Removing barbed wire fence

[Anonymous Poster]

I bought my 5 acres last November. The 2.5 acres beside me was also for sale. There is a barbed wire fence between them, located on the other property. The dog can go through that barbed wire as if it isn't there, but that property had field wire and a gate around the rest of it, and the dog couldn't go anywhere. So, I installed field fence (hog wire, goat wire, whatever) around the other 3 sides of my property.

A couple of weeks ago, the other property sold, and the new owner had it cleared. They took down the fence and gate at the front, and now the dog can (and will) get out. I talked to the new owner and explained my problem. I offered to provide the field fence and the labor if I could use the posts on his property. He was enthusiastic and offered to help. That saves me a pretty good expenditure on posts and digging holes on my own side of the line.

I would consider just stapling the field fence over the barbed wire, but since we are both clearing our property, this is the perfect time to get rid of some trash brush that has grown up with branches on both sides of the wire. In some cases, the roots are directly under the bottom wire, and there is no way to get it out without damaging the wire.

The barbed wire is stretched tight and held at both ends and in the middle (H-braces installed on larger posts), but is loosely stapled to every intermediate post; as soon as we damage or cut any of it, it will come loose. So, I'm probably going to have to remove some or all of it.

It's 4 strands high, each about 400' long (the total border is 780'). What is the best way to handle this stuff? Anyone got any good tricks for rolling it up?

Or, would it be OK to let it slacken a little so it won't yank over the intermediate posts, and just wrap and staple it everywhere we cut it? Then install the stretched field fence over it and ignore the barbed wire.

Or, any other good suggestions...

 

[Whiskey]

OkeeDon:

Go ahead and take it down and you will be glade you did, pulling hog wire over barbed wire is way more of a pain from the hog wire snagging up on it, you'll find yourself walking the fince line un-snagging the hog wire from the barbed wire while streatching and it makes for a lot of extra walking.

When removing old barbed wire I leave the last staple in the post and remove all others walking the line with a 5 gal. bucket and a fencing tool putting my staples in the bucket. then walking back to the loose end (with gloves) I grab that sucker and lean back and start rolling it up leaning away form the attached end to keep it semi-tight. something like a small cable spool could help to make this process faster something like a garden hose on one of them home depot roll'ie thingama bobs with someone on the loose end and you rolling the spool.

putting up the new hog wire I'd put a stretch point in the middle of the 400' run being hog wire only comes in 330' length's and pull it from middle out.

Whiskey

 

[TerryinMD]

Yep, remove one staple at a time and coil it as you go along. You'll notice that there will be a tendency to curl a certain way. Just go with the flow.

With two people, it should take much time to take that old stuff down. Heavy leather gloves, heavy pants, boots, long sleeve shirt, and a first aid kit just in case.

Barbed wire can be as ornery as a wasps nest if you do not pay attention.

Good luck!!!

Terry

 

[mrcaptainbob]

Don't do it my way! We just purchased a 20 acre 'farm' dated from the mid 1800's. I'm using the mower as a wind-up spindle. I've found quite a few yards of the stuff this way! Buried in the first inch of dirt with maybe one loop sticking up enough to snag one of the blades. Found a few old rotting fence posts this way, too. Been thinking of hanging a metal detector on the front of the tractor hood....

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Been there, done that, and don't want the tee-shirt. In my case, it was my dang-blasted son-in-law (he's great most of the time). My property is next to his. It was wildly overgrown. Before he ever dreamed we might buy it, he did some fence repairs on his place and simply pitched the old fence into the "jungle" next door. I buy the place, we start clearing, and somehow every inch of it turned up - in the loader, the brush hog, the teeth of the box blade, and even around the axle. Fortunately, he was there most of the time, and I got good at sitting back with an evil grin while he got real good with wire cutters... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[wisconsinguy]

Probably not worth 200 bucks to you but TSC has a PTO driven wire winder upper,, I would think everyone should have one.

Phil

 

[Anonymous Poster]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Probably not worth 200 bucks to you but TSC has a PTO driven wire winder upper,, I would think everyone should have one.
)</font>

The price is nice. But I'd be really leery about running a powered device that winds up barbed wire. It sounds like an easy way to get wrapped around the drum. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I'd definitely want a coupla helpers, including one dedicated hand on the PTO, just to shut the thing off in emergency.

- Dennis

 

[ns_in_tex]

Dennis,
Not sure what Tractor supply has now but I have one that probably came from Tractor suppy before it was a chain store, maybe 40 years ago, at Ft Worth

It works great, & I wouldn't consider it dangerous. It has an adjustable slip clutch to control the winding tension. Back then I would take down fence for somebody, just to get the wire for myself. Although it might be easier with 2, I managed to work it ok by myself.

Start by unfastening the lowest strand of wire, all except the last post. Go back & hook the loose end to the wire winder with the tractor set a good distance from the fence. Turn on the PTO & start backing up. If you need to stop for some reason, you do not even have to disengage the PTO if you don't want to. The slip clutch will just keep the wire snug.

I took up about a mile of fence, post & brush this past year, but used something I built similar to a brush brute & discarded everything. If you don't want to save anything, this was much easier & faster.

Used to build fence, now tear it down, times change /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I string out a mile or two of barbed wire every fall & wind it up every spring with an old check-corn wire winder (grazing cornstalks with temp fencing). The same thing as being described here, mine is from the 30's or 40's. Works real well. My only comment:

You don't want ANY helpers any where near you. My wife wants to help; a cousin stopped by & wanted to help. NO! No! the danger is if the wire braks, it will twist & snake around a bit. Sitting up an an old H tractor with loader frame around me, I'm pretty safe. But anyone on the ground real close by could be shredded to hamburger. Old rusty wire is prone to breaking. By pulling on it it gets tension, and some twists & springiness. It can recoil in a bad way if it breaks.

No helpers for me, no one within 100 feet.

Other than that, if you deal with a lot of wire, works well. This is one operation where a double clutch pto setup works better than an independent clutch one foot motion covers all the bases of stopping. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Actually my H doesn't even have live clutch, & that's ok for this job.

--->Paul

 

[Anonymous Poster]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( It works great, & I wouldn't consider it dangerous. It has an adjustable slip clutch to control the winding tension.)</font>

OK, I hadn't thought of the slip clutch. That makes a big difference.