Feeder Pen advice

I'm on a new to me lease this year. There are hogs on the lease and I was just told that there will be calves in the field that I'm hunting. I want to keep both out of my feeder. Square or round pen and how tall?

My feeder pen is 48' square and made with 34" tall hog panels.

Here is a picture of mine I made in Dewitt Co, the panels are 34 inches high

This is what I've got too.

Make it at least 8-10 panels and round, not square.

I had a 4 panel square pen last year. I added one panel and made it round this year, it's really easy with a couple of extra T posts. Already seeing more activity in the pen in just under 2 months time.

If I may ask, why do you prefer round vs. square? I've had both and never once had a hog or cow get in. I found that hogs seem to circle round pens over and over while with square they seem to lose interest and give up fairly quickly. My main objective is to build it strong, no matter the shape.

make a dodecagon, ten panels tied off at the end to tposts. dont try and bend the panels around the tpost to make you pen round. if you try to make it round you cant run a strand of barbed wire around the top without it being well inside of the panels (ive made this mistake). square or rectangle is fine too, but circle, assuming you have cows that may lean on it, is a bad way to go.

It's just as important to me to keep the deer in as it is to keep the hogs out. Research shows deer are less confined in a round pen when multiple animals are feeding. I use standard height 34" hog panels and have never had hogs or cattle in my pens. But I have had as many as 7 bucks in it feeding.

That would not happen if you put a tpost in the middle of each panel.

I just put one up on Saturday...used 12 panels from Tractor Supply (34 inch height and 16 feet long, $21.99) and 24 T-posts and bailing wire and clips to secure the panels to T-posts. 12 panels makes roughly a 60 foot diameter circle...

I have soft dirt so it went up pretty quickly...

We do ours as 16 panels, if you have Mulies and whitetail the bigger the pen the better...

Initially I started off with 8 panels in a square and had decent activity in the pen. Went to 10 in a circle around 5 years ago and it made significant improvement with activity in the pen. I bought 4 more panels and will increase the size again.

Moral of the story, bigger is better go with at least 10 hog panels

If you have just 1 feeder inside your pen and not more than 6 deer at a time would be in it, then you can use 6 hog panels 16' each. If you will have more deer than that inside or 2 - 3 different feeders in it, then you will need more panels. If the rancher is going to put calves on the place then I would use 50" cattle panels. Be sure to use a steel post every 8 feet or less. Remember, put the t-post inside of the pen/panels.

With a square pen, your corner posts have to be rock solid. With a circle, all the posts are working equally and the bend in the panel also help keep the pen rigid all the way around. Just overlap your panels about a foot and wire them together. Move the wired circular pen into shape and start driving t-posts. I drive one then go to the opposite side and drive another, then go crossways and do the same thing until there is a post at every overlapping panel joint and one in the middle of every panel. Have someone pull out on the panel while driving the t-post so you keep tension on the panel with the t-post. Finish by wiring the panels to the t-posts. Do this and your pens will look as good as TxBuck's and KCH's.

That's some great looking feeder pens. Very impressive.

Mine are 10 panels round of the hog wire 34" tall. But not nearly as pretty as those above.

Another reason for round pens is that you have no corners for a dominant buck to corner a younger deer.

What's the going price of hog panels right now?

$21.99 @ tractor supply

Do like several people have said and make sure to over lap the panels a little bit and wire them together. I did my first pen this year and while I got plenty of advice on my thread, I missed the advice to over lap. My pen is not as strong as it probably should be. I'll likely rebuild it after the season is over. One thing that did work great for me is using metal zip ties to attach the panels to the t posts. You can get 100 on amazon for less than 10 bucks. A lot faster than cutting wire and wrapping it around.

Metal zip ties? I'll have to check those out. I usually just use regular zip ties to tie together in a circle then start pounding t-posts and fastening with t-post ties and wire.

If you are doing multiple pens it might be worth pricing an air powered t-post driver. We rent a compressor and driver every time we build pens. Completely worth it if you are in dry or rocky ground.

you can use the metal zip ties and not have to mess with the wire.

Have no problem and have seen up to 8 deer in the pens at one time. they are built round with 7 50" cattle panels overlapped one square at each joint of the panel. The panels are connected with 3 u bolt cable fasteners, T post at the panel connection and half way in between. The cable clamp U bolts make for a strong connection. Put the 7 panels together with them then a couple of us made it into the circle then drove the T posts inside the circle just setting the panels back a little for room to drive them in before wiring the panels to the posts.

Those have been working about 7 years I think it is keeping goats and cows out. If it were just cows I would not have fenced in the feeders. Only had issues with cows a couple times with the tall wench up feeders over the years. The 70 acre pasture the fenced feeders are in is also fenced with 50 inch cattle panels so the deer in that pasture are already accustomed to jumping those panels and no hogs in that pasture.