Alley's

James, both places have 10 foot lanes. Seems to make it easier to get up the lane with four wheeler(feed), mowers and people. I haven't had any trouble with it being that wide, yet.

we made our alleys 12 feet wide, the reason we went 12 feet wide is so we can get in with a trailer where ever we have too

all of our alley ways are about 12 feet also seem to work pretty well we have had no trouble anyways

We went 10' wide with the last 100' having a gate and a pusher gate to take them on into the handiling facility it has been an awesome set up for us. The alley way can mean the difference in the whole design!

I had some 14 foot gates that I got for nothing so mine are 14'. Just make sure they are wide enough to drive anything you own or might own in the future down them. Cause ya just never now.

Mine is 30ft wide. It needs to be that wide to turn a truck or tractor around in.

Our alleyway is 12 feet wide except where it makes a jog or a slight turn. Then it is wider. We went with 12 feet because of the size of our compact tractor and the "lift" that hangs on the back of it. The lift is where we haul feed, we haul tranq'ed bucks, and such when needed. When the lift is not on the tractor in winter it is the snow blower on the front end that makes the whole rig longer. The 12 feet allows me to make all the turns needed into the pens with these 2 items on the tractor.

The one mistake was I had ordered 10 foot gates before the fence project started. So my gates when opened don't reach across the alleyway far enough to close off the alleyway completely enough to cause the deer to turn into their pen. Ideally if the alleyway is 12 feet wide the gates should be maybe 14 feet wide. This closes off the alleyway and gives an angle to the turn directing the deer around the corner instead of the flat and abrupt turn. Does that explanation make sense to anyone?

The way I will address this issue for us here is I will have my nephew weld up some aluminum framed gates with sight barrier fabric stretched across them. They will be very lite weight and easy to move. I will have them made about 14 feet long and they will have hooks on the frame at both ends. These hooks are what will hang onto the wire on both sides of the alleyway holding the gate up in place. A rubber bungy strap can help secure them in place. I can then move them by hand from one place to the other for directing deer into each pen. I plan to have 2 or 3 or these made. Again they will be just aluminum frames with sight barrier stretched across them so they will be very lite weight. I will have to store them against the wooden walls of the corral to protect them from the majority of the wind.

Our deer are really tame and easy to work so the gates won't have to be strong. They just need to be there as a way of directing them around the corner.

When I get them made I will post a pic if I remember.

Above I re-posted the pic of our farm layout for sake of the discussion. Man! These forums are great. If I could have learned like this when I started the money and time I could have saved.

If you look up at the pic above you will see that between pens # 3 and 4 I put a gate so I could move deer between them without using the alleyway. (Most of our does just follow us everywhere we go so moving them between pens is a snap) But in order to take deer from pen 3 into the alleyway I open the gate between 3 and 4 and the gate from pen 4 into the alleyway. When those 2 are opened they create a alleyway of sorts from pen 3 into the alleyway. This saved me the cost of one gate and really is easy to use.

My alley's are 16'. This allows me to back a trailer in and out with some room to spare on the sides and it is wide enough that the bobtail that delievers my feed can get in and out.

mine is 48 feet wide, I have not got the divider fence down the center yet, this allows us to deal with the snow for 5+ months, and with a couple of extra 15 foot movable gate panels we can set up we will be able to sort deer back into five pens at the same time.

Wow, Curtis don't know what caught my eye the most 48' alley way or 5+ months of snow!

I made mine 16'. Why? Because I didn't know any better. When I extended my operation I cut it down to 12' and it made a big difference. If I had to to it all over again, I'd put several turns (curves-not sharp corners) in it and I'd put something 100% solid on as much of it as I could afford. If nothing else maybe lined with cedars on the outside of the alley's two walls. It seems that if they can get around a corner they don't come back on you as much and they feel a little safer.

Antler Valley, You are correct about those curves. I have a jog in a certain spot that I can say does what you explained. They might like to come back, but they only come back as far as the jog in the alleyway.

So the bucks who are nervous about going into the corral will make a couple of paces back and forth between the entrance to the corrals and the jog. Then they finally go in. I just stand in the alleyway on the other side of the jog from where they are and that is enough to keep them from coming back, and yet it is enough pressure they eventually go in the corral.

If there was no jog I think they would tend to just get up a head of steam and run past me.



To explain my meaning I made a cropped version of the farm layout pic and put a red * sign where I stand, and a green --- (dashed line) where the deer pace back and forth prior to entering the corral. This is what happens with some of our bucks the first time we run them up.

The does just follow us when we walk in the corral.

I have to agree. We put a gate 100' from the first jog this keeps em blocked in the alley way up by the barn and allows us to take our time coming to them. It is covered in black plastic so they don't see us coming (only needed on the bucks seems like thiers always one who has a brain fart) That last 100' is lined on both sides with shade cloth and post on 8' centers and 1x2 treated strips every 2' to keep the cloth nice and tight.We then step thru the gate and have a 10'x8' pusher gate that has a curved track that keeps it pinned back against the fence pivot it around and walk behind it to the corral out of sight.Then we shut another gate at the end of the alley way that acts as a funnel around a couple of curves and into the barn and into the box stalls and it has worked excellent for us. every time they can go around a corner out of sight they stay calm because the don't feel trapped.We even have one box stall that has a rolling wall that moves them forward into the boxes going to the chute and acts as a pusher gate when we load out a deer into our alley way going to the load out door on our barn then thier is another pusher gate that pushes them on down that hallway and onto the trailer the whole time out of thier sight seems to keep them from going out of thier mind! we have an all bottle fed group of does and it is not needed on them but it's there if we need it.