4-Board Fence my Norwood Built.

[Planman1954]

Hello Again:

I thought I would start a thread on my lastest adventure into country life....a 4 board barnyard fence for the goats. It is for the rear of the barn I've been building the last year+. I wanted to go ahead and build it now, since the poor goats have to stay in a small yard at the present time. The barn had to wait a while, but it was out of the weather after the wood shingles were on.

Anyway, the fence needed to be a good height since goats can jump fairly high. I decided to go with 1"x8" boards with 6" between them. I think that works out to close to 5' high with the finished product.

I started with 4"x6"x8' long stock (All SYP.) I let them soak in preservative for a few days:





Then after figuring out where the fence would run, (I had a lot of ravines and land slope to deal with) I started digging post holes by hand about 24" deep, and setting the pre-painted posts. The spacing was about 7'-8" center to center:





The next step was to attach the pre-painted 1"x8" boards to the posts. I used 2 1/2" screws instead of nailing them. The screws will NOT let go as nails do. Trust me on this. I had to tear down an old one built a few years ago. And another big reason to use screws...If a fence board or post rots or fails, it takes about 5 minutes to put another one on. Here's a photo of the boards on the posts:





The next step was to cut off the post tops level with a chainsaw. I went about 3 inches above the top board and made a cut. Next, a put a pre-painted 1"x6" trim board over the exposed joints on each post to make a better finished look. And finally, I screwed on a cap board to protect the exposed top of the posts..about an 8"x8" x 1 1/2" piece. Here's some photos of the finished fence going through the "jungle":







I mounted boards onto an aluminum gate I had to allow for tractor access to the yard:




I'm not quite finished with the rear run of the fence yet, and I have a few gates to build. Here's a few pictures of the fence I took from the second floor of the barn looking to the side and rear:







And finally, here's a picture of the fence crossing over a drainage ditch for our road out front. I connected it with 1"x6"s on both sides as you can hopefully see in the picture. That helped me get a better look by keeping the top level. Hope the goats will stay inside!




I think the total cost of the fence is about $250.00 for paint and $30.00 for screws. And I'll just betcha that having something like that built around here would run 5 grand or so. That's why I encouraged Andy a day to two ago to go ahead and get him a mill. You'll keep coming up with new projects to build....I think I have about 5 or 6 down the road .....


Take care.

[isawlogs]

That is really a nice fence, when you going to let the goats out so you can get a pic of one standing on one of the post  ;D

[sandhills]

I was going to remind you that goats not only jump, but they can climb also, Marcel took care of that   That is a beautiful fence (and barn) if you ever get bored and nothing to do come on over and start on mine :D.

[Patty]

Wow, very nice P-man. How many goats do you have? Do you milk them, or are they just for fun?

[Planman1954]

They definitely ain't for fun...too much trouble!! We use them for goat milk. Nubians mostly, but we have one Alpine. The Alpines are a little more apt to jump than the Nubians. The Nubian milk is better and easier to milk. I know there are always comments about goats and jumping. But we've had them long enough (and so has my buddy Jimmy down the road) that I'm fairly confident they won't be able to get over this fence. We've used this type fence around here for over 3 years now. We have 4 goats...one Alpine and 3 Nubians. One of the Nubians is a billy.
Goat milk is good for you! Over 2/3 of the world drinks it...not cow milk. And let me tell you...it'll clean out your system the first couple of weeks you drink it! It doesn't have the fat globules that cow milk does, and babies can tolerate it when they cannot drink cow milk. It cannot be sold here though. Laws vary state to state. So we have our own.
Here's a photo of one of our (deceased now) Nubians with her 2 babies. The black young one is about to have her own babies in about a month. 

[Wrangler55]

Wow, very nice P-man. How many goats do you have? Do you milk them, or are they just for fun?

The goats are for exercise... He's got to catch them before he can milk them.  After he gets enough exercise chasing goats, he can put a couple of strands of electric fence on the inside of the boards so he won't have to chase the ones that have climbed out.

Hal

[Planman1954]

Very funny Hal!! Actually though, you don't have to chase them...they will chase YOU if they see a feed bucket in your hand!

[Tom]

One of my old-timer friends asked me the question, "Tom, do you know how to keep a goat from jumping over a fence?"

"No, how do you do it?"

"You lean a board up against the fence and he'll walk over it."  ;D

[Magicman]

With their new fence, those are some real uptown country goats.   

[Bill Gaiche]

Planman1954,Nice fence. Those have to be some very lucky goats. They proably have the best fence in your part of the parish. bg

[Chuck White]

Nice looking fence.

[Wrangler55]

Very funny Hal!! Actually though, you don't have to chase them...they will chase YOU if they see a feed bucket in your hand!

I couldn't help myself... I grew up on a farm and we had cows, goats, pigs, chickens, geese, horses, mules, etc...  What we didn't have was a fence as nice as yours, so I got to round up whatever got loose.  Any new babies that we were going to keep got fed from an old red pail.  Any time you shook some loose corn in the bucket, everything in sight would come running.  It sure beat chasing some crazy calf or pig all over the countryside.

Hal

[thecfarm]

Wow,nice looking fence.I just used slabs to keep my goats in.I never had a problem with them climbing,jumping over the fence.But they was well fed and we payed attention to them.Had 8 goats over the years.Most of ours would follow us just like a dog.

[Burlkraft]

Very nice fence  ;) ;)

We gotta stop posting the DanG goat pictures tho.......

Between you and Marcel I'm not going to be able to stop Jill from gittin' some  :  :  :

And ya know who will end up takin' care of 'em 

[Jeff]

Link For Steve: [lmgtfy]Wisconsin Goat Breeders[/lmgtfy]

[ErikC]

 If you make that fence a little bigger, you won't have all that jungle in the ravine. The gots will slick it right up for you. We drank goats milk when I was a kid. I liked it, but I like fresh cows milk better. I think the fat globules go better with Kahlua.... ;D

[jim king]

That is one nice fence anywhere in the world.

[Magicman]

Back in the early 60's before we got deer and wild dogs, we had herds of wild goats.  We would take our 22 and hunt them.  Thankfully, they were white so you could see them.  It was a good day when you could bring home a young kid.

[Planman1954]

Thanks for reading and all the nice comments! I never knew it would end up being a thread about goats.  :D

I guess it will turn to food now that Magicman brought up goat meat!

[ErikC]

As you know, it's only a matter of time. :D

[Magicman]

We had goats to hunt, but we didn't have any pretty fences.  Come to think about it, we didn't have a Norwood either.   

[fishpharmer]

Nice fence planman and nice goats. 8)

I had a goat when I was a kid.

Lived in my mama's flower bed.

Didn't have it long. :D

[loghog1717]

I am so impressed with the small details that make this fence look so good! Great job Planman1954! Keep on posting! We learn so much from you!

[grweldon]

Planman, how many linear feet of fence did you build and how much area did you enclose.  Way back in the seldom visited recesses of my mind, I have the idea that I will one day have a few goats to take care of my Chinese Privet.  Just looking for a relative size comparison...

[Planman1954]

Grweldon: The fence I built was an area probably 100' x60'. If your're going to have more than 2 or 3 goats, you'll need a lot bigger. That is, unless you feed them hay everyday. As I recall (I no longer have goats) the goats could clean out that whole area in a few weeks. We only had a few for the milk.

[grweldon]

Thanks Planman.  You fenced in just a bit over 1/8th acre.  The fence sure looks good but would be much too labor intensive for me to enclose the area I'm thinking about.  I certainly wouldn't want to feed the goats at all, preferring them to take care of the underbrush.  I'll have to come up with another type of fence... thinking high-tension or electric.  I'll need something that will be able to be moved.  I'm also thinking coyotes will give the goats a problem at night.  Don't want to build a barn for them.  I've heard mules will keep away the nocturnal preditors, but again, I don't need to feed a mule either!

[thecfarm]

loghog1717,welcome to the forum. Do have a mill?
grweldon,I brought cattle panels for tractor supply,they are $22 now,I think I brought them on sale for $16,16 feet by 50 inches. I used double ended clips to hold them together. I brought 4 and would move the panels as needed. But I did have a shed and about 30 foot pen for them too. They did a good job keeping the bushes down. No idea what you have for goat people,but I do know the goats needs to be handled by people and bottle fed to get them to bond with humans. We had some both ways and the ones that was handled was just like a dog.

[grweldon]

Thecfarm, I'm talking about 5-10 acres...  Most likely high-tension with 2 electrified strands...

[thecfarm]

That is a lot of space. I probaby moved my around on an acre. The first 3 goats we had we could turn them loose and they would stay out back where they belonged,well really 2 would stay out there. The other would follow me all over the place like a dog. The next 2 wanted to eat the wifes flowers and the garden. That's where the panels came in.

[Planman1954]

Well, I'm at it again! It's been a couple of years since I built the 4 board pine fence. Within the next year, I hope to begin building a LONG version of the fence across the field between my sister's house and my house. The only difference is I am using white oak and post oak for the posts. Here's a photo of some logs I went and hauled to my mill. I found them on craigslist from a fellow cutting down trees around his property. He wanted them removed, and I was happy to remove them! The timing was a little early for the project, but hey, this gives them plenty of time to dry:


 
And here's a photo of some of the 4x6 posts:


 
It'll be a while before I'll show any progress photos since I don't plan on starting the fence for another year.

[Peter Drouin]

Nice job

[grweldon]

I forgot to ask last go-around, but what sort of preservative are you using to treat the end of the posts that will go in to the ground and are you using any sort of footings?

[Planman1954]

No preservative needed this time! That's why I'm using white oak and post oak. I've been told it'll last 50 years in the ground...longer than me I hope! I plan on putting a little gravel in each hole and then filling in with dirt.

[grweldon]

Well, I ask because I may be doing this sort of fence in SYP which WILL need a preservative.  Just wanted to know what you used, that's all.

[beenthere]

No home brew that I know will do much with SYP. Best to find a treater that will take it on or the box store.

[Planman1954]

 Guess what? I finally got started last weekend on the new fence across the pasture next to my house. This is a four board horse fence between me and my sister who owns the horses. The fence will be about three hundred feet long. My brother in law Mike brought his tractor down with an auger, and it took a little over half a day to dig the holes. We couldn't dig some of them through the woods, but I'll get to that soon. We set posts into the holes we dug, and then painted the posts after getting them plumb. The horizontal boards will be pre-painted, and screwed onto the posts. The posts are post oak and white oak. The railing 1x6s are pine. After screwing on the railings, I'll put on a vertical board to cover the joint on each post. I'll cut the posts off about three inches above the top rail, and add a cap piece. It shoul look similar to the original fence at the beginning of this old thread. Here's progress from the first day:

 

[Planman1954]

Got a lot more posts plumbed up today and ready for paint tomorrow!


 

[Magicman]

You are moving right along.  How 'bout that blue sky and we had rain off and on all day.   :-\

[DelawhereJoe]

That is a very beautiful fence you have there, I hope your goats dont find it to be a snack. The nubian goats I had would chew on anything that was natural, they also would go outside in the rain or snow. When it was milking time we would put some sweat feed in the milking stand I built,  they would fight over who would be milked first...we had about 7 total. I only used a 5 line electric fence as they would just climb through a wooden fence.

[Magicman]

Just curious DelawhereJoe, do you have a brother named Jack?

[DelawhereJoe]

No...why.?

[Magicman]

Because we have a Delawhere Jack here on the FF.   ;D

[DelawhereJoe]

I wonder if he is from up-state or slower-lower....

[Roxie]

He's upstate. 

[Planman1954]

Got a lot done today on the fence. I'm wiped out:


 

[Magicman]

Oh my, you got it up and it fell down.  :-\

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

Planman1954,

Boy that hill is steep!  It's a wonder the horses can maintain their footing.  :D :D :D

Herb

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Its a ladder.

[thecfarm]

Looks some work was done to get that far.

[Magicman]

A good example that shadows really can travel uphill.   ;D

[Planman1954]

You're spose to be lookin' at the fence...not the shadows! ;D

[Planman1954]

Ok...so here's the finished product:


 
I'm happy.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Very NICE! Looks like a western TV show coming on. 

[thecfarm]

I would be happy too.

[Sixacresand]

One of the things my wife wanted built when I bought my mill was a wooden fence next to the driveway.  After five years she says her fence is still dropping acorns in the woods.  Good job on yours, Planman.

[H.O.D.]

Outstanding fence start to finish. A good eye matching the plane of the fence to the land contour. I have seen folks add a copper or tin cap to the top plate but maybe not worth the effort. I use exterior screws on everything also...always glad later.

[Planman1954]

Thanks for the comments. It is kind of hard to get a perspective of all the fence at once due to land slope and trees in the way. We ran a string along the top rail as far as possible to achieve a more consistent look to the eye. It is about 5'-6" high overall so my sisters horses can't jump over it. I've seen them jump a 4' fence. I used screws. They won't let go like nails do over time. It also will make it easier to replace rotten boards in the years to come. We pre painted all the railings before installing. The posts were painted in place after being set plumb. I used the caps to prevent premature rot on the joint vertical board, which you can't see...it's on the other side of the fence. It was a lot of effort, but looks great across the field.

[pineywoods]

Gary is quite the woodworker. He builds a fence like it's a piece of furniture. Now if I could just get him started on a sawshed  :( Pore ole norwood still sits out in the rain.. Did you get the head lift cable fixed ? or you need my tractor with fel ?

[Planman1954]

It has the cover on now. You got on me for leaving it off last time, so I remembered this time.
Yep, I got it fixed. I got a guy here that works on garage doors and he had it tensioned in five minutes! Got some new wood mixer blades. Nice to cut logs like butter again!

[Planman1954]

I had a fellow paint the fence I've posted about and replace a number of rotten boards. Thought you might like to see it.

 

[Sawmill Man]

Thats a nice fence. How have the post held up and what type of preservative did you use ?

[Planman1954]

I used white oak and post oak for the posts...no preservative. The rails are painted pine. I had recycled quite a number of old boards originally, and some rotted or did not hold up to the horses. Now that the weaker boards are replaced, the entire thing is new again. The posts should last longer than me!

[Peter Drouin]

Very nice, 

[IMERC]

very nice...
how did you st the post in what kind of soil?...

[Planman1954]

I think the posts were about nine feet long...don't remember...but we dug holes about three feet deep and plumbed each post. I may have put a shovel full of gravel in the bottom first...I think we did. Anyway, we just put dirt and packed it as we filled them, using a string to keep them in a straight line.