Fencing

[Ronney]

I've rarely commented on any of the fencing threads because I recognise that every country has it's own methods of fencing and I hope that if I wait long enough, your methods will become clear to me - but they don't.

Apart from electric, which is fairly universal anyway, I get lost. What are panels and why do so many of you use mesh? What do you use for boundary fencing i.e. between neighbours or the road, and what are the legal requirements for boundary fencing? How many have permanent fencing as opposed to moveable electric?

I suspect our methods of fencing are quite different to yours and possibly a bit cheaper to install while still having a lifespan of between 30-40 years.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[cowkeeper]

Hi Ronny, I think when posters talk about 'mesh', they are referring to what I would call 'paige wire' (I'm in Canada). I comes anywhere from nine-line to 14 line (the horizontal wires). Intersected with 'stay-wires', the vertical ones, a foot or more apart for cattle, or six inches apart for sheep and goats. I comes in various gauges depending on the use, but the usual is a very heavy gauge for cattle perimeter fencing. It is also called 'woven wire'. There is a 'knot' where the wires cross.
Paige wire comes in 330 foot rolls. This stuff makes the best perimeter fences. I think the legal requirement (in Canada), is for paige wire, or at least six strands of barbed or high-tensile wire. Cedar posts are used for corners and line posts, and to save on setting a lot of wood posts, often use three steel t-posts then one wooden post. This is in the East. It may be different in other areas of the country.

[genebo]

Ronnie,

The requirements for fencing vary widely. Even within counties. In my county, we have the old English "free range" law in effect. In some surrounding counties, it has been replaced with a "fence in" law.

In my county, the burden is on the landowner to fence out livestock that they don't want on their property. We still have to fence our livestock in, but if they do get out, we don't become criminals because of it.

In the "fence in" counties, the livestock owner is required to keep his livestock on his own property at all times and is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor if one gets out. The types of fences aren't specified, they just have to be escape-proof.

We have nuisance laws and habitual offender laws here that get the livestock owner who doesn't contain his livestock well enough, but most of them don't punish you the first time an ornery critter jumps your 48" fence.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[Karin L]

Panels are iron-pipe fences that can either come with a couple runners on the bottom so they stand up by themselves without use of posts and have to be moved by tractor or those that are handled by hand and can either be set up in the middle of a range pasture or held in permenantly by posts. The iron-pipe ones with the runners reach up to 8 feet tall by 35' wide, whereas the smaller more lighter ones are 5 or 6' tall by 8' to 14' wide. I like to use the big heavy panels that need to be moved by tractor because they are great for keeping bulls, horses, bison or elk in. They gotta be chained together though securely otherwise there'll be a gap that they can push through, or get their heads stuck in. I use the panels up in the corrals for sorting/handling cattle, they last a lot longer than if you use barbed wire or high tensil or electric wire in the same area, and wild cattle are less likely to attempt to jump over a 8' tall fence.

I like to use 5 or 6 strand barbed wire fencing if fencing along the road. I've seen lots of folks have 4-strand barbed wire with treated wood posts (my gut tells me its spruce we use, but I could be wrong) The legal requirements for fencing around here, from my knowledge, is that livestock must be contained 24/7 and not be let roaming around the countryside. #1 you'd have a lot of neighbors complaining if you do, and #2 I wouldn't be surprised if the county offered a hefty fine for doing so.

The type of fencing differs from farmer to farmer, there is no real must-have standard around here...just so long as it keeps the animals in it works. The moveable electric is best within a permenant perimeter fence, although there's a neighbor dairyman that likes to use moveable electric as a perimeter fence along land he's renting.

But of course, to each his own.

[Dirtslinger]

Ronney, do you use electric as your perimeter as well?
I've been told time and again, that a cow in heat will pass through electric, as will any neighboring bull who smells my cow in heat.
So, I'm not sure of any other way to fence- even though I'd rather use 100% electric strands.

[Ronney]

Thanks for the input - I also forgot that with a country as big as yours, and including Canada, there are going to be all sorts of variations

I'm starting to get the picture regarding panels and as you've probably gathered, we don't have them here - but nor do we have elk or bison! Would somebody be good enough to post a photo of them in use?

Cowkeeper, we do have mesh here of the type your talking about - ironically it is often called boundary fencing although it is never used for this. It is very expensive and is usually only found on small blocks of land where people have pots of money. Heavy guage may be available but most is only suitable for sheep.

Barbed wire is now rarely used here although it is available. It is also very expensive and people shy away from it because of the damage that it can do to stock.

DS, legal requirements for boundary fences between neighbours or the road are that they must be a minimum of 6 (it might actually be 7) wire, post and batten i.e. permanent fencing. Many people will run an electric on outriggers around the top to deter bulls/cows from going visiting. Our farm has a combination of conventional and electric fencing but are slowly changing the lot to conventional, using electric on outriggers to keep the bull where he should be, for the pigs and for breakfeeding although most breakfeeding is done with a portable electric unit.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[tyusclan]

The cattle panels that we have here are 16' sections of very heavy, 3/16" or so, thick welded wire. I think they're about 5' high. The stays are about 6" apart, and the horizontals are welded on starting about 6" apart at the top and gradually closing to about 2" toward the bottom.

We also have a "combination" panel, which is the same thing, except the horizontals at the bottom couple of feet are closer together to allow them to be used with hogs.

They are either stapled to pressure-treated posts with long galvanized staples or tied to steel t-posts.

[Karin L]

Hey ronney, do you folks use board fences at all? I know board fences are used almost as much as electric and barbed wire around here, pianted or not.