Put panels up last year and two separate incidents happen that year where panels were hit. One deer was a great buck that had a 130gr .270 ricochet down into the knee. My dog had to track it 800yds after we couldn’t find blood and we were able to finish it off. That incident alone will make me pass deer if I’m not confident on threading it. 6 hours in 20 degree freezing rain will do that to you. Second incident was on a doe that had a 165gr .300 wby mag bullet split and had half go into the lungs and the other half the neck. We were lucky she dropped and the fragments went where they did.

Maybe we are beating the odds but after those two incidents we tell friends and family shoot outside the pen or be sure to thread it. With good optics, a 100yd or less shot is usually doable threading it through the panels. Once we told them to watch out for that, no one has had an issue

Not sure why you are shooting these deer inside the pens. If they are not spooked there is almost 100% chance to bang that deer either before or after they enter the pen.

This.

I hate dragging a trailer around the lease roads with all the panels stacked up.

If i am only.building 1 feed pen i lay all the panels flat on the ground wherever i puchased them. I wire them together overlapping one square on each end.

I then roll all 8 panels together in one big spool and put it in the back of the pickup truck. Once at the lease i roll into the Can Am bed.

I unroll on site and connect the ends with carabiners.

I drive a T-Post at every overlap and wire tol and bottom.

Sometimes i will drive another T-Post in the center. If i wire i only put wire at the top.





I think a buck will jump inside any size feed pen. But the odds of having multiple bucks feed together go up with larger pens.

I do like to have a little corn thrown outside the pen for fawns and does and smaller bucks that wont jump in and feed with a larger buck.

The pen that you just built is the smallest pen you will ever build.

Rarely have shot deer inside the pen since advising our guests against it at the beginning of last year. I can only think of two both of which were inside of 50yds from an elevation that made it worthless.

Also - on our ranch, probably only a 10% chance to bang the deer before or after the enter the pen. As I said, I have passed deer because of the pens and not feeling comfortable, but at a short range and with good optics no reason to cross it completely off the table

we inherited the pens for our corn feeders and was worried that they were way too small - turns out the biggest buck jumps in and eats and the others eat around the outside of the pen where corn was also thrown - deer in this picture was 160 inches and he had zero problem jumping into a small feed pen

I have some buddies who build about a 3x3 pen, idk could be 4x4

Just enough to keep the pigs off the legs

And I am not sure they aren't doing it right

Ive never built one like that personally

Yep.

I assume that’s not directed at anyone in particular. Instead, just your way of saying bigger is always better, which I agree.

Linear feet divided by PI (3.14) will give you the diameter of what your round pen would be.

If you have 125' of panels you will end up with very close to a 40' diameter pen which is plenty big for both feeders IMO

Here’s a professor from Texas A&M that did a study on feeder pens for white tails. I believe that he says bigger is better, but you need a minimum of 30 ft in diameter.

https://youtu.be/7aAq7OxKnPk