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On this weeks episode of “The Beginning Farmer Show” I take some time to answer an e-mail that came in from Chase about perimeter fencing. Your perimeter fence is probably going to be one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on your farm because of all the ways that affects you relationally and emotionally … I mean if you always have livestock getting out it is going to be very stressful and your spouse/neighbors may not be very pleased with you! On my farm I have seven strands of hi-tensile fence that alternates between hot and grounded wires starting from the top of the fence. Overall I have been very pleased with the fence and almost all of the problems I have had came about because of user error as opposed to fence error. If you are interested seeing some pictures and reading about our perimeter fence check out these posts (which are a blast from the past).
With all of that being said though I’m not 100% convinced that single strand electric hi-tensile fence is the perfect solution for everyone. While I don’t think I would ever put up barbed-wire only for fencing I can think of plenty of situations where a woven wire fence would be a great solution … especially if you pair it up with one or two strands of electric fencing on the interior.
Links Mentioned in This Episode
- Dalla Terra Ranch
- Ebersole Cattle Company
- PowerFlex Fence
- And, here is a link to the new PowerFlex Fence Posts
If you have an input on the topic be sure to leave a comment below or send us an e-mail.
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The “old style” Powerflex posts are still being sold by the original manufacturer PasturePro – http://www.pasturepro.com/
I ordered a sample from them (I still use it to sort cattle) and then found out that you can buy the PasturePro posts at one of my local feed stores.
I’ve got cattle and have barbwire fences on the farm with a high-tensile wire running around the perimeter. I bought some high-quality offset insulators (get the ones with pinlocks and don’t use the cheap yellow ones), and buried a double-insulated wire under each gate (so it’s always hot even when going through a gate.
In my case, the interior fencelines are shared by the neighboring landowners, each landowner is responsible for the right-hand half of the fence on each quarter section, so completely replacing the fence isn’t an option.
I’ve seen a sheep operation locally that deals with barbwire perimeter fences by adding a couple of wires near the ground (a 5-wire fence would then be a 7-wire fence with the bottom wires about 4-5 inches apart) and then they added two electric fence wires at about 12″ and 20″. That way the neighbor is still just responsible for his 5 wires, and the sheep owner just had to add a couple of barb wires.
You need to be creative and try to spend as little as possible on your fences, I’ve got a interior electric-fenced lane built out of some solid half-round wooden posts that I salvaged when I replaced a fence. I just had to dig a bunch of postholes, screw some insulators to the posts, string my high-tensile, and I had a 2000′ fence built for about $60 and some sweat.
And, I got to re-use a bunch of posts that about 30 years ago my grandfather had originally built a fence with. Don’t know how to exactly explain it, but there’s a certain value with being able to do that.
I’ve got to say you’re a brave man for jumping in and choosing to raise livestock. I raised pigs for 4-H for 10 years, and my parents raised Angus cattle for years. Raising animals is a huge financial investment, and much more risky than sticking some seeds in the ground! I’ve been reading through your past posts, and you take a very careful, slow approach to it all. Just wanted to say “Great Job!” and “Keep it up!”
-TheFarmGirl @ kissmytractor.wordpress.com