Fencing for the Homestead

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

One of the most challenging parts of installing a fence is digging all those postholes. To save time digging them, you can forego most of your wooden posts for metal T-posts—lightweight metal beams that can be driven into the ground with a post pounder. Metal T-posts have either predrilled holes at various places down their length or a series of raised bumps running down their length. The predrilled holes are perfect for attaching woven and barbed wire fences. Thread a 10- to 12-inch piece of 12.5-gauge fence wire through one of the holes and then give it three or four wraps around the woven or barbed wire on each side of the post. The posts with raised bumps are designed to be used with heavy wire clips that hold the wire tight against the flat face of the posts. T-posts don’t resist the pull of a tight fence wire, but they can hold it upright and won’t significantly compromise the strength of your fence.

Handling the heavy rolls of woven wire is a job for two people. To put up woven wire, install all posts and then unroll enough woven wire to span the straight length from one corner to the next. Wrap the woven wire around one wooden end post, cut most of the vertical wires and wrap the horizontal wires back along their own length so that the fence itself is tied around the post. Then secure it with U-shaped fence staples driven in with a hammer. Pull the wire tight with the help of a mechanical fence stretcher and then wrap the woven wire around the second wooden end post, wrapping and fastening as you did on the other end. As you walk back along the fence line, secure the taut woven wire to any intervening wooden fence posts with more staples and to the metal T-posts with wire. A single strand of barbed wire installed above the woven wire will help the fence last longer because it deters animals—especially cattle and horses—from rubbing on it.

If your land is stony or hard, then consider high-tensile electric fencing , which can be installed with fewer posts. Woven wire may be the hardest to install and maintain, but it gives you a great, long-lasting fence for your money. Woven wire is the kind of permanent, reliable fencing that is the industry standard for containing cattle, sheep, goats and horses.

BARBED WIRE

Installation: about $1,100/quarter mile for either three strands of wire at 14-inch intervals, or four strands of wire at 10- to 12-inch intervals; alternating between wooden posts and metal T-posts spaced 12 to 16 feet apart. About 40 hours of labor

Ongoing maintenance: retensioning barbed wire and mending breaks; retightening corner assemblies

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print