I've found uses for almost everything else on my place so here is one more thing... My old barn and the surrounding countryside had old fencing. a combinations of rolls of rusty field fence, barbed wire and tangles of old electric wiring. I am salvaging all of the electrical wiring insulators, etc and the metal stakes. Is there anything I can use this old wire for? I have a bunch of it! Thanks, Debbie
I have a freind who made a few barbed wire cacti. To make a catus he wrapped the wire around a 4" X 5' pipe and just free sculpted the arms. It was self supporting and looked great. I was thinking of making these and selling them, unfortunately I live in Michigan and very few people decorate in a southwestern style. It made for some pretty cool yard art though.
I used old fence wire (the non-barbed kind) to make the supports for floating row covers on my garden beds to keep the thrushes and blackbirds from ripping up the nice, moist, mulched soil - those birds make more mess and cause more damage than my chickens do! I cut the wire (which had been in a large rool) in large arcs, and poked the ends in the ground, then draped with old feed sacks cut in half, held on with clothes pegs. Can't see why this wouldn't work for the old field fencing - it'd be even better, I think! And the plants growing underneath loved the extra warmth provided. Andrea NZ
I use it to help control erosion in the creek that flows through my place. Tied and bundled together, it makes an excellant catcher for debris that flows down stream rebuilding the washouts.
Ive made compost "sites" with old fence. The old woven fence works great if you make like a horse shoe with old fence posts and attach the fence. I make mine about 8-10 feet from front to back and about 5 feet across. Then I make another on each side so I have 3 pile areas so I can turn the compost from one to another. This has made the best compost for me and it was free to make(and atractive if done right!). We always keep old wire around to secure fence or to hang heat lights and what not. Some wire and fence can be reused if its not in bad shape. Depending on the type of fence you have, you could make smaller cages and pens for rabbits, chickens ect. If none of this is helpful there is always some one that would take it off your hands and make use of it! Use it for bartering or trade. Remember one mans trash is anouther mans treasure! In fact some very old barbwire is worth alittle change to collectors. Cody
If you can find some way to recycle old fence material thats great. When I bought my place there was a lot of old fence wire of various types lying about. Most of it was so rusty it fell apart when I tried to bend it. It proved to be too unwieldy to haul off in the truck. I finally dug a large hole with a backhoe and buried all the old junk fence, some chunks of concrete, etc.
I use welded fencewire for tomato rings, leaf mangers to store winter worm feed, greenhouse hoops when combined with metal fenceposts and clear drop cloth plastic and horizontal trellace for my grapevines.
Thanks everyone! I may need to get other people's old fence, I have so many ideas now. Good thing I live across the road from a salvage yard!
ACROSS THE ROAD FROM A SALVAGE YARD!!!!!!! Sounds like heaven to me!! ILOOOOVE to tinker! Ingenuity may be the father or invention but its also the back bone or recycling! Good luck! Cody
