Women and Fencing

Another bit of advice--if you go with metal posts, they go in much easier if the ground is wet. You won't be able to string the fence at that time, not until it dries and hardens up around the posts, but it saves a lot of backache.

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I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

Thanks for the replys.I'm thinking on woven wire and t-post.I might do cattle panels.I have put up 2x4 welded wire fence for the chickens but that is all.

The question that keeps coming up is at the end of a roll and the start of the other do they need to meet at a post?Or do you splice them and keep going?

The side I want to do is 277ft.The rolls of wire are 330ft.Do I cut it at the end post or keep going around the corner?

We don't have any animals yet.I want to put a fence up to show the property lines.

Please excuse me if these are stupid questions.

Tambo

I fenced in 40 acres does that count :haha: But I did have teenaged help, hubby only helped putting in corner braces.. We went High Tensile with no experience at all (easy & cheap!) , but I have experience with most all other fencing and woven is a pain in the butt! I would definately go with the halter top idea of fordy's :haha:

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BryrPatch Quality Handmade Goat milk Soap, Lotions; ADGA Dairy Goats, DHIR, LA, Shows, Current whole herd CAE neg tests. We R Kidding now! www.BryrPatch.com

Shazza, the mention of the word Vegemite brought back memories of my childhood in Australia (Weipa, Cairns, Brisbane & Melbourne)...my little brother loved Vegemite and I couldn't stand the smell of it! He would spread it on bread and shove it under my nose to get a reaction....and a reaction he got!

I am needing to put fencing around my cattle corral(2 acres) to keep the sheep in and coyotes out. Can I use that 4" by 4" square holed wire, is it called ringlock or cattle panel? and just staple it to the wooden cattle fences already there?

I have a ram and 5 pregnant ewes to protect. I will also put up a portable electric fence for the ewes(not the ram!) to mow the front yards for me in summer The alpacas can be moved to the cattle pasture(20 acres) in spring and they are happy with the space. The barbed wire fence seems to work for them but won't work for the sheep. I want to keep the sheep a little closer to the back yard as they are rare breeds that need to be monitored.

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Raising alpacas,sheep,rabbits,chickens,cats,kids and ONE HUBBY!

Yes, if I was going to do any fencing, would be sure to do it naked. La-Naturale is sure to attract close in inspection by all hands. The neighbors, passing truck drivers, postal persons, etc.

Not saying they will be any help, but they sure will want a closer look at the project. :haha:

Just be sure not to get any body parts caught or hung up in the work. You will be sans protection.

I am in my 50's and have strung 2 miles of 4 strand barbed wire over a mountain and across a wetland area in the past two summers. It did not kill me though I often thought it might. Built jack legs out of near by trees using a chain saw and some large spikes to hold the wire going across the wet lands. The rest was those heavy duty 6 foot t-posts placed with a post pounder. So....speaking from experience DO NOT DO BARBED WIRE ALONE- i looked like i had been attacked by a mountain lion LOL and that is through denim clothes! Not to mention a roll of heavy duty barbed wire weighs more than any one person (man or woman) can handle during the unrolling! So get yourself some help, even if it is only a med sized kid. Better yet strip darned near naked, stand outside holding your tools till some macho dude comes to help!

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www.MontanaSticksAndStones.com at Goshen Farm

I put our fence up, with a little help from the other half pounding in T-posts. A tip: do NOT spend the extra $10 (or whatever) on the spring-loaded T-post pounder! They might work for a big, heavy man, but I don't hardly weigh enough to overcome the spring! Returned the miserable thing to the store and borrowed the neighbor's "old-fashioned" post pounder. Worked MUCH better. I used an electric braided rope called EnduraSoft made by Premier1. LOVE IT. Was easy to handle and is visible for the horses. This product only requires "hand-tightening" (read PULL, grunt and groan - be sure you wear leather gloves!) And you can pretty much use regular insulators from your local farm supply.

As for splicing ends, I was able to just tie the ends together and keep going. If I had extra length at a corner, I just went around the corner and kept going - didn't need to cut it.

Honestly, the hardest part of the job for me was deciding exactly WHERE I wanted the fencelines, and then measuring and marking where the posts needed to go to get equal distance between them and get the lines nice and straight and the curves rounded and smooth. (OK, OK, I'm a little anal about those kinds of things...)

Good luck! You can do it!

Diana

P.S. Wear a tank top when you go to pound those posts in - you'll really be flexing your shoulder and back muscles, and some man, somewhere, will sense this and come runnin' - to help, of course.

http://www.rohrermfg.com/

Is this the way to go???
Be sure to look at there video.

If there are any junior high boys within a reasonable distance, or better yet freshmen, offer them a decent wage per hour or job. They can help you stretch wire and pound in posts; if you feed them lunch and give them a couple of cans of cold pop now and then, and send them home with some cash they'll be happy. Boys of that age are all saving up to buy a pickup or car when they get their license, and to pay for insurance, gas, new rims, stereo, etc. and they are usually overlooked for higher paying jobs because they don't drive yet. Before hiring, ask around to find out which kids come from families that are farmers with livestock, so you know the kids have experience stretching fence. Saves teaching them while risking lost time and as mentioned above, fingers. Perhaps before hiring said children, mention to DH the wage you'll be paying, so he can have a chance to say, "Why that's ridiculous! I can get that done in half the time for free!"
By the way, get a good pair of women's size leather gloves. Nothing tears up your hands like field fence, barbed wire, and posts.

..................Yep , I had one of those pounders and They really DO work . I sold mine to a friend who is still in the fencing business and it "saves" his shoulders . fordy..

since the majority of new fencing here on the farm has been woman installed, i know you can do this, what kind of animals youre fencing decides what you need, weel trained horses and cows can be contained by simple 3 strand electric on rebar posts, simple and fast to put up , t posts would be next up a little more work , but stouter posts means stouter fence ,
i have done barbed wire, but mainly thats cleaning it up , i loathe the stuff,
of course if you can pound t posts you can put up cattle panel fencing , and if you need to dig holes for wood posts, well , then thats not hard either, heck ive even done log fencing on my own , cut the trees , cut the logs, and built the darn pen for my stud , all while the previous applicant for hubby position was gone at work , he came home to a new horse a new corral and all ......

after youve had a farm for a while you will find estrogen is not a hinderence on any operation of daily farm life.

there are many 9-5 widows out there who dont wait for the weekend to getthe work done .

just my opinion ,
Beth
been there done that, still doing it cause its worth it

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Good timber does not grow with ease,
the stronger the wind the stronger the trees.

Tamp your wood post in with sand or sandrock Makes them very tight. Cement will make the post rot in the ground.