Fencing

[JSIA]

We need new fence around our heifers/dry cows. Currently, we use 1 strand of electric. With some areas of woven wire/barb. I've researched a bit about hi tensile. It sounds tricky to put up. (or maybe i'm just dumb ) My brother in law wants to put up an all wood fence w/ a hot wire on the inside. I think this may be somewhat high matenince? Another idea i thought of was using a woven wire type fence and run a strand of hot wire above it. So it would keep the cows from pushing down on it so it sags.

Any ideas/help would be great.
Jake

[JeffNY]

High tensile will last and last and last, doesn't require a ton of maintanence. Here is another idea, and it worked great last summer, animals never touched it, and it held one heck of a zap. I used t-posts and a 1/8" cable, I beleive it was 1/8". It is strong, it isn't expensive per foot. I ran two strands, 1000' long, it has 2000lb tensile strength I beleive. You use regular old insulators for the t-posts. T-posts are easy to put in, corners were troublesome. What I did on one corner was fasten it to a tree, it holds it taunt. The other corners I put a steak to hold the corner up. They do make corner supports for t-posts to do just that. It would cost less, and that cable won't snap if a deer ran into it, ours needs to be retightened, but it hasn't broke. It is highly visible, easy to run, and you use turnbuckles to tighten the cable. You put a piece of rubber on both the cable, and turnbuckle so it won't ground out. I did run a strand of nylon electric fence for more visibility, but I don't think it was necessary. It is one idea, and would give you a strong fence. You could run a single strand. That cable did carry one heck of a shock as I mentioned, this is over 3000+' of fence, it was as strong wayyy at the end, as it was at the source, nasty stuff.


Jeff

[Up North]

Originally Posted by JSIA

We need new fence around our heifers/dry cows. Currently, we use 1 strand of electric. With some areas of woven wire/barb. I've researched a bit about hi tensile. It sounds tricky to put up. (or maybe i'm just dumb ) My brother in law wants to put up an all wood fence w/ a hot wire on the inside. I think this may be somewhat high matenince? Another idea i thought of was using a woven wire type fence and run a strand of hot wire above it. So it would keep the cows from pushing down on it so it sags.

Any ideas/help would be great.
Jake

.....What area you are in will have large effect on which type of fence to use.
For example, if in a heavy snow region, woven wire gets stretched by snow load and a bugger to ever make it right again. MONTANA STANDARD- 4 or 5 barbwires stretched tight as fiddlestrings is straightforward to design and build, but if an animal ever goes thru it they get tore up pretty bad.
The high tensile may take some research and learning - but if an animal goes thru it doesn't get scratched or cut up. Hi- Tensile will allow you to go thru periodically and tighten up with the least time and effort required of the different systems.
If you are in an area that may get wildfires take that into consideration --Wood Burns up!
B4 doing anything, contact Premier Fencing Company and get their catalog. It is a good reference book, shows all systems and gives cost per foot comparisons.
,,,.............. www.premier1supplies.com .............

GOOD LUCK!

[JSIA]

I'm located in NE IA

[Up North]

Originally Posted by JSIA

I'm located in NE IA

Jake, I would either go with woven wire and a wire above that, or I would go to Hi-Tensile with one wire 4" off ground, 2nd wire 12 inches off ground, and rest of wires spaced evenly above that. You are building for heifers and dry cows now, but a fence(properly built) will last 20 years. Either of above choices allows you more flexibilty. The day may come when you wish to run small heifers or an entirely different species on that pasture.

[agmantoo]

high tensile = affordable, lasting, minimum tools and mininum effort. Only one negative and that is keeping the charger away from lightning! Buy high output units and units with long warranties. I have more than 100,000 feet of high tensile wire strung and that maybe a reason I am vulnerable to lightning. My small paddocks seldom get hit. Most of the damage to the chargers is from the fence side and seldom from the mains.

[Up North]

Agman, That's just shy of 19 miles of fence. If you are able to maintain that and still eat 2 meals a day, I guess that means Hi-Tensile is the way to go!

[Celtic_Knot]

H*ll, if they're just cattle five strands of barbed and t-posts.

[agmantoo]

Up North, my statement may have been somewhat unintentionably misleading. I do have more than the 100,000 feet of wire strung but some of it is 4 stands and some 3 stands and other just a single strand. My perimeter fence is 4 strands in the high risk road areas and in the back 40 it is just 3 strands. The cross fencing for the rotational grazing is single strand. It is a lot of fence to maintain but I have not found an alternate fence that is as forgiving. If a tree falls on the fence there is seldom any real damage. I do have occasional insulator problems when deer get hung in the fence. The grade 3 galvanizing on the wire does give longivity and I do not expect to have to replace any wire due to rust. I have good corner posts and I am able to get long intervals between posts. All this wire was installed by just myself so I know it is achieveable for an individual to install. I have had a few users of this site to visit and they have been complimentary as to the fencing. In high risk areas I would suggest using hog wire on the lower portion to keep small calves from wandering under the fence.

[Up North]

AgMan - My mistake, You did say WIRE STRUNG, not FENCE. Still alot of fence. I wasn't being a smart alec, trying to say your experience validates Hi - Tensile fence is probably best choice available at this time. We built solid four-strand barbwire perimeters, and use single 14 gauge electric for interior subdivisions(and polytape&reel). Now I am regretting that choice. We now find that small dairy heifers and steers will still crawl thru 4 - strand barbwire, and it won't work for grazing hogs or other species properly. If you had told me I would want to graze hogs 4 years ago, I'd have said NUTS! But now I can see where if we had gone Hi-Tensile or woven this would be easy and profitable to do.
The barbwire takes longer to re-tighten once it is stretched out than does Hi - Tensile. And it does too much damage to an animal that goes thru or over it. Probably a learning curve to use different hardware and such with the Hi - Tensile, but probably worth it. The deer and the black bears create a lot of work for us when they damage barbwire fences, probably faster to put Hi-Tensile back to right.

[agmantoo]

Up North, to fence the hogs here is a trick that was used in eastern NC years ago. In the fall when corn was nearly harvest ready the farmers would graze the fields rather than manually/mechanically harvest. Prior to starting grazing they would take a plow and plow a furrow around the part of the corn field that was to be initially grazed. In the naked ground area they would then place the electrified fence. Once the area was grazed they would repeat the pattern. After having done this a few times it was not necessary to install the fence. The hogs associated the bare ridged ground area as the fence. It was necessary when the hogs were to be moved from on area to another to place corn stalks in the area they were to cross the furrow. Otherwise, the hogs refused to move across the barren area. I have grazed hogs using the 12 1/2 gauge high tensile wire and I used large plastic reels obtained from a electrical company to rewind the cross fencing wires on when I wanted them out of the way. I found it necessary to rework the hog pastures from time to time to correct the holes the hogs would root or to plant a future crop to graze. Finishing hogs on mature grain by grazing is a cheap means of producing a large number of market hogs. I like not having to deal with the manure when this method is used. I watered the animals using a large tank and nipple waters mounted on a trailer that I could move as needed