affordable fencing- how do you do it??

[TeamChaos]

Before I complain, let me preface this by saying that I would never skimp on something that the health and wellbeing of an animal depends upon and I realize wholeheartedly that fencing falls into that category, nor would I buy the animal(s) first and figure I'd magically come up with a way to house them appropriately after the fact.

As I consider options for diversifying our 80 acre farm in SW Wisconsin, I am continually thwarted by the realization that I can't afford to fence appropriately for anything beyond our old horse and the chickens in my run. We've got three strand barbed wire running the perimeter of the property and, although it's decrepit, we walk our lines and patch it regularly so that it keeps neighbor cows out and our old horse in.

I'm assuming the cost of fencing is something that all livestock owners have to factor in when choosing what to raise on their land but are there any secrets I have missed out on? Perhaps checking prices at the feed store is the most expensive route? I also watch all the free/cheap ads and message boards in my surrounding area but it's not a common item people want to part with and I don't blame them.

 

[ducks4you]

UNFORTUNATELY, fencing is either low cost and time consuming, or expensive and costs little time.
I believe you should approach this problem with a priority list. Decide what has to be fixed, decide what your real needs are, and plan for your wants.
I am a horse owner, moved to my place 10 years ago and when I went shopping to replace the 40-year old cattle fencing with 2 strands of barbed wire on the top, I nixed wooden fencing. I didn't mind the cattle fencing, but it was rusting and collapsing, and every summer we were out fixing it--no WONDER I didn't have time to ride!!!
If you only have one horse, who is older, I'd consider a wood fence. I have always had a small herd of at least 3, and when they play they kick down planks. One old horse won't damage it, and it's very safe. If you put any up, nail/screw the horizontals on the INSIDE of the enclosure.
100 foot rolls of cattle or horse fencing isn't very expensive. I made the mistake of fighting the roll when I used it for repairs. I understand that if you take the time to flatten it, and then to stretch it, your fencing will look good and do it's job.
The vinyl stretch livestock fencing starts to sag after awhile, and looks kinda shabby. Electric fencing can become dangerous if the current goes off, and your animal gets caught in it.

 

[Chirpy]

Welcome to BYH!

Fencing is certainly a necessary expensive part of livestock ownership. We watch Craigslist for good deals.. but you have to be quick as fencing goes so fast when it's available. Sometimes people out here are willing to either give you the fence or almost give it if you do the labor of removing it from their property. That's time intensive but well worth the cost if the fence can be removed in good condition and reused.

I've actually stopped at farms that have tons of 'stuff' laying around and just asked if they have any fencing materials that they would like to sell for a good price.

Have you also put up an ad on the local feed store bulletin boards and such places? Sometimes people don't think about selling or getting rid of that material until they actually see an ad requesting it.

 

[goodhors]

When we purchased our place, we had no good fence. Everything was old, rusty and laying on the ground. With all the HOUSE fixing, our fencing took another year to get much attention.

We explored options for the horses, our main interest. The woven wire and posts were expensive and time consuming. T-posts are good about 10 years, with wood lasting a bit longer, safer product and taking MUCH more time to install.

Husband saw the high tensile wire at a customer's cattle farm. They were weaning calves and he was mighty impressed with the mother cows hitting the 14 strand (recommended for cattle) fence and bouncing back with NO INJURIES! They were some stubborn cattle, did this several times, quite angry that babies were taken off. However at the end of the session 100 cows?, were sent out to graze with no injuries or escapees of either mothers or calves.

So we then checked the high tensile with his customer, how they put it up. Customer had it installed, posts were pounded in, service was fast with nice end product.

We got the estimate, labor and material, time involved, came up cheaper than we could purchase material for woven wire and put in ourselves!! This was a big surprise, but like WOW! Pay a price and all I have to do is give them a drawing of where to put lines of fence, gates and stand back to watch. We considered this as a big bargin, plus not having to fill post holes was the deal maker!!

Fence has been up for years now, still in very good condition. We pay attention to it, fix things immediately. Horse fence has 8 strands, 4 electric. Has been an excellent fence for the horses. We followed the textbook for correct installation, do not crowd the horses in paddocks or have small paddocks. Crowding make problems, causes injuries.

The various electric types are quite popular, may depend on the individual animals. Some animals just squint their eyes and walk thru the hot barrier anyway. Scared animals may run thru regardless. Fencers are greatly improved from years ago.

I like a real fence, solid barrier. Then if power is off, and animals can tell!, they still have a physical barrier instead of just string. And if power is out for several days, your chances of animals breaking out of the small barrier string, tape or light wire are much higher.

Something to consider is having posts installed for you. The guy who did our fence often installs just posts. He has a post pounder that just drives a wood post into the dirt solid. None of our posts have come loose in the many years. Some have been hit and broke off, but they just don't move otherwise. With your posts installed, you could hang wire yourselves, fairly quickly. I cannot say HOW BADLY I hate digging in posts, so post driver was a big selling point on our tensile fence.

Maybe having posts installed for you, would speed up the process instead of dreading the job.

I do like the tensile wire, is extremely easy to keep nice looking. With 4 hot strands, one on top, one center and two hot on the bottom, animals don't bother it. Very visible, no one hanging on it, rubbing, to push out of shape. You need to double brace ALL corners, gates, since wire tension is high. Iced fence weighs a lot, needs the strength of braced ends and corners to hold up. I run the weed whacker along the bottom to keep the grass off the wires. Pretty easy upkeep with renailing a staple here and there over the year.

I have to say I would purchase the tensile wire again if we had to fence something again.

 

[patandchickens]

Yup, fence is expensive. Especially reasonably-safe fences.

Farm auctions are often a good place to get fence supplies, but especially in springtime at least around here you will still pay at least 50% retail for most things of that sort.

I do not personally feel happy using high-tensile fencing for horses, as I have known too many to get SEVERELY SEVERELY injured by it (it is 'mostly safe' but if a horse hits it at high speed and goes partly through or gets tangled, the result is gruesom)... but, that said, if you have sedate horses not likely to get chased by loose dogs etc, and run a couple electrified standoff wires on it (ALWAYS energized), and have some arrangement to make it more-easily-visible to horses, the risk is probably comparable to a number of other common types of fencing and it does have advantages of price and longevity. If you are tempted to install it yourself, be hugely careful about setting your corner posts, do it EXACTLY as you're supposed to (do not cut corners on size of post, depth of setting, concrete, or bracing) because if the posts shift at ALL -- and they will have tremendous strain on them -- the whole thing becomes low-tensile and wibbly and dangerous.

My fence of choice for large areas where the consequences of escape are not too dire is electric fencing and a good well-installed well-maintained charger. There are various pros and cons of rope/braid vs tape vs wire-and-one-strand-of-tape-or-rope, so it depends on how you wish to trade off unbreakability vs injury potential and cost vs longevity vs visibility. If you use electrobraid or electric rope, properly installed, the posts can be pretty far apart, similar to high-tensile fencing, although IMO it is best to have some things in between (even if it's just sticks stuck in the ground; but I use step-in posts) for better visibility. The key is to know how to CORRECTLY set up and maintain the fence. I would guess that probably a lot less than half of horseowners who use electric fence have it working properly, due to neglect in those two areas. It is not brain surgery at all, but there is definitely a right way and a wrong way.

IMO it is also heavily worthwhile having a well-constructed 4- or 5-board small paddock, probably including whatever shelter the horse uses, so that if you have to confine him in a small area for a little while, it is fairly safe and reasonably predatorproof. But I guess this is sort of more optional than the fencing for your total area.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[goodhors]

Over time we also have heard of the problems with horses and tensile wire. When you question the people, there is ALWAYS some part where the installation or management of the animals, is the problem.

As I said, we went by the textbook recommends for horse installation using 8 wires and the driven, wood posts with double bracing at gates and corners.

None of our posts have cement, that post driver seats them in the ground so they WILL NOT move. I already have said that any post problems were from posts being hit with a vehicle, truck or trailer, car fell off the road. The fence installer got a couple posts out of line, had to cut them off and redrive new ones in the correct place. There is NO pulling them up again.

In our area, cement is not recommended for posts except chain link fences. Cement holds water in on wood, rots the post off faster, even treated posts. For us, the driven in posts have held their place just fine over the years.

If you ask questions on horse and tensile wire accidents, so far, we have not found ANYONE ELSE who built tensile fence to textbook recommendations. So if you don't have enough wires, horse hits them, he probably WILL get cut because he does not have the multiple wires to prevent his forward, spread out the load. Husband watched those cows HIT the tensile with all their force, left no cuts on any cow or calf. Multiple wires spread out the impact, did not allow a cutting action. One of ours hit the wire when acting stupid, she just bounced back off, picked herself up, no cuts or slices. She DID NOT do that again!

If fence is not kept hot ALL THE TIME, horse does not respect it and leans into, thru the wire until he snags himself. Watched the Amish horses grazing thru the tensile in Indiana, felt real bad, but they must do it all the time with no electric on it. Stories we hear are about keeping several animals in very small paddocks, some get pushed into the couple strands of wire and get hurt. Or the people USED to keep the charger on, "now that horse "knows" fence is hot, we leave it off mostly to save electric costs". And those 2 o 3 wire fences are what we see as "tensile wire" horse fencing.

We have had about 5 accidents over many years of tensile use. Two were STUPID horses, knew fence was hot, backed up to post for rump rubbing and then kicked thru the wire when electric bit them!! They got some slices, which healed clean and unscarred, horses got sold. To stupid to live with us! Two other accidents happened when the fencer was off from lightning strikes and we didn't know it. Horse not respecting fence leaned and broke a splice, wire got leg wrapped. Again, clean slices, healed good, went back to work. I now check the fencer daily on walk to the barn. Last incident was deer going thru the fence, pulled ALL the wires down as he fought loose, broke splices and horse walked into loose wires. No dead deer, darn it! Small cut, no lay up time. Horses are hobble broke, helpful if they find themselves trapped in wire, they do not fight, just wait to be found. All injured horses healed fine, no scars, went back to work when healed.

We have had old horses, foals and young animals, stallion, bred mares, lots of playful ones who like to run, various breeds and sizes. They all know the fence, don't bother it. I think our fence injury rate is pretty good for over 25 years of horse keeping in tensile wire.

So HOW you install tensile can be a big difference in success as horse fence. All the Vets I checked with on tensile injuries said there was only a couple strands, electric often not on, small paddocks with too many horses.

I have seen bad injuries in all kinds of fence, woven, plain wire, barb wire, rubber fences. Horses are always much more torn up than what we had to deal with. Wood rails shatter when hit, leave long broken ends like knives. And the tapes and ropes of electric don't work if the power is off. Always a down side to any method of fencing!!

Do your homework, compare prices. Think about upkeep. Wood rails need painting regular, to stay in nice shape. Woven wire is hard to keep cleaned out, which means vegatation will pull it down with weight. The tapes and wires of electric are easily broken with deer going thru, local deer ALWAYS run thru not jump it. I hear plenty of stories about loose livestock with deer in the fences.

Unless we get a deer snagged by his antlers, the tensile usually lets them slide thru. So my upkeep is weed whacking in growing season and putting back a staple that gets pulled loose now and then. Fences checked weekly for loose wires, which gives me a nice walk with the dog. Do ask questions about tensile fence when you hear folks running it down verbally or an accident. I bet their tensile is a cobble job, not a correct installation, along with poor horse keeping methods, like overcrowding small areas. That kind of management is NOT good horse keeping.

 

[patandchickens]

Over time we also have heard of the problems with horses and tensile wire. When you question the people, there is ALWAYS some part where the installation or management of the animals, is the problem.

I guess it just depends on whose "textbook installation" you hvae in mind. Several of the injuries I am thinking of involved 6-wire, properly-installed, yes-the-electric-was-on installations -- in both cases, horse was galloping at an angle towards fence, slipped, fell against/into the fence, and Bad Things ensued. Also I have seen and heard of some incidents such as you yourself describe in your post, only with horses not always getting off as fortunately as yours. (Remember that unlike yours, apparently, most peoples' horses are *not* hobble-trained and thus cannot be quite as counted on not to struggle if enmeshed in a fence)

Obviously no fence is 100% safe. I would just not like to see people believe *this* one is *either*, and IMO there are safer things available for many situations (though not at the same price-point). It really depends a whole lot on your particular circumstances and needs.

None of our posts have cement, that post driver seats them in the ground so they WILL NOT move.

That is good if your soil allows it; in many cases, though, cement is required (like, in boggy clay).

Just relating my experiences here,

Pat

 

[TeamChaos]

PatandChickens, you hit on one of my fears- any animal we add will be fenced further back on the property and the idea of having an animal getting tangled and hurt in a fence and waiting until we do rounds is an awful thought to me. My grandfather reminds me that animals have been kept for many years, prior to my books and internet, but I am not willing to have a body count with my learning curve. Our horse doesn't bother the fences, but I've nixed the idea of a companion animal for her time and time again simply because I don't know that the next horse, pony, mule or donkey or what-have-you will respect the fences also.

 

[lupinfarm]

I, too, have seen/heard of accidents involving high tensile electric and regular electric BUT but but but its almost impossible to go with regular 4-board (and even that has safety issues, nothing is immune when it comes to horses!) here unless you have the rock drilled. We use 4" cedar posts in cement because that is all we can do to ensure the posts stay put for more than one season. We can't even get most posts down beyond 2ft. Some are in 18". That is just the nature of our land. We also have a 3" round rail fence, 5" posts (pounded, this doesn't turn out very good in our soil/conditions unfortunately) with 3 rails on all the major traffic sides (ajoining another persons land, road side and driveway) with 2 rail between fields. We have 4 strand electric polyrope too, 4 strand on all the major traffic sides (driveway, between pastures and riding ring) and 2 strand where there is an existing but falling over fence we can't do much with because we don't own the land next door. In addition to that where we absolutely cannot sink posts we have split rail/buck fence. Takes a lot of money to put together but it works awesomely.

The best way to get your fencing done in an affordable fashion is of course DIY. It takes a lot more time and a lot more effort but it saved us a ton of money.

 

[patandchickens]

Bear in mind that, in general, for horses anyhow, the larger the pasture is, the less likely you'll be to have horse/fence intersection problems, AS LONG AS the fence is very VISIBLE. So you can reasonably-well get away with using things for fencing a 4 acre paddock with stuff you'd never want to use for a 40x40 pen; and similarly for (like) 40 acres vs 4.

Also, consider what the consequences would BE of the animal getting out. If they are likely to be dire (e.g. you live right next to the highway, or there are Attractive Hazards around that would draw the horses) then your fencing needs are different than if having a loose horse is likely to just mean having to find it and bring it home.

FWIW, in the latter case and in reasonable sized areas (measured in acres), personally I think that for MOST (not all) horses, various forms of electric fencing are pretty reasonable, provided they are set up correctly and in a way that permits them to be effectively charged 365 days a year, and provided they are good and VISIBLE. (Unless you have a whole lot of bear or very clumsy deer around; then only-electric fences aren't so good, as they will frequently be breached)

JMHO,

Pat