fence

[bpatterson]

Hi I am wanting to fence off five acres at my new house my wife and just purchased what kind of fence would you folks recommend. I am either wanting to do high tensile, barbed wire or field I have no experience with high tensile can you use metal tee post or do you have to uset all wood and if I use wood how would you suggest putting up the wood post driving them or drilling holes and setting them. Sorry for all the questions but I don't want to go broke putting it in but also don't want it half a__ either. I do this for a hobby just feed out a few each year for the freezer and to sell thanks.

 

[Nesikep]

Are you wanting to fence other stuff out as well as fence your stuff in? If you have neighbors with livestock, you'll want the best fence possible.

If your fenceline is nice and straight, and on level ground, T posts will work for high tensile, but you'll still need wood posts for anchors, and with HT, you'll need to build STRONG anchors! (cannot stress that enough!). If your ground is rocky, pounding the posts is going to be hard to do, and you'll have to auger them in or have a mini excavator put them in... Pounding them in *is* possible, but you'll need a steel driver to put in first and make the hole before you bugger up the tip of the post. In softer ground, pounding them in is the most effective way. Around here a "legal" fence is 5 strands, with droppers in it, 15 ft post spacing max. That makes for a pretty strong fence. If you use wooden droppers, you get the bonus that you can electrify the 2nd or 3rd wire to keep them all smart.

 

[skyhightree1]

I tell you this I fenced in my place with all wood posts..... NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN. The new land I buy will have of course wood corner posts but then the line posts will all be t posts less work. That goes for electric.. barbed.. or woven wire. However the wood poles and types of wire I have now are woven and then 4 strands of barbed starting out at 12" up to 48".

 

[greybeard]

4-5 strand barbed wire with HEAVY corners have held cattle in on my place since 1966.
We started off all wooden post because they were dirt cheap back then, but I have been using mostly Tee posts on the line for the last 10 yrs. If it's a long run, I'll put in a big wooden post or H-post in the middle of the run. Since I have bulls and cows, I also run electric on extenders/standoffs on my barbed wire fence. Pretty typical of how I do mine nowadays:

Length of this one is about 2200' total run--you can see the big posts I put in every 200-300' or so. I've never had a cow go thru it--had one crazy one go over it--she's probably still going too--never saw her again--good riddance--she was nuts:

Did the yard this way to keep the cows out just beacuse the wife wanted wooden posts--one of the few 4 strand fences I have:

 

[M5farm]

I tell you this I fenced in my place with all wood posts..... NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN. The new land I buy will have of course wood corner posts but then the line posts will all be t posts less work. That goes for electric.. barbed.. or woven wire. However the wood poles and types of wire I have now are woven and then 4 strands of barbed starting out at 12" up to 48".

I prefer Wood post. if its not rocky or in a trees where there are roots. Also I'm not afraid to jump on a pair of hole diggers and dig 50 or 75 post holes in a run. ( that's why you don't see me on a diet eating yogurt )

I pulled 30 old post out of an old hog pen yesterday to reuse. they are already 30+ years old and in excellent shape.

 

[skyhightree1]

I tell you this I fenced in my place with all wood posts..... NEVER NEVER NEVER AGAIN. The new land I buy will have of course wood corner posts but then the line posts will all be t posts less work. That goes for electric.. barbed.. or woven wire. However the wood poles and types of wire I have now are woven and then 4 strands of barbed starting out at 12" up to 48".

I prefer Wood post. if its not rocky or in a trees where there are roots. Also I'm not afraid to jump on a pair of hole diggers and dig 50 or 75 post holes in a run. ( that's why you don't see me on a diet eating yogurt )

I pulled 30 old post out of an old hog pen yesterday to reuse. they are already 30+ years old and in excellent shape.

:lol2:

 

[greybeard]

Sometimes I use this kind of corner:

Sometimes I use the more traditional kind with a horizontal braced corner:

Best thing is to ask around in your area and see what works there--for your size operation and your "type" of cattle. Or just drive around and look at how others nearby you have done things. If it works for them--odds are, it will work for you.

The wooden posts I put in in '66 when I was 16 are just about all rotted in the ground, but heck, that's nearly 50 years--I'm getting pretty rotten myself.
(those were good creosoted posts back then, which IMO is a lot better than the copper oxide treatment they use nowadays.)

 

[Rafter S]

4-5 strand barbed wire with HEAVY corners have held cattle in on my place since 1966.
We started off all wooden post because they were dirt cheap back then, but I have been using mostly Tee posts on the line for the last 10 yrs. If it's a long run, I'll put in a big wooden post or H-post in the middle of the run. Since I have bulls and cows, I also run electric on extenders/standoffs on my barbed wire fence. Pretty typical of how I do mine nowadays:

Length of this one is about 2200' total run--you can see the big posts I put in every 200-300' or so. I've never had a cow go thru it--had one crazy one go over it--she's probably still going too--never saw her again--good riddance--she was nuts:

Did the yard this way to keep the cows out just beacuse the wife wanted wooden posts--one of the few 4 strand fences I have:

Greybeard,

With all due respect, while I see quite a few people building braces like in your top picture, I think it's wrong. The brace cable going from the top of the right post (the one the gate is hung on) to the bottom of the left post is a waste of time and material. It's pulling in the same direction as your barbed wire, so serves no purpose. I'd be willing to bet it's loose, and was probably that way a week after the fence was built. Bracing with an "X" like that is good if your pull posts are in the middle of a long stretch of fence, where you'll be stretching wires in both directions, but the second wire is counter-productive at the end of the fence. You only need the one going from the bottom of the end post to the top of the second one.

 

[greybeard]

4-5 strand barbed wire with HEAVY corners have held cattle in on my place since 1966.
We started off all wooden post because they were dirt cheap back then, but I have been using mostly Tee posts on the line for the last 10 yrs. If it's a long run, I'll put in a big wooden post or H-post in the middle of the run. Since I have bulls and cows, I also run electric on extenders/standoffs on my barbed wire fence. Pretty typical of how I do mine nowadays:

Greybeard,

With all due respect, while I see quite a few people building braces like in your top picture, I think it's wrong. The brace cable going from the top of the right post (the one the gate is hung on) to the bottom of the left post is a waste of time and material. It's pulling in the same direction as your barbed wire, so serves no purpose. I'd be willing to bet it's loose, and was probably that way a week after the fence was built. Bracing with an "X" like that is good if your pull posts are in the middle of a long stretch of fence, where you'll be stretching wires in both directions, but the second wire is counter-productive at the end of the fence. You only need the one going from the bottom of the end post to the top of the second one.

It's as tight now, as the day I built it-just drove thru that 16' gate yesterday. The extra cable isn't to support the wire--it's to support the gate hanging weight.
Normally, I would agree it is a waste of time and effort, and usually wouldn't use the "X" brace cable--and would just put a single cable running top left to lower right to maintain wire strain and let the wire strain and weight offset the weight of the gate----- except in cases like this one. The fence to left terminates only 65-70' away, right next (and I mean RIGHT NEXT) to my pond, in very soft ground.
In more than 2" of rain, that end of the fence, the fence posts have up to a foot of water on them, and in big rain fall or if the river gets up, I have seen flood water at this gateway. If I had not made that gateway completely self supporting, the weight of the gate would add to the wire strain and pull the end posts that are 65' away to the right and the wire would then be loose, or the gate would begin sagging and I would be forever adjusting the spring latch.
There is another fence and gateway built as you recommend, running parallel to this one about 300' directly behind where I stood when I took this picture--it's been a pain in the butt ever since I built it because I did not make the gateway completely self supporting. In soft boggy ground, you have to do things differently.
This is a good setup for this application, but there are only 2 like it on my place and both for the same reason. The other one is down where one of my fences meets the river.

 

[M5farm]

GB- What is your wire brace material ? High tinsel ?

 

[Nesikep]

I use high tensile, or I will use something like a 10ga low tensile.. a little more friendly to work.

For anchors, I usually do it the way RafterS says... I'll try and take a pic of a good one at some point, but describe it for now
Using at least a 5" post for HT, and I like getting the post in over 2', 3' is better, especially on the end post. I set the second post about 1.5x t o 2x the distance of the top wire apart from the first post.. so if my top wire is 4ft from the ground, I like at least 6 feet.. my brace bar I put at the top of the posts, and run about 6-8 strands of HT as the brace wire, find a good fir or hardwood stick, and tighten the bejesus out of it, then run my fence wire from that.
I've only had problems with this in ground that gets really muddy with the first post pulling out, but the longer the anchor the less that tends to happen... a 'square' anchor will topple right over if used with HT.
When we bought the place, the fences were reasonably recent, but built completely wrong, every anchor was so narrow, and the braces were the wrong way around, so it didn't take long before we had to start rebuilding the whole works.. Still have a few of them left that I routinely curse.

 

[greybeard]

On the fences that I don't use a floating brace, I use 1/4 or 5/16" galvanized stranded cable. Just because I had loads of it around here and still have several hundred feet of it. When I was young, my dad had us use 3/8 or 1/2" galv and sometimes, SS cable. I don't like working with that heavy stuff--too hard to cut out in the field.

On a floating brace, galvanized HT wire, since I don't have much stranded cable small enough to thread thru the ratchet strainer holes.

 

[Rafter S]

Greybeard,

With all due respect, while I see quite a few people building braces like in your top picture, I think it's wrong. The brace cable going from the top of the right post (the one the gate is hung on) to the bottom of the left post is a waste of time and material. It's pulling in the same direction as your barbed wire, so serves no purpose. I'd be willing to bet it's loose, and was probably that way a week after the fence was built. Bracing with an "X" like that is good if your pull posts are in the middle of a long stretch of fence, where you'll be stretching wires in both directions, but the second wire is counter-productive at the end of the fence. You only need the one going from the bottom of the end post to the top of the second one.

It's as tight now, as the day I built it-just drove thru that 16' gate yesterday. The extra cable isn't to support the wire--it's to support the gate hanging weight.
Normally, I would agree it is a waste of time and effort, and usually wouldn't use the "X" brace cable--and would just put a single cable running top left to lower right to maintain wire strain and let the wire strain and weight offset the weight of the gate----- except in cases like this one. The fence to left terminates only 65-70' away, right next (and I mean RIGHT NEXT) to my pond, in very soft ground.
In more than 2" of rain, that end of the fence, the fence posts have up to a foot of water on them, and in big rain fall or if the river gets up, I have seen flood water at this gateway. If I had not made that gateway completely self supporting, the weight of the gate would add to the wire strain and pull the end posts that are 65' away to the right and the wire would then be loose, or the gate would begin sagging and I would be forever adjusting the spring latch.
There is another fence and gateway built as you recommend, running parallel to this one about 300' directly behind where I stood when I took this picture--it's been a pain in the butt ever since I built it because I did not make the gateway completely self supporting. In soft boggy ground, you have to do things differently.
This is a good setup for this application, but there are only 2 like it on my place and both for the same reason. The other one is down where one of my fences meets the river.[/quote]

Greybeard,

I apologize, and as my Dad used to say "I'll be like Sears Roebuck. I'll take it all back". You're right, in that case I can see why you'd brace in both directions.

 

[Rafter S]

When I was young, my dad had us use 3/8 or 1/2" galv and sometimes, SS cable. I don't like working with that heavy stuff--too hard to cut out in the field.

How do you cut it in the field? I haven't worked much with the 1/2" cable, or stainless, but the best way I've found to cut 3/8" or smaller (without having a cutting torch or grinder handy) is to lay it across a piece of solid steel (a small piece of 1/2" thick plate laid on the ground will work, and I have used the 2" ball hitch on my pickup bumper). Then you can cut it with a good sharp chisel and one, or at most two, licks with about a 4lb. hammer. I don't see why it wouldn't work with larger cable.

 

[greybeard]

Used to use bolt cutters till I wore the cutting edges off--and have done what you do with the trailer hitch if it's a location I can drive right down to. I don't think I have enough arm strength anymore to use bolt cutters anyway--it's all I can do to use the crimp tool for crimping those HT sleeves and barb wire splicers.
I hate getting old.

 

[MudHog]

Is there any advantage to High Tensile over Barbed Wire? Our fence is getting near replacing, so starting to do my legwork and see how much I need to save up or buy as time goes.

Right now our fence is a mixture of barbed wire and field fencing with two hot wires on standoff brackets.

 

[skyhightree1]

High tensile is stronger and last longer. You can run more wire with less posts.

 

[Rafter S]

I hate getting old.

The only way to avoid it is dying young. Nobody wants to do that either.