Planning a Pen Layout Before You Order Penning

What we need from you

Four things: a dimensioned room drawing, the animal stage for each pen, the target capacity, and any building constraints — ceiling height, door positions, existing beam grid, the side the feed line comes down.

With those, a layout and a counted equipment list can be prepared. Without them, any number quoted is an estimate of a room nobody has seen.

Decide the pen sizes before the panels

Panel lengths should suit the pen, not the other way round. Choose pen widths that land on standard panel sizes and the run needs no cut board and no filler piece.

Alley widths are the other decision people regret. An alley that is comfortable empty is not comfortable when a group is being moved through it.

Count the junctions, not just the panels

Every layout is a grid of junctions: corners, T-junctions where a division meets a wall, and crossings where four pens meet. Each needs a post with the right number of slots — one, two, three or four-way — and improvising one on site is how a run ends up out of square.

This is the single most common reason a pen build stalls: the panels arrived and the four-way posts did not.

Choose vented or solid per position

Vented panels go between pens that share an air space, so the room's ventilation pattern still works. Solid panels go at room boundaries, where all-in/all-out separation matters more than airflow.

Mark this on the drawing before ordering. Changing a vented panel for a solid one afterwards means buying a second panel.

Set the grade by position, not by room

Reinforced grade and framed panels belong on gates, pen fronts that take a feeding rush, and anything on a loading or sorting route. Everywhere else, standard grade is the right specification and the cheaper one.

Specifying the whole room in the heaviest grade is a common and expensive mistake.

What comes back

A panel schedule with every post, bracket, connector, channel section and trim counted, a layout drawing, a quotation and a packing plan. Equipment is then crated by room, so the build order is the unload order.