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RE: [RC] Making your own portable corral- PVC Experience - Paul Sidio

A few years ago, my plumber friend helped me make a portable corral out of PVC. We wiped out several hardware stores supplies of "T" 's and 90 degree  corners.  It was to be a four rail corral with 6  foot panels so it would fit in the back of a short bed pickup.
 
After lots of measuring and sawing and painting purple stuff all over everything, we finally got it glued together. It looked beautiful. I put my very calm and easy to pen horse in it and stood back to watch.  He walked around and looked it over and calmly began to graze. He put his head between two rails to grab a bite of tall grass, and when he drew his head back into the pen, he bumped into one of the PVC pipes.  It fell apart like a tinker toy house built by a 5 year old.  He just stepped back  and looked at the pile of loose pieces in shock. He must have been laughing like crazy on the inside. Then he slowly stepped over the mess and kept on grazing. So we grabbed the purple stuff, and re-glued everything back together.  We let it sit overnight and tried again the next day.  We put my horse in it, and 10 minutes later, he walked up to the fence and gave it a head butt and then  stepped back as the pipes clattered to the ground. Then he stepped over the pieces to eat grass.
 
The next day I bought a lightweight galvanized portable corral. It has worked great for over 5 years now.
 
The reason you don't see many homemade corrals at endurance rides isn't because we all have so much extra money that we just enjoy buying luxuery goods for our hobby. It is because many of us have tried and either come up with something that fell apart, or weighed so much it took a fork lift to move it.
 
Paul N. Sidio
Spokane MO.