fencing 100 acres

[dirtydan]

I agree with Paul. I have been using Electrobraid for about 5 years now. Only one animal has ever gone through it. It was a young colt. I suspect the other horses drove him through it. Not a scratch on him. The cows and bull have never gone through it. I had a tree fall on the line when we had some sixty mile an hour winds. Just replaced a post and the wire snapped back into place. I am replacing some fence right now with some more and will do more come spring. Doesn't take as many posts either.

Dan

 

[WTA]

I rigged up a manual t post driver with a couple hooks welded on to it that attach to the loaders bottom blade and a chain that secures it on the top of the bucket. It doesn't fall off this way and one person can push in T posts all day long with it.

It's a lot safer too than trying to balance one under the bucket while you get back over to the loader control. I can see a t post going through a radiator some day doing that.

I saw something funny a few months ago sorta similar to what you all describe with the tposts.
Some old farmer was out pulling tposts in his field near me. He had a nice kubota tractor with a loader but he was using a high lift jack and a chain to pull the posts then throwing them in the loader bucket. I really thought about asking him why he wasn't pulling them with the bucket too but he never takes any suggestions so I didn't. That was weird.

 

[MikePA]

What maintenance is required?
Walk the fence line to confirm your fence has not been damaged. Check the voltage regularly. An ElectroBraid Fence Minder will monitor your fence voltage 24/7 and warn you if the voltage drops Or if it has been cut!!! Once or twice a year, mow weeds from under your fence. In the spring, make sure no fence posts have been heaved by frost.

Electric Horse Farm Fence Product Properties - Electrobraid

The Electrobraid looks interesting.

I used Horseguard fencing which is a tape with 5 stainless steel wires. We've had 3 strands up for over 10 years without a break. The only issue we've had is when the horses are rolling around near the fence and their legs hit the tape. They get up real quick. While it tears the plastic standoffs off the posts, it doesn't damage the tape.

If I was fencing in 100 acres, I'd sure use a post driver. In fact, I used one to fence in 3 acres and that only needed 180 4" x 4" x 8' PT posts and 40 T posts. It was cheaper for me to buy the driver and install the fence myself than pay someone to do it for me.

 

[WTA]

We use electrobraid for cross fencing here but that's it. My main fence lines are T posts 25 feet apart with 4 high tension wires on them. The corners I have here are all either telephone poles at least 4 feet in the ground or big cedar posts with braces and all. We even had a tornado test it a couple years ago. We lost the barn and my neighbor lost his barn and most of his fence but my fence was perfect afterwards. We got lucky! My draft mule was out in it when that one hit and got rolled across the field. He looked dead when I went out there but he got up snorting and was just mad. That is scary when a 2000 pound animal gets like that. We did get real lucky though.

I do like putting the t posts every 25 feet for a reason though. It's less of them a horse can impale himself on. We already had it happen once. Well not here, but one of the ones we rescued had to have a t post removed from her chest. It was infected and she almost died. I'm still making wooden caps to put on all of mine that will hopefully prevent that from ever happening here.

The reason we don't use electrobraid on all the fences here is actually two reasons. It's a lot mre expensive than high tension wire. Also the wind around here tears them up fast. The cross fence I put up in our bermuda pasture has been spliced 3 or 4 times just this year from wind tears. 30-60 mph is the norm it seems for the wind here. We have a lot of calm days but if it does blow it really blows! My wind gauge has pegged out at 160 before with that tornado and just over a hundred during a regular old thunder storm.

 

[MikePA]

I do like putting the t posts every 25 feet for a reason though. It's less of them a horse can impale himself on.

For the T posts I pounded in, I also installed plastic covers with caps that horseguardfence sells. The cover makes it look a little nicer and the caps are for just what you mentioned.

 

[Soundguy]

Why not use t-post for the fence line.. but solid corners and braces.

i'm also not fond of the wedgelock for long pulls.. T-post just do not make good corners or braces for tight long lines.

Sink some wood corners by hand or auger and then tpost the rest..

Soundguy

DANG! Not what I wanted to hear but its what I was afraid would be the case. I was going to buy a few of the pieces and try it on my temporary garden fence.

So now I'm back to a post pounder or a hydraulic auger....

The Post Pounder is a single tasker but puts in posts fast.

The auger can put in fence posts, plants, and build pole barns. But it takes more work to put in posts. Sigh.. Tain't a good answer.

Both cost money I don't have to spend.

But as I widen the path around the property a fence has to go in to keep, or try to keep people out. Its not optional.

Thanks for the info.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

TexasJohn,

Thanks for the info. I won't have anyone to help me so I'll have figure out how to set the Tposts myself. I have a few ideas.

I like the basket full of rocks idea. Some TBNers where using concrete pipe as the corners.

Pondering things last night, I figured we would only have to put in 25-30 or so wood posts on the 1500 ish feet of the west boundry which is our priority to fence. The rental place has a wheeled post hole digger that I might try. We also know of a fence builder with a tractor mounted post driver. Might call him to see if he could come in and pound in the posts.

Soundguy,
Since WedgeLoc turned out to be too good to be true, I'm back to putting in wood posts on the corners, lot boundries and elevation changes. TPosts in between the wood posts. No way I would want to try to dig the post holes by hand. The line I'm fencing first is more rock and dirt. I was very impressed when I saw the post pounder actually work in our "soil." It could be hand dug but it would be alot of work and take a lot of time. I would rather dig the post holes with the backhoe and fill it with rock and concrete. BTDT.

I planted 500 pine trees in the area I'm talking about fencing. The dibble only goes 6-9 inches into the ground to form the hole for a seedling. I figured it took 2-3 tries with the dibble before I could find a spot where the dibble would fully go into the ground to plant the seedling.
Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

John, we have several corner posts and braces that looked good when originally done, but now the retensioning of the fence is causing the corner post to pivot up and lift out of the ground. I would echo your recommendation to put them 4' into the ground and even deeper if you can do it. Five or six strands of tight wire is a mighty pull on a post.

I also like to bias my corner posts AWAY from the fencline pull. We have sandy soil here in florida.. and even a 4' sunk post with only 4 strands of wire will make quite a few inch deflection on a large corner post. ( with a brace in place too.. )

Soundguy

 

[Willis Fecon Bushhogging]

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

I know the clearing is a pain, but a suggestion is to get someone that has a mulching machine, it will go in an turn all your stuff to mulch and it leaves a great looking job. We are located in New Bern, about 3 hours from you, it would be a little costly for us to do it, because of the travel. Just some info, we get $140 and hour, with a mininum charge of $500, this machine can mow down 4-6" trees and turn to mulch. It depends on the growth size, but we could clear an acre in about 6 hours. Just to let you have some input, so you dont break your back, or tear your tractor up.
Feel free to visit the web site WillisForestryMulching.com

 

[WTA]

I've been thinking a lot about a mulcher but I don't know anything about them. I wonder if I could run one on my tractor. It's got 95 horsepower and a 1000 and 540 pto. This should make short work of my overgrown fencelines and I could probably make some money with one after I'm done with it.
I'd hire you in a heartbeat if you were in the area.