Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Thursday, March 13, 2014

How to transport 16' cattle panels

My hoop house project is moving right along. I'm currently stymied by bad weather and ineffective planning. However, I expect to have a full update and "how-to" soon.  Until then we recently learned a valuable skill - how to transport 16 foot cattle panels.

You don't need a trailer. Just hoop it up.

I was very concerned about this and truth be told I expected this to be the most difficult aspect of the project. Turns out it was way easier than I could have imagined.

We hopped in the truck and headed down to the local feed store eager with anticipation...and a little dread. How the heck do you get something that is bendy, ridiculous, and 16 feet long home when you only have an 8 foot truck bed?

You hoop it up.

How fun is this? The loading guy at the feedstore followed us down behind their main building where the fencing stuff is kept. All we did was lift the panels (three of them) into the back of the truck and then he expertly hooped the panels up. That is, he just walked forward while the panels were braced against the back of the cab - this caused them to bend up into a hoop. Then we carefully closed the tailgate which held the hoop in place.... and voila!

Panels braced against the cab.

I was not convinced that we could drive home with a big hoop in the truck. Turns out it worked just fine.

Hold them in place and then close the tailgate.

When we got home my hubby held the hoops in place and I opened the tail gate then we both held onto the panels and walked backwards until they were flat again.

Our barncat, Shine, thought it was awesome.

How easy is that? You don't need a trailer just a truck. Normally when we get panels I have the loading guys cut them into 8 foot sections but now I know I can get them home just like this.

So there you have it - another farm mystery solved. 

We got the bad weather yesterday and it was 11* this morning... but as soon as this cold air moves out I'll be able to finish up my green house. Now the only mystery is solve is where the heck can I get a single 2x4x12 around here..... I should have gotten one on Sunday when I got the rest of my materials. Rats. Looks like we'll be headed back to town.

Happy Thursday everyone! Anyone else have a way to transport panels?


7 comments:

Sunnybrook Farm said...

That looks like a neat project, I hadn't thought of using those panels. If you have room, I have heard that you can dig a trench below the freeze line and use blocks where you can lay a floor of sorts over the trench. What happens is that the cold air sinks into the trench and gets warmed and rises. Helps keep the temp up at night. I think it is called a heat sink.

Vera said...

The largest bits of equipment we can fit in our beaten up old Mercedes is rolls of fencing wire, which we fit across the back seat. And we have managed to get three square bails of hay / straw in the car as well.... one on the back and two in the boot of the car with the tailgate having to be left open but roped down. The car, therefore, always look messy! But we are in the process of buying a remoque (trailer)which should ease the pressure on the car. I look forward to reading about you build your greenhouse though.....

buddeshepherd said...

That cat looks like he is ready to attack. I'm feeling threatened. I think I will lock myself in the bedroom.
With cookies! Mmmmm cookies!

Robin said...

It's a good thing you had Shine there to supervise....who knows what would have happened!

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Thanks so much SBF - I left a note on your blog
:-)

Vera - you definitely need a truck. or a trailer... *goes off to look up remoque* ... ok yes you absolutely need one of those.

Budd if you lock yourself in the bathroom because of a cat I will call you a dumbass and give you a bad tattoo. That's just the way of things. Wait... was there really cookies?

Robin, I'm always glad to have Shine on my side!

David said...

can't wait to see how this turns out!
would love to do this for a pumpkin arbor

Anonymous said...

I favor using the woven wire also. For the reasons Bill gives, and also because it has more "give." I have used a woven

wire round pen for many years, and still do. Five or six years ago we built a second round pen panels with cattle panels in

a different field. It looked very spiffy. The first time we used it was at a clinic, where an out-of-control novice dog ran

one of the sheep into a panel. Its neck broke and it had to be put down (fortunately, one of the clinic attendees was a

vet). If that sheep had been run into wire fencing I'm sure the damage would have been minimal

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...