Turnout Pens - How To ?

[Carlosmum]

Seriously looking at some kind of winter turnout pen for the beast, his grazing paddock is turning into a slippery mess. I have been looking at Heras fencing panels or a specific pen sold as a turnout , but with bars/hurdles rather than meshed panels. Plan to put it onto a corner of a grass paddock which OH overwintered the sheep in last year. Would you go for meshed panels or hurdle type? Is 30ft diameter enough as a small loafing area? Hoping to use grass mats or similar as but I am trying to keep the costs down as much as possible budget not more than £2K. need it all to be temporary. Ideas, thoughts, advice much appreciated.

 

[Xmasha]

I saw this at an event, it looks great but wayyy too pricey. sorry thats no help at all, but hopefully you can find something similar but cheaper

https://www.[removed].com/duracorral-turnout-pen-gate.html

 

[paddy555]

that sounds awfully expensive. If you are using a corner could they not be 2 sides of the pen then round wooden fencing stakes (about £6 each) along the other 2 sides and 12 ft half round rails c £8 each (2 rails high)
It you put the rails through loops you can easily remove them and wooden fence posts often wiggle out or a tractor loader and chain pulls them out

you could reuse these materials elsewhere or just remove the bottom rails and sheep etc could wander through for the summer.

To get the horse in and out you would just slide the rails. Alternatively a small wooden gatepost and small wooden gate. Quick and easy to set up

cost would be the low hundreds and lots of money left for mats.

 

[PurBee]

If the land is your own, i’d spend the budget on installing a hardcore pad as large as i could afford, and fence it.

 

[expanding_horizon]

I think there are few cheap ways to create a durable turnout pen on wet land. Mud control mats / jelka mats would work. But would not be cheap. And mud control would need sand or bedding over to stop being slippery. A membrane and hardcore or a membrane and wood chip should also work.

Grass mats will quickly sink and break up.

 

[Birker2020]

My friend bough heras fencing panels, I think she got seven with a gate and used an existing post and rail fence for some if it. We used to move it along the post and rail onto a new patch of grass every few days, it's easy with two people but better with 3.

Not sure where in the country you are but this looks reasonable. It's on Ebay. The meshed panels never caused an issue, the only thing we were concerned about was if her mare rolled near a side and got her feet/legs underneath so we blocked all that with jump poles

 

[cauda equina]

If he's ok with electric fencing that would be the cheapest way to do it but that still leaves the problem of what to put on the ground
Mudmats seem the obvious thing or I don't know if some of the ground mesh sold for parking areas would work

 

[Highmileagecob]

Depends if yours is a wily old cob. Mine will back up to the panels until he feels them start to move, then he keeps reversing into a sitting down position, panels rock and start to tip and he does a backward roll over the panel and away into the herd. Panels then flip back upright. If I hadn't seen him do it I would have sworn he had flown over it. That was the end of trying to separate him to recover from a mild injury.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Seriously looking at some kind of winter turnout pen for the beast, his grazing paddock is turning into a slippery mess. I have been looking at Heras fencing panels or a specific pen sold as a turnout , but with bars/hurdles rather than meshed panels. Plan to put it onto a corner of a grass paddock which OH overwintered the sheep in last year. Would you go for meshed panels or hurdle type? Is 30ft diameter enough as a small loafing area? Hoping to use grass mats or similar as but I am trying to keep the costs down as much as possible budget not more than £2K. need it all to be temporary. Ideas, thoughts, advice much appreciated.

I like these which Horse Humane Society use but not available in UK https://www.horsefencing.org/horsefence/horse-panel.html. We have our round pen with Heras, but does blow down in high winds unless you do random triangles for support

 

[poiuytrewq]

Mines post and rail.
Stone base, rolled and then planings on top
I think, we then got some kind of arena surfacing which we put a deep layer over top. It’s absolutely brilliant and one of the best things we did.
We used woodchip first and that was awful after time.