I need ideas for inexpensive fence construction/materals

Now, I did try to help you with some suggestions, as best I could up above.

So, I'm going to just be the devil's advocate before anyone else, and make the simple comment.....

Why worry about the cost of a little fencing, if you were given a check for $2,000,000? Splurge a little.



As with my other post, just teasing a little bit, like good friends do. When on the internet forums, ya gotta laugh at yourself; or get high blood pressure. Just the nature of written words on a world-wide forum.

The fruggle person inside me would do the same, continue to be fruggle.


Seriously, when asking questions, when you want replies out of the ordinary, it does help to supply more info. There are a whole bunch of horses near me kept in wire & electric pastures. Helping us understand why that don't work in your case helps us focus on what you need, not on trying to figure out why the special requirements....

--->Paul

Well now that you bring the 2M number up... why not stable the horse for as long as you need.

Voila, no fence needed.

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Well, in response to the comment, "why not just search the threads" issue: I've done that before and sometimes there are so many different threads and oftentimes we posters tend to prattle on and on about things totally unrelated to the topic at hand. So searching can be verrrry time-consuming, hard on the old eyes, and annoying! LOL Often it is way quicker to just start a new thread and get the responses you are looking for.

I haven't tried electric fencing (instead chose to get shafted by a local fence dealer, paying $3000 for 1200ft of page wire installed in the dead of winter) but I've heard that solar-powered electric fencing is also an option if the idea of running electricity to a fence is a deterrent. Don't know if it carries as strong a current as what you get with the plug-in kind though, but they say it is good enough for horses.

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OMG a milti millionaire and worried over a few pennies

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Well, I agree with RedneckPete (at least in principle).

People post poorly worded questions, with way too little info in the post for us to help much, forcing us to ask a lot of questions that never get answered, or, in the rare cases they are, completely changes what our advise would be.

The OP asked about fencing for horses, and then, 3 days later, responds that electric fence won't work for her EMUS?

There were six different, specific questions asked of her, and she responds to two of them!

Come on, get real here. People put a lot of time and energy into answering questions. Do us the favor of actually thinking about what you're writing.

I've pretty much quit offering advice on these kinds of threads. It just ain't worth it.

do you have a stand of poppel near by they make good poles and they grow fast
cutt them down and de-branch they usualy grow slender and strait and are a near nusance to most you will need 2 upright posts then cust som spacers it will make rail fences sturdy and cheap like the horse corals in old westerns

how large you cut the spacers will decide how close the rails are to each other

all you need is a saw ax a few spikes and post hole digger but chain saw would sure make it faster

other wise cattle pannel are easy to put up and every payday you can go get 2 more and a few t posts the pannels can be moved adound easy and make different corrals
and as you get more you go bigger

I have a slightly different take on answering questions. This op asked about cheap fencing options. If someone ELSE was to come on HT and do a search for Cheap Fencing, they would find this thread. Would it be helpful to them? Or would they give up in disgust and go start another to get real answers as this thread had so many posts about the OP, whether she asked a good question, whether she responded correctly, how much money she had, etc., including my post here reminding you all that answering a question on a homesteading issue such as fencing, may be of great benefit to more than just the op of THIS thread.

The question is a valid one, what are the cheap fencing options a person has? What have you used? Where did you find the materials? What did they keep in?

Oh my, I must be a little cranky today

I guess I'm confused. Are you trying to keep things:

In
Out
Both Some Things In and Some Things Out?

Electric fence as flat wire, I agree, can be very dangerous. As can electrified poly rope. ESPECIALLY if it is not:

HIGHLY visible
ADEQUATELY designed for its intended use
PROPERLY installed
ACTIVELY maintained

AND you if you are trying to CONTAIN animals within it, you have to train them properly to the fence first (VERY easy but must be done).

This is why I like electric TAPE like Safe Fence or Horse Guard (please do NOT waste your time with the off-brands, they tend to break down very quickly or fail to work at all even straight out of the package).

MOST people that have trouble with electric fence didn't follow one of the golden rules above. With electric, that also means using proper spacing for the things you are trying to keep in/out and using a charger with enough JOULES (NOT volts) and GROUNDING the HECK out of it to really give the attempted barrier breaker a pop to remember (not hurt or stun them, just STRONGLY discourage return visits to investigate with flesh).

Now, if electric is off your plate, there were some other good suggestions given here and on many other threads throughout this site. Sometimes hard to find, I know. Try just typing in "fence" and you'll probably get THOUSANDS of results. It will just take a little time to find what you want.

With really inexpensive fences you tend to sacrifice reliability and safety, as you've said you're aware of and don't wish to make this sacrifice... to a point. OK, well you can do something really simple but I'm not sure it'd be safe - it would depend on the items you find to fulfill this - I have heard of people taking wooden pallets and standing them on end as fence. It isn't terribly strong so again you have to either set posts to support them or train the animals to stay away from them (here's where a single strand of electric would help - especially because when properly working it is an INSTANT correction that is faster and more consistent than any correction us humans could administer). The thing I really worry about with pallets is that most around here are open-grided such that a hoof could get stuck in one from a kicking or pawing horse and that could spell disaster if they panicked or made the motion while at speed or attempted to free themselves and pulled the fence down on them in the process.

As for bulldozing it all - why not dismantle the fence first and use it elsewhere later? The really good fences are worth doing this and it's not hard at all with electric tape.

Hope that helps some though...

I have started my fence, I was able to get salvaged poles from the local telephone company. Which we cut down to eight foot sections & then bought rolls of wire v mesh to go up. I had a friend (carpenter) build a gate out of pressure treated wood that we had in the barn. Then used a cable support for gate. I haven't finished it due to weather but its turning out nice. The telephone poles are very sturdy and we are planning on pulling them up when we leave.
When I was looking for other options I came across a few that may be of some help to some one. I found a book "Fences, Gates, and Bridges & how to build them" by George A. Martin-- He tells in detail how to build virginia rail fence -which you can use young trees cut to size & wire- as well as gates bridges. Also I came across another idea -Buck fence- which uses rough cut timber/young trees to make an a-frame then nail the rails on one side to create fence panels (I am not good at detail-but I am sure If you google you will be able to pull up plans) Although it does mention if you have a small pasture not to use b/c horse can start chewing fence. I hope that this is to some help to others

I forgot all about the buck fencing! That's something that's around here on our property - a few remnants left over on the dividing line between us and our neighbors to the east. We have 2 other neighbors that use it for their horses, in small areas. Their horses have gotten out a few times though. I don't love this fence as it will rot, can be chewed, and is a lot of work to do for a horse or moose or bear that just goes through, over, or under it...but it's cheap.

LOL thats what the Indians used out west to fence in the Buffalo Herds!!

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Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, Its about learning to dance in the rain....

I have been thinking about those telephone poles lately. Did they deliver? If not, how did you get them home? How did they get them off of the truck? Did they dump them, or did they have a boom to lift them off?

I use utility pole sections for all of my high tensile fencing (corners and gate posts). The [electric] utility company was replacing poles prior to a road destruction and were happy to drop them off in my front yard rather than have to make a trip to their storage yard. They lifted them off their truck with a boom. If you don't have a replacement event like this in your area, you'll probably have to go to their storage yard and pick them up. I've seen prices from $5 to $40 per pole from different utilities.

How the heck do you move them around after you get them? Or are they already cut down to a manageable size?