Hydraulic post pounders?

Mike - Good points, all. I was thinking about using 10' posts so I could have six feet to play with - perhaps four feet of woven wire with two strands of electric above? Probably overkill that wouldn't even keep out the coyotes and deer, but imagination is cheap...

Your point about making the gates bigger is well taken. I have a gate that's almost too small and I've clipped one side of it more times than I care to mention.

If I could find 14" locust logs I'd be all set! There are some ads for locust posts in our area and I'll have to start collecting a pile.

Ditto that part about bending the posts.

I have a New Holland medium duty 3 point auger that I used to put up a pasture fence last summer. Several times I hit rocks that I could not drill, break or budge less than 2 feet below the surface.

When I got the quote from a local installer I asked him how the pounder deals with this and he explained that the wooden post will 'mushroom' underground as it is driven in.

My project was not as large as yours but did involve tree felling and brush clearing along fence lines. It took me just about all summer to complete.

The fence is Gallagher 4 strand High Tensile. I saw mention of keeping out small critters, now that is another story and would be pretty ambitious on a 50 acre scale.

Use the 'good stuff' and you will be glad you did.

If there is snow on the ground now you may want to evaluate the different areas to see what changes with the season. I found that I needed a cut off switch on the bottom TWO strands instead of just the ONE that I had installed. The snow was drifting almost 3 feet deep along one stretch.

Waiting for spring.....

I don't know much about it, but two summers ago my ex husband (yup he was the ex then!) helped me put in a mile of fence. It was single strand electric. Just a fence for rotational grazing type of thing so it didn't need to be real great.

Posts were $2 each, renting a post pounder that you pulled with a truck was $150 for the whole weekend from the local ag store, wire was a couple hundred. I think I did the whole thing for under $500 (including pounder rental) and I had lots of posts left. It only took us a couple hours. IN a weekend you could pound in enough posts for 50 acres I am sure. Fencing is easy. I am half dumb and I can do it.

Six years ago a friend invested $12,000 in a hydraulic fence post setting machine to fence his property and after completing the job sold the machine for $14,000 and set his BIL up in business for himself.

The hydraulic post setter he purchased was a wheel lift wrecker and he used the wheel lift stinger to set his posts and the winch to stretch the fabric. His BIL now uses the wrecker to run tows for a couple mechanics and do repos with.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

I think geography definetly has something to do with the difficulty factor.

On one of the fence building sites I visited the installer was a Missouri fence builder helping out a new farmer in Iowa City, Iowa. His comments were 'Wow, they have some nice dirt up there compared to the Ozarks of Missouri' and 'The holes dug easily to Ozark standards', working with black dirt was a special treat'.

I know I had a few corners where I could not get the full three foot deep hole but I figured that since the last 4 to six inches of the hole were chiseled into solid stone it would be ok.

Now I know where those tractor sized rocks off to the side of the pasture came from....

There are numerous ways to accomplish the same task as we all know. On a property where the perimeter boundaries are not clean and needs to be cleared I strongly suggest making hiring a tracked front end loader to clear a swath. When the perimeter is ready the tracked front end loader can push the post in the ground. I can force a post into position about as fast as a helper can move on foot from post location to post location. At a $125 per hour I believe I can beat the price of a person on a tractor with a post driver. PS...I also have a Shaver post driver for small jobs. When you install the fence leave it a off the ground at the bottom as there will be a time when you need to cut debris from under the fence. A sacrificial strand of barb wire near ground is a good investment and the woven wire off the ground will not rust as quickly.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

if you are pushing t-posts like that, it is very dangerous. I had one bow and pop loose from the bucket, hit me in the temple and knock me silly.

Qhorseman

No tee posts. Used guard rail or treated wood here.

__________________
Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!