Good Fences are Essential

If I had known then what I know now with regard to fencing, I would have held out for a place that was fenced and cross-fenced. But, I was just getting a handle on what those terms meant and had no clue the amount of time, labor, and money required for adequate fencing. We bought this farm as “fenced,” meaning that a perimeter fence was in place. It was, kinda-sorta.

Beginning last winter we beefed up that perimeter fence to enclose a bit more than half of the farm with fence adequate to hold dwarf goats. I say “we,” but it was really Jeff of Barns & More who we hired for the task. Seeing how long that job took him, I began to get an inkling of what was involved. By the time the fencing was completed, Jeff was solidly established as a very good friend.

Perimeter fencing contained the animals (mostly), but it did not address the issue of keeping males from females. Indeed, we have two litters of rapidly growing Great Pyrenees pups to attest to that. When the alpacas arrived with two pregnant females, separation became an immediate issue. I’ve tried moving the girls and Spencer down to grassier locations but the gals got nervous at the change and the vinyl-coated fencing on step-in posts didn’t appear up to the task of containing alpacas should any decide to bolt.

Although I can now work more closely with the alpacas, we’re stuck in a rut of alternating males and females in the home pasture. I’m suspecting that Spencer is ready to graduate to the boys’ club, but have no direct evidence (I always look up to Van’s squeals after whatever set her off). While I did try to get Spencer out with the boys one evening, Goldie got mad and I wasn’t sure the “screen door” would hold up for the challenge of an hysterical momma so I returned the boy to his usual abode.

Now we have installed additional perimeter fencing, to enclose the front acres. I can keep the goats and dogs separate by gender, but the alpaca pasture has yet to be adequately divided. We’ve begun moving chain-link panels from two of the kennels I picked up on Craigslist and aim to provide a divided pasture within the week, but I am such a scatter-brain that it slows down any progress we make. To separate kennel panels to move, we had to forfeit both the extra goat enclosure we’d been using for “dates” and the blockade that was keeping the orchard safe from the goats. Before getting panels in place in the home pasture, I somehow managed to lose track of the collection of metal fasteners designed to reconnect the panels. Drat!

Currently dates occur in the last stall in the barn, the orchard is again denuded of greenery, and revisions to the home pasture remain incomplete. We always plan to finish a project today but get distracted from the task repeatedly. Plus, there’s the matter of the dogs. For a time two of them were scooting under and through fences, but we seem to have gotten that under control and they are staying put in whatever area we assign to them.

My dream is to have the farm cross-fenced enough to pasture alpacas, horses, goats, and fowl separately by species and gender, using rotational grazing and fences through which Millie won’t venture. For now we’ll work on separating the alpacas in the home pasture.