fencing 100 acres

[WTA]

How would you all do it?
Right now there is a mess of barbed wire all over the place. It's mostly broken down, burried or grown into some trees because it hasn't been maintained in a lot of years. I know I need to clear all of that out first.
Then I need to refence it all. On my farm now I use electric but we are just 25 acres here. I have a big gallagher charger that sets grass on fire all the way across the property so it's fine here running on 4 wires all the way around.

I don't know if it will be fine on 100 acres though. We have some horses now and goats. When we get to the big farm I'll also have cattle. Should I just barbed wire the whole thing again? or maybe high tension wire without the electricity? I'm just worried about the boundry fence for now. Cross fencing and pastures I can deal with later.

I plan to be buying a saw mill real soon so wood fencing the entire place isn't out of the question either. Just a lot more work is all. My biggest concern is I want to do it once and forget about it. I'm getting too old to be doing this stuff again in a few years.

 

[sandman2234]

I didn't think it was possible to install fences that are maintence free. Everyone I know, including my 79 year old Dad, that has fences, is constantly working on them. If you cut your own posts, what is the lifespan of the untreated wood in the ground where you live? Daddy uses cedar for posts, but that isn't available everywhere, and some places it is getting a little expensive for posts.
David from jax

 

[WTA]

I was going to do the main corner posts from 8 inch steel pipe and concrete it in the ground. I'm already making those. They should outlast me. The rest will be cedar and T posts. Depending on where it is. I want it to look nice along the road so all cedar there. We have plenty of it. Some of the original fence posts that my great grandparents put in are still good even. I'll just cut more to replace whatever is rotted on our own property.

I don't mind doing maintenance on a fence. I just don't want to be redoing whole sections of it ever.

 

[meadowlarkponds]

I recently finished up the boundary fencing for about 70 acres. I have cattle so I chose to go 5 strands of 12.5 guage barbed wire. The hardest part was clearing and prep and for that I used a small Case 450 dozer. It made that task much easier. Like you I don't wish to repeat this in a few years so I used high quality materials including heavy metal line posts and treated corner and bracing posts.

With cattle, I think you need the barbed wire for the boundary fence and can go with other options for your cross fences. It's a lot of work and definitely worth doing right the first time.

 

[WTA]

I'm trying to talk a neighbor out of a JD350B dozer right now. I'm not offering more than 500 bucks for it though. It needs new track pads and the brakes are shot. The motor runs though. I restored one of those for an old boss about 6 years ago and got that model momorized pretty much. I can't wait till my neighbor gets sick of looking at it broke down in his yard.

If I don't get that I'll just use my tractor and the horses clearing that fence line. Thankfully on two sides right now the neighbors have clear cut right up to my fence. That will make life a lot easier.

 

[dmccarty]

I need to fence in our boundry lines. The clearing is a pain. At this point I have a "path" maybe 3 feet wide at the widest on the east and west sides. The north and south lines will be harder to do. I was out looking at the west line yesterday figuring out where the tractor trails are going to go to get to the line as well as what has to be done to get a 8 feet of cleared space along the line.

I have been looking at a hydraulic post hole digger or a post pounder but I don't really have the money for one of those.

I saw this product line a year or so ago, Wedge Loc-Bracing Hardware for T-Post Fencing, and I think I'm going to buy some and see if this works. The product line allows you to use T posts for both anchor and corners so you don't have to get wood posts in the ground. They have clips that allow you to horizontally or diagnally connect T posts to use with HT fence wire.

As I widen the path to tractor width I'm going to have to start putting up the fence to keep out the ATVers and trash.

We are not trying to keep in livestock. Just marking our land and trying to keep out tresspassers. I'm hoping this will work.

On our west boundry they have have subdivided the 50 acres into 6 or so lots. One of their boudries intersects our house lot and they just cleared that line again with a tractor. Yesterday I walked down the cleared area out to the road they built to access the lots. A good 300-400 from the road someone had already started dumping trash. Right near the road someone had dump two beat up 6000 pound floor jacks.

In my county you get a sticker that allows you to go to a dump station to get rid of trash. No dumping fees. These morons would have spent less effort to have gone three miles into down to get rid of the trash compared to the effort they made to dump on someone elses land.

Later,
Dan

 

[WTA]

Our problem is vandals and poachers. I have got to get a handle on them. I still haven't got any definite word on the laws yet for Arkansas but I wear my 45 round the clock here and everyone knows it. I hope it's legal up there too. Down here it took care of the would be thieves just showing it on my belt. I just need to actually get my tail up to the other farm and let everyone know there is a new sheriff in town and vandalism and trespassing won't be tolerated. You wouldn't believe the damage they have done to the old house over the years. And the fences.
I have a business here that also requires my wearing a gun. It's either that or the sheriffs department can go searching for the things I work on after they get stolen. That's a bad idea though because they would surely be outgunned!

Anyway, Speaking of keeping out 4 wheelers, A local PETA freak here was setting booby traps on public park trails to try to make bikers and horseback riders stay off the land. PUBLIC land designated specificaly for this. What he did was string up small gauge steel wire and fishing line at ankle and neck level with every intent of killing someone. I guess in his mind he thought he was dong the wildlife a favor by keeping people out of their territory. I can't understand these freaks.

Well last year he got someone in the neck and nearly killed them. It was an adult male on a bike and he got clothslined by a piece of wire while going fast down a hill. I don't know how he survived.

Can you believe the cops caught the nut that did it and he got off with probation? Really, that was all he got. In TEXAS even. People used to get hung down here for things like that.

I only mention this because you want to keep out bikers. Make sure they can see whatever you put up. A friend of my brothers was riding his 3 wheeler probably 30 years ago and caught a hidden piece of barbed wire in the neck. He wasn't so lucky. It cut his head clean off. It wasn't hidden intentionally either. Just overgrown and the other wires were broken. His family still sued the landowner and won even though the kid was trespassing. What a crazy world we live in.

 

[Soundguy]

Though Barbed wire is not my first choice for horses.. with that much land.. you do what ya got to do. I've got cows/mules in barb wire.. and they quickly lear to stay out of it. My horse came from a guy with barb wire fences.. horse had a couple scratches on the face.. but nothing to worry about.

If your animals don't test the fence real bad you could go non-barbed wire hi tensile with t-post, and then solid H-braces as needed and heavy braced corners.

Horses will benefit from the hanging reflectors if the fence is particularly 'invisible' in certain areas..

Soundguy

 

[texasjohn]

Dmccarty, I do NOT recommend the Wedge-loc fencing system where you use clips on T posts to make corners. Been there, done that, a lot of work that just comes apart so very easily...... All of the corners/braces I put in I have had to redo a different way... It sounded like a good idea, I agree, but really, really doesn't work.

that's my $.02

 

[txdon]

"How would you all do it?"

Been there done that on 120 acres = 3 miles of fence.

I used 5 wires at the time I should have used 6, some calves manage to squeeze thought the 5 barbed wires. Use more wires on low spots. your idea of metal corners is nice, I just used the double H method with treated wood corner post. I used 3 metal and 1 treated post along the boundary fence. I used Gaucho brand wire and trees have fallen on it without breaking it. The area where I have sugar sand I cleared by hand a small opening just enough to walk and quickly hand dug for the wood post and it took about 4 tamps with the steel post driver for the steal post. The black land took longer. If you are in black or hard land and need tractor access to dig the holes, I would hire a dozer to complete the job in 1 or 2 days, the repairable (?) dozer sounds like a prolonged headache. I need to get a PHD one of these days......

The life of this type of fence, from my observations is about 30 years, My Dad's fence that I helped him with when I was in high school is needing replacement.