I found a tree has fallen on one of my deer feed pens. A corner post is now in 3 pieces. Guess it's time to rebuild!

Tell me all the tricks and suggestions for the best deer feed pen.

For this application, there is only a corn feeder in the pen. There are hogs on the property and I'd like to keep them out.

Do we as the infamous OB members agree with the following link?

https://springcreekoutdoors.com/blog/feed-pen-design/

So is round or square best? T-posts or cedar posts? Do I need braces? Panels, wire, or both? What's the ideal diameter? What the best way to keep hogs out? Is there a way to build a skirt around the edge that will keep the hogs from going underneath? Tell me all of your tricks so I get this right the first time!!

Round. T-posts. Bigger is better.

Round. Big. Try to include some existing brush or trees inside it to help break it up.

I've got 7 pens all made from cattle panels split in half long ways so just 2ft tall. In 5 years, I've had a total of 3 pigs jump in. Guess they naturally view it as a trap. Seems that the deer like them more than a full height pen.

round with t-post is cheapest and definitely works......this is what we have used for 25+ years.

My old man worked on a ranch that had some phenomenal pens......they were 80x100 with a gate on each end made with pipe posts and top rail with a sucker rod across the bottom to keep hogs from pushing under.......this would be my preferred if i had the money and equipment to pull it off.

I'd probably go round if I were to rebuild all of our pens. The most common failure point, outside of the gate, is the corners where the square/rectangular pen meet. The hogs tend to bust through those, if they're going to bust through at all.

If you have pigs and your desire is to keep them out, I would absolutely go hog or cattle panels. I prefer t-posts just because cedar doesn't go through the rock the we have. Regarding bracing - we normally just run t-posts at each corner at a 45 degree angle outside of the pen and then tie it off with slick wire. We have built h-braces if needed but normally it is not a problem.

I'm currently enjoying a year or two hiatus from hogs that jump into our pens. It's only a matter of time until one figures it out and a dose of leadicillin is the only way to stop it.

We've switched over to two strands of electric fence. No issues with hogs so far in 6 months.

I have nothing to add except T-Post come in two different weights, 1.33 lbs per foot and 1.25 pounds per foot.
Most box stores sell the lighter 1.25 post. Use the 1.33 lb.for feeder pens.

I was always told round because it doesn't give a place for a buck to get backed into in the event two start going at it inside the pen. A square or rectangle with corners can be a place where a buck gets trapped and either severely injured or even killed by another.

Now, that may be an old wive's tale - hell, probably is. But it's also easier to build a round pen IMO anyway.

Does anyone know how many 16 ft hog panels it takes to make a big round pen?

What do you consider a big round pen? Minimum 10 panels. I would vouch for 12-20

JeremiahJohnson said:

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What do you consider a big round pen? Minimum 10 panels. I would vouch for 12-20

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That would make about a 50 ft diameter circle with 10 panels. That's enormous. Why would it have to be that big?

Mine are 13-14 panels. Make sure to add a foot of overlap at each end.

Don't try to set your post in a perfect circle. Lay your panels out approximately where you want them. Build as you go. Then adjust the last 2-3 so that everything fits.

They spend more time in the pen if it is larger and they have room to feed. I have a few that were only 8. Multiple bucks will not stay in there for long. Also gives me room for Corn, Protein and cotton seed feeders.

Deer are way more at ease in a larger pen.

Also the larger it is the less chance i have of hitting a panel when shooting into it from an elevated blind. Ground blind it doesnt matter you are likely shooting through no mater what. Does not happen often but i wounded a buck this past season because my bullet hit a panel. Made me sick

I prefer hunting with tall feeders like Hang 'Em High that can spread corn over a good distance. Because of this, I make my feeder pens as large as possible to minimize corn falling outside the pen while also giving deer plenty of space to feed without crowding.

Cattle panels are a must, but I don't like shooting through them, so I keep them as low as possible. I also prefer square pens and like them to align properly with the rifle blind. However, if that's not a priority for you, a round pen will work just fine. My last feeder pen measured 40' on each side. Including pictures for scale.

I was trying to figure out why your pen looked so clean and then I remember that not everyone has to hammer their t-posts 30 times for it to only go 10" into the ground/rock. I am used to looking at t-posts that are 18" or more above hog panels, depending on the t-post length. I guess I should just take my angle grinder to them but not that worried about it.

Hah, you're right! This was in Freestone County. If we ever need to build feeder pens at our place in Mason, I'll probably hire a fencing company to make them big and built to last. Hammering t-posts into rock gets old real fast.

I've done both round and square and I'll never do round again. Primary reason is if you want to run electric wire on the top for cows, the straight electric wire pulled Tpost to Tpost will be inside the round portion (arc) of the fence, defeating the purpose of it. Gates are easier too.
Whatever you do, make it big.

Yours look almost identical to ours. My BIL tried a round one years ago. It did work nearly as well. All of our feeders are on tripods with winches. We have a tractor with a loader on the front to lift dead animals out of the pens.

The older I get, the easier I try to make it on myself.

Yall shooting elk in those pens?

I wish!

Based on the formula D= C/pi(3.141), 10-16' panels in a circle will give you about a 50' diameter. Like what was mentioned earlier, mine are made from the full sized 16' panel cut in half lengthwise. The square where I cut them I would cut in the middle so that there would be a spike along both long edges. The first time I put one up I would put the "spikes" down and push into the ground to help keep the pigs from pushing the panels and crawl under. I found that they would crawl over them. I flipped the panels over so the spikes are sticking up and now more problems with pigs getting in.

I have also found that if you make them big enough that all the corn stays inside the pen you will have fewer pigs hanging around.

Ours are round. 60' in diameter and I think 20 hog panels per pen. One panel is a gate.

I'm jealous of some of these really low pens. Do yall not have any livestock? If so, are your pens only to keep hogs away?

Just remember:

https://i.imgur.com/WtRGg30.mp4

I've had one cow over the years become a nuisance at times, but the rest of them don't seem to bother the feeder. I think a big reason is the distance from the feeder to the edge of the pen. Additionally, my feeder doesn't drop corn right below the barrel so the lack of a corn pile seems to help.

Has anyone tried apron wire for hogs? Like shown in photo…

I had an apron when I did DMP pens. Kept hogs and coyotes out pretty well.
My pens are 60' x 60' square 42" high panels. Outside of that I have 300' x 300' 5 strand barbed wire to keep cattle out.

Ours is 12 panel, I believe just 30". Put a stake down under the feeder, 30' string and walk a circle around the feeder to line up the panels and hammer drill into the rock. Never had a pig get in there in the past 7 years

TAMUallen said:

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I'm jealous of some of these really low pens. Do yall not have any livestock? If so, are your pens only to keep hogs away?

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We put them up because of hogs but it keeps the cows out as well.

CS78 said:

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Mine are 13-14 panels. Make sure to add a foot of overlap at each end.

Don't try to set your post in a perfect circle. Lay your panels out approximately where you want them. Build as you go. Then adjust the last 2-3 so that everything fits.

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Man, laying out a circle is easy as hell. Put a stake in the center, either use a known length of string or rope or a tape and walk the circle with some marking paint and boom. Done. Gates are easy too.

My main pen is 40' diameter, I think it's 11 or 12 panels total with one panel being replaced by a gate I had laying around out there. I did have to come back after the fact and add more t-posts, but that's because we have ******* cows and a few of them figured out they could lean into the hog panel and it would fold over. So I added t-posts between the ones I already had and threw a couple of strands of barbed wire on top above the panels.

Only time I've had hogs get in is when I left the gate cracked open specifically to let them in to clean up the old corn and protein on the ground.

Any pics of the gate that keeps hogs out when closed correctly?

We have two feed pens built out of panels and the gates are the weak links on both.

I don't see why not. The thinner the fencing, the easier it is to shoot through, but you'll need to get it extremely tight, or cattle and pigs will start to wear it down. We have this type of game fencing around our place in Mason (without the apron at the bottom), and the pig presence is essentially zero. In fact, it's so effective that we don't even use feeder pens.

GentrysMillTX10 said:

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Any pics of the gate that keeps hogs out when closed correctly?

We have two feed pens built out of panels and the gates are the weak links on both.

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Just a run of the mill panel gate. I have it wired to a t-post on one side for a really redneck hinge, use a rope on the other to keep it closed. Simple, easy and it has worked for 5 or however many years now.