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JHP Homestead
Loving the herd life
Well I had originally only posted the things I thought we did fairly “right” with our new pasture, but since trees as fence posts are not good, I guess I might as well post all the things we did bad as well 
Then this can be a lesson in what NOT to do for fencing 
We used the cheap wood “landscape timbers” as fence posts where we didn’t attach to a tree. Except for two t-posts that we used in the tree line where the gap was too big between trees and it was too dense of woods to get the tractor w/ auger in.
We’re also using barbed wire and electric fence on 3 sides. The 4th side is adjacent to the chicken coop and garden, so we’re using no-climb horse fence there. The reason being that I think it’ll be a few more years before my young children have the sense to stay out of the horse pasture, so I want the barrier along where they’ll spend a lot of time to be more of a physical barrier.
Here’s some pics of the highlights:
All that being said, we have reasons for our “bad” fencing (not that I’m saying they’re good reasons, just saying we have given it thought). We live on one income; money is not tight but that’s because we’re tight with our money. Except for the no-climb fence, insulators, and nails/staples/etc; all fencing, gates, and posts were collected over the last 5 years at great sale prices or dirt cheap at auction. We probably have $200 into building this fence (not counting the no-climb) versus $1000+ (not counting any fencing but electric) if we did it the “right” way.
The barbed wire is mostly to keep the deer from breaking the electric fence, which happened almost weekly when we had the same area fenced in with temporary electric 2 years ago. The horse is level headed and smart enough to stay off it, being that there’s also a strand of electric.
The landscape timbers will probably need replaced in time, especially the ones in clay, since clay holds a lot of moisture. I expect the ones buried in sand should last a pretty long time.
Long term, I expect we’ll continue to stockpile t-posts cheap from auction and replace the landscape timbers with them as needed. I also plan on continuing to buy a roll of no-climb fence here and there. That way when the horse dies (he is old and probably only has 5 or so years left) we can maybe put goats out there, which the area is better suited for anyways.
Well, there is it, feel free to lay it on me
. I know we did lots of things “wrong” but it’ll be done this weekend so we can’t exactly change it now. Hopefully I’ll be journaling for many years here and can post about how it’s still looking several years from now.
Then this can be a lesson in what NOT to do for fencing We used the cheap wood “landscape timbers” as fence posts where we didn’t attach to a tree. Except for two t-posts that we used in the tree line where the gap was too big between trees and it was too dense of woods to get the tractor w/ auger in.
We’re also using barbed wire and electric fence on 3 sides. The 4th side is adjacent to the chicken coop and garden, so we’re using no-climb horse fence there. The reason being that I think it’ll be a few more years before my young children have the sense to stay out of the horse pasture, so I want the barrier along where they’ll spend a lot of time to be more of a physical barrier.
Here’s some pics of the highlights:
All that being said, we have reasons for our “bad” fencing (not that I’m saying they’re good reasons, just saying we have given it thought). We live on one income; money is not tight but that’s because we’re tight with our money. Except for the no-climb fence, insulators, and nails/staples/etc; all fencing, gates, and posts were collected over the last 5 years at great sale prices or dirt cheap at auction. We probably have $200 into building this fence (not counting the no-climb) versus $1000+ (not counting any fencing but electric) if we did it the “right” way.
The barbed wire is mostly to keep the deer from breaking the electric fence, which happened almost weekly when we had the same area fenced in with temporary electric 2 years ago. The horse is level headed and smart enough to stay off it, being that there’s also a strand of electric.
The landscape timbers will probably need replaced in time, especially the ones in clay, since clay holds a lot of moisture. I expect the ones buried in sand should last a pretty long time.
Long term, I expect we’ll continue to stockpile t-posts cheap from auction and replace the landscape timbers with them as needed. I also plan on continuing to buy a roll of no-climb fence here and there. That way when the horse dies (he is old and probably only has 5 or so years left
) we can maybe put goats out there, which the area is better suited for anyways. Well, there is it, feel free to lay it on me
. I know we did lots of things “wrong” but it’ll be done this weekend so we can’t exactly change it now. Hopefully I’ll be journaling for many years here and can post about how it’s still looking several years from now.
