Food Plot w/ Cows

I would do as big of a food plot as you can at each spot, and tell your cow guy to have them off your place during deer season. Explain to him that after January 1 they can come back over and will have x amount of acres of oats/rye/whatever for them to graze. I would think that would work out for the both of ya.

Well, may have misunderstood your post slightly. Can you not keep the cows off any certain part of your place, or can you not keep them from getting on your place altogether?


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Right now we can't keep them off the place at all (physically and I guess legally). We "split" buying a 1200 ac ranch with a friend so he has the left 700 acres and we have the right 500 acres with drawn property lines on paper, etc. The cattle have always been on the whole 1200 acres and there is not a cross fence between the 500 acres and 700 acres so no way other than building a fence. We don't want to build a fence yet because we have a couple of other things going that may allow us to buy some of his 700 acres in a year. Until we have final property lines, we won't build a fence. That is the physical reason.

A side note, we are leasing the hunting rights on the 700 acres for now. The friend bought it as an investment property and will likely sell it in a couple of years so since it is short term we aren't looking to do a lot to the lease side other than hunt and keep corn out year round.

Legally, we did a generic cattle lease from Oct '21 to October '22 so I don't think we could tell him when he can have cows on our part etc until the next contract the way it is written. There are no restrictions in the current contract. We may consider it for next year but he is a good guy that we don't want to mess anything up with until we are ready to get the cows off for good. That is the legal reason.

If your only planting a total of 4-6 acres it would be a waste if not fenced off imo.

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Cows will mow down anything you plant. However, you can efence them out pretty cheaply. I fenced out 2 acres with two rows of efence line for around 800 last year. Could be much cheaper if you could get used t-posts. Space them every 25-50 feet. If you are just trying to keep cows out, you could just do two strands of the ribbon style wire. Combine that with a 20w solar panel and a 35 ah battery from harbor freight to power your DC fence charger and you should be fine. I haven't (knock on wood) had any issues yet.

I would do 2-3 bigger plots though rather than a bunch of small ones.

This!

That is pretty much what I was thinking. I was wishing otherwise but I think this is the reality.

An electric fence may be an option. We do it at home and it seems to work well. We have plenty of tpost as the previous lessees left all their feeder pens and we don't really use them. Eventually I hope to do bigger ones but I don't think that is in the cards short term due to equipment, etc.

Hot fence is your only option if you don't want the cows on it

Just spend the 75 bucks and rent a gas powered t-post driver! Me and a buddy got the whole thing done by noon.

If you want to put in kill plots, you might could get away with fencing off small plots. That would solve the bovine problem. But might be fruitless based on the relationship between deer density and the amount of acreage you plant.

If you’re putting in small plots with no fencing, odds are very VERY high you’ve just wasted your time. Between the cows and the deer, the plots would get wiped out.

You might also consider how many cows you’ve got. If the density is lower, or much lower, than the carrying capacity of your land, you’ve got better odds of avoiding a problem with the cows getting in your plots. And carrying capacity can fluctuate with the seasons and range conditions.

If it were my place, I wouldn’t gamble on small plots with no fencing.

Waste of time and money if you cant keep cows off. Instead, I would start clearing and expanding those areas for food plots...spray brush, chainsaw, burn, etc... so when you do get the cows off you will have more area to plant.

Ha, I have 4 teenage boys plus myself. Those t post getting in the ground isn't a problem. And when I say myself, someone has to drink the beer and tell them where to put the posts.... We do have a tractor with a bucket also that we have used in the past depending on the amount of rock. The biggest problem with a cross fence is not wanting to do it twice. If we buy more land or we are thinking about high fencing the fence would become throw away, so that all needs to be decided (with multiple other factors) before we put up any fence.

Yeah, I was thinking about this as well. I don't know the exact number of cows but based on the grass available, overall shape of the cows and lack of hay fed it is well below the carrying capacity of the land. But I'm pretty sure they had above average rainfall so Im not sure how typical that is. They definitely aren't starving and the cattle guy seems like he knows what he is doing with the cows. I don't think they would eat the food plot out of necessity, it would be more if it tastes better or the fact that cows just aren't very intelligent animals in general.


I'm really thinking we either need to go with a hot fence for any food plots or wait until we get rid of the cows.

Put in high fence on front end. Will be 120-140k for 500 acres if you aren't some funky shape and tons of rock. You will never regret it!

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I'd do two strand electric using a braided material. One strand about waist high and the other about halfway beneath the first. If pigs are an issue, three strands may be needed. T-posts can be as far about as 40-60 feet, as there is very little tension.

I'd call up Kencove Farm Fence Supplies and they'll walk you through the process.

INL. I’m in the process of doing the same thing