste Great/ Less filling" debate.

I ended up going round on my pens.

Depends on how many acres in my opinion. Old lease one MFer jumped anything so no fence eventually and just tposts and problem solved. Place now over 1000 acres with hogs and all but one are hog paneled or barbed wire and one nothing. They mess with nothing. Even unfenced one.