Talk:Pen (enclosure)

comments from 2007
203.87.79.130 (talk) 23:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)In Australia and New Zealand pens or corrals are known as sheep or cattle yards and the planning and construction of them is quite a large industry. There many refinements and details to them including pneumatic forcing yards, chin lifts and sophisticated calf cradles etc.

Would it be possible or desirable to combine this article with cattle race, crush etc?

I can provide further photos if there is an appropriate section. Cgoodwin (talk) 09:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And doesn't "paddock" have a different meaning in Au as well? (here, it is the east coast way of saying "corral")  In some subcultures in the western US, a "pen" can also be a riding arena.  While you are at it, review agricultural fencing and horse care, which has a section on fences too. If nothing else, adding wikilinks to a "see also" section is always a good idea so that people know what else is out there. Ah, language... I never object to cleanup and eliminating redundancy.   Montanabw (talk) 18:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, paddock in Aus equates with a field in the UK, but by definition it may also include a large unfenced area, too. The "Long Paddock" is a term used in relation to droving or feeding stock on roadsides. The fencing article looks good. During the last few years in NSW, at least, some horse owners are now using split rubber belting, which has been recycled from mines. This is used for small paddocks or yards etc. This type of fencing is very visible and safe, and does not require any routine maintenance. Electric fencing materials are regularly used at campdraft and rodeo days, too, in the country where hundreds of horses descend on small towns (and in some cases villages) that don't have adequate horse facilities. I said "materials" because if they were connected to power there would be problems with the public and authorities. 23:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Horse Care looks great,too. Fitness and exercise may be considered here, if not covered elswhere.


 * We won't tell about electric fences! (grin).  Rubber fence went in and out in the states, apparently horses eat at it and ingest rubber and anything else that was worked into the rubber (particularly metal bits if, made from recycled tires! ":-O  ).  The vinyl variety is taking over here now, similarly safe, just haven't gotten a good photo of any.  Montanabw (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

In Australia we have pens inside yards or shearing sheds etc, but they are not paddocks. Pasture is a grassed or sown area for grazing stock. Paddocks are large areas that could be pretty rough, too. Cgoodwin (talk) 05:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Sizes
OK, let's talk terminology and sizes. I will give you Western USA, you can plug in Aussie, anyone else can weigh in, and we will figure this out:

USA:
 * Pen: Multiple meanings: 1) Generic small enclosure--when you don't know what to call it, it's a "pen."  2) Most common:  Very small enclosure, as in goat pen, sheep pen.  In essence, just about big enough to hold one or two animals 3)  New in the last ten years (nationally at least, may have been regional before this) western riding arenas, i.e. "the show pen"  4) Round pen, a round corral 40 to 70 feet in diameter, used in horse training 5)  Sometimes describes a group of multiple enclosures, even quite large ones, i.e. "Stock pens" as at a cattle feedlot that can hold dozens of animals in close quarters. Always should be an enclosure with a very sturdy fence for the animal to be securely contained.  Sometimes implies that metal pipe is used as fencing material, but can be a wood enclosure.
 * Corral: Western USA enclosure, usually wood fence, usually round rails, (though sometimes plank fenced enclosures are also called corrals, especially if small and very sturdy, not often used to describe a pipe enclosure) varies from about 40 feet square (or round) to maybe 150-200 feet square.  Often a higher fence than a pen or a paddock.  Term seldom used outside the western states. "Corral" implies an enclosure larger than a "pen" in most cases.  Usually holds horses or cattle.
 * Paddock: Usually describes an enclosure of wood planks rather than rails, also used to describe the saddling area at a racetrack. Almost exclusively used to describe a horse enclosure, rarely if ever an enclosure for any other animal.  Generally ranges from around 50 x 100 feet up to perhaps an acre or so, depending on the part of the country and the use.  Primarily considered an area for an animal to exercise, not to graze (though some paddocks may have grass, it's mostly for entertainment rather than nutrition)  Implies that it is not a riding arena, but rather an exercise area.
 * Arena: usually rectangular-shaped, 50' x 90' about the minimum, used primarily for riding or driving horses.  Good competition arenas start at about 100 x 200 feet, often a lot bigger.
 * Pasture: Implies that, whatever the size, has grass for grazing, at least for part-time nutrition.  Probably minimum size of one acre up to hundreds of acres, starts at whatever is bigger than a paddock in a particular part of the country. Fences less sturdy than for pens, paddocks or corrals as a rule. An area like this might also be called a field, but "field" usually implies a crop has been planted--wheat field, hay field, etc.

A "yard" is what goes around a residential house where the kids have their swingset and play. The term "stockyards" implies an entire feedlot, usually not used in the singular form. Stockyards are made up of many large corrals or stock pens for the animals...

Most horse books in the USA use "corral " and "paddock" interchangably...corral in the west or for western riders, and paddock in the east or for English and racing stables in any part of the country.

Clear as mud?? (grin) Your turn! Montanabw (talk) 07:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed on most of your comments. Below is pretty much what is the standard in Australia and NZ.

Paddock 1.	A small enclosure or field (usually UK) of grassland. 2.	An area where horses are saddled before a race. 3.	Land, fenced or otherwise delimited which is most often part of a sheep or cattle property. It may have nothing to do with stock, ie it may be a fenced vegetation area etc.

long paddock 1.	(Australia) (colloquial) Stock routes and the sides of public roads viewed as a source of pasture for cattle, sheep, etc, in times of drought.

Pasture - ground covered with grass or herbage, used or suitable for the grazing of livestock. In Australasia it usually refers to sown grasses and all or only part the area may be fenced temporarily or permanently.

pen (plural pens) 1.	A small enclosed area used to contain domesticated animals, especially sheep or cattle. Eg. There are two steers in the third pen. A catching pen in a shearing shed or a forcing pen in a cattle yard.

Yard An enclosed area designated for a specific purpose, e.g. on farms, railways etc.

stockyard (plural stockyards) 1.	(US and Australasia) An enclosed yard, with pens or stables, where livestock is kept temporarily before being slaughtered, sold, or shipped. Eg. Cattle, horse and/or sheep yards. They may be elaborate structures or simple bush yards made from nearby trees etc.

Corral is not used here. Sorry that this is pretty rough but I don't have more time now. Cgoodwin (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, I forgot that we have rail yards to, just thinking ag uses. We do occasionally use "stable yard," but borrowed directly from British usage, and only suggests a relatively small enclosed area around a stable, literally...  In the west, a pasture is sometimes native grass, sometimes "rangeland" is used interchangably for vast areas of open, native grass, lightly fenced pastureland.  Other than public lands such as BLM leases, most everything is fenced nowadays.  Say, check out agricultural fencing and electric fence, would you?  there is a USA and a UK perspective there, we need some Aussies to weigh in...!  Montanabw (talk) 04:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I am curious as to what Americans call large fenced or unfenced areas??

The fencing articles look good to me. Most of our fencing on properties is nowadays of ringlock or hingjoint with barbs or hot wires. In the past plain wire together with a barb or two was quite common, even on sheep properties. Boundary fences then were often of a rabbit proof netting. Sometimes they had elaborate devices on stays and stumps etc to stop the bunnies. Nowadays these fences almost certainly indicate separate properties (at least at some time ago). Cgoodwin (talk) 10:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

-- Ringlock we call "sheep fence," or, less often, the stuff that has narrow rectangles at the bottom, becoming bigger squares as you go up is called "New Zealand Field Fence." We never had the rabbit issue, they were here before us (grin), so not sure what you call "netting" is, precisely, though we keep bunnies out of our gardens with "chicken wire" fences, which is usually an exercise in futility, though it slows them down some.

As for fencing vast tracts, remember that even western ranches in the Great Plains or Texas still don't have outfits as large as some stations in the Australian outback, hence we often take boundary fencing of ranches for granted, almost everyone fences their land, we're actually pretty uptight about trespassing and ownership stuff. Ranchers also usually cross-fence somewhat to have a loose but permanent pasture rotation system. Fenceline issues are a big deal here, people file lawsuits against each other if someone rebuilds a fence 10 feet on the wrong side of the property line... if your cows get out, you will have a phone call from an irate neighbor in short order.

In the wild west days (see cowboy), there was "open range," which included ranches with small amounts of internal fencing, but few fenced boundaries between them, unfenced public land that "nobody" owned, and everyone ran their cattle on the open range. If someone didn't want other people's cows on their land, they had to fence them out. Ranchers would work together to round up all the cattle in the fall, sort them by brand, run the cows to winter pasture --which was sometimes closer to each respective ranch-- wean the calves, and ship out the steers. However, open range created a tragedy of the commons of overgrazing and other land degradation, thus after about 1890 or so, ranchers first fenced in all their own land to keep the neighbor's cows off, and then the federal government, later, created the BLM and set up the system we have today where ranchers may augment their own land with exclusive grazing leases on public lands (which stay open to the public, the hikers just better watch for cowpies!). There are grazing leases on United States Forest Service lands as well, though the BLM leases more total acreage. Some ranchers would get to thinking that their BLM lease was "their" land and start fencing it too. What was sometimes done was "checkerboard" ownership interspercing public and private lands in an alternating pattern by section. Ranchers could (and still can) try to lease the section of public land adjacent to their own property, and some have done so for generations. In fact, these days, there are public access issues because some of these old leases have the ranchers feeling like the BLM land is "their" land and it too gets fenced, wells dug, gates locked...been a few lawsuits about that, usually between hunter/sportsman groups and the ranchers. ;)

But back to terminology: any large area of grazing land here can be called a "pasture," and colloquially is, whether that is a 2-3 acre glorified exercise space or more than several full sections (640 acres in a section) of a BLM lease on public lands. Pasture is not just a noun, as in "going to pasture,: or "pastured."  Argonomy and geography sorts may refer to large tracts of fenced or unfenced but unirrigated land in the western USA, public or private, as "rangeland."  The term would never be used in the east because there simply are not the huge tracts we have in the west.  There are national forests in the east and other public lands, but of relatively small areas, different rainfall and management needs, and I don't know how many grazing leases (if any) there are for public lands east of the Mississippi, so won't go there.  Out in the wilderness, completely natural land that is not leased for grazing, no cows allowed (where the deer and the antelope play, and seldom is heard a discouraging word...(grin)) is, depending on terrain, rangeland, prairie, or (in the mountains) meadows.

I also won't go into detail on land stuff in Texas, as that particular state has very, very little public land (though a lot of private rangeland) and in so many ways is its own little world. I don't mess with Texas!! (grin)  Montanabw (talk) 04:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that I will stay on this side of the equator, by the sound of the disputes over there. Until the National Parks took so much land there were huge tracts of unfenced, mountainous land used to run cattle. The cattle were simply turned back onto the owners land, but one made sure that there were regular brandings. The only completely fenced area was each owners horse paddock and a rough set of cattle yards.Cgoodwin (talk) 05:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah! You are still in the "open range" period, my friend.  Give it another 50 years, you'll catch up!  All it will take is a little more scarcity of resources... LOL! :-D  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) 17:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

List of notable livestock enclosures?
Hey, a fairly long time ago I created List of corrals covering a number of U.S. historic corrals and corral sites. But if "corral" is not a world-wide term, I think I'd rather it be moved/renamed to cover all individually notable modern or historic "animal enclosures" or "animal pens" or whatever would be a proper term, to include "kraals" in Africa and more. And to serve as the list of notable examples corresponding to this Pen (enclosure) article (which itself should perhaps be renamed to be "livestock pens" or "livestock enclosures"?). I'd like the list restricted to the type of enclosures that hold horses and cattle, and not include tiny animal enclosures like ant farms or shoeboxes for gerbils, and exclude zoo cages, say. And I think not include "paddocks" or "pastures" which provide significant grazing area. I'd like for it to include any notable rodeo show corrals, but I am not sure if there are any rodeo venues whose corral areas are specifically notable (like are any individual tennis courts notable, within venues such as Wimbledon?). User:MB, User:Montanabw, User:Cgoodwin? --Doncram (talk) 04:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * And probably include any notable "paddocks" at race-courses per Merriam-Webster alt definitionU.: "especially : an enclosure where racehorses are saddled and paraded before a race". I recall going by one of those, at a notable U.S. race-course, which I think was not large, maybe 20 yards in diameter, and "corral-like" in my view. Perhaps some of these are named things? --Doncram (talk) 04:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)