My Goat/Horse Fence

[Bearsixty7]

Nice Job Eddie!
I see similar work in my future on our MO. Property once we retire. I would like to run some goats to cleanup in the woods and a few head of cattle for freezer camp.

 

[EddieWalker]

Goats do an impressive job at cleaning up the understory and converting a this area into a park. Most impressive is what they do to blackberries!!!!

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Goats do an impressive job at cleaning up the understory and converting a this area into a park. Most impressive is what they do to blackberries!!!!

We have a lot of multiflora rose, the goats eat it like the stems were candy canes. Right down to the ground.

Love your fencing. I do something similar with the corners.

 

[RayIN]

My horses would eat multi-floral rose if it was less than a foot tall, taller stuff, the cows kept it in check.

Now I have no animals, it keeps me busy brush hogging in winter, that's when I can see whats ahead, and spraying in spring/summer.
I think I run my 3-pt brush hog in reverse as much as forward these days.
When I was young a neighbor man one of the group responsible for importing it from England. Last I saw, one of his fence/hedge rows was 30' wide and expanding yearly.

Then there's the thorn tree thicket, what to do. Thorns ruin tractor tires, so hand work is all that's left. Dad originally planted them for fence posts in the future, but now they're an invasive tree IMO.

 

[gsganzer]

Nice work and a really durable fence. I’ve used that no climb horse fencing and it’s hard to stretch but extremely durable once installed. You will be pleased with your finished project.

There're different types of horse fence. I used a brand once that had the 2" x 4" on a diamond pattern and it was terrible to stretch. I'd never use that type again.

Now I use the "Red Brand" horse fence sold at Tractor Supply and it's much better for stretching and following the ground contour.

 

[gsganzer]

Eddie,
I was wondering how well the pneumatic Mansaver post driver would work. I have a SkiDril gas powered driver that I drive the posts and the 2 2/8" line posts with. It's heavy as heck, but it's a beast and even drives in my hard clay soil! It's really a two person job using it though. I made a platform that slides on my pallet forks that I stand on, holding the driver, while my wife stands up the post in the proper position and checks plumb as I do the driving. I once drove a section of 2"-SCH40 pipe 5 feet deep!

The 2-cycle engine has worked flawlessly and is extremely easy to start. I think the engine might be made by Tanaka. The throttle/choke/ignition switch is really crappy though, and subject to getting easily damaged. I've replaced it once with an ebay generic. Next time, I'll replace it with a used assembly from a Stihl weed wacker and add some guards to it.

The bomb would be if Milwaukee came out with a battery operated model.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie,
I was wondering how well the pneumatic Mansaver post driver would work. I have a SkiDril gas powered driver that I drive the posts and the 2 2/8" line posts with. It's heavy as heck, but it's a beast and even drives in my hard clay soil! It's really a two person job using it though. I made a platform that slides on my pallet forks that I stand on, holding the driver, while my wife stands up the post in the proper position and checks plumb as I do the driving. I once drove a section of 2"-SCH40 pipe 5 feet deep!

The 2-cycle engine has worked flawlessly and is extremely easy to start. I think the engine might be made by Tanaka. The throttle/choke/ignition switch is really crappy though, and subject to getting easily damaged. I've replaced it once with an ebay generic. Next time, I'll replace it with a used assembly from a Stihl weed wacker and add some guards to it.

The bomb would be if Milwaukee came out with a battery operated model.

Mansaver has different sizes, and mine is the smallest one they sell. Originally I thought about getting a bigger one to do pipe, and using the adapters for T-Posts, but decided that I wanted wood posts. I'm glad I did that because it gets heavy after using it all day long. The only real work with the Mansaver is carrying it from T-Post to T-Post, but it adds up over time.

In really hard soil, it can take a very long time to get a T-Post in the ground. Middle of August, and I'm questioning my sanity being out there, but it does get them in there, and what's really weird is that ten feet over, the next one might go in a lot easier. I never had a place where it was too hard and I couldn't get the T-Post in the ground.

I'm going to guess that using it on bigger pipe would be similar, but I really don't know.

I started out with the Red Brand 2x4 horse fence. It was the same price as Atwood's at Lowes, but Lowes gives me 10$ off for Military, so I bought them there. But then Lowes ran out of stock and couldn't get it for a very long time, and now that they have it again, their price is crazy higher then Atwood's. At one point, Atwood's was up to $340 a roll, which sucked, but then they came back down to $300. They used to sell OK Brand and now it's Stay Tuff. Tractor Supply is always more expensive then Atwood's, but if Atwood's was sold out, I'd buy a roll or two from them.

I cannot tell the difference between one brand over another. From the way they are wrapped, to the individual wires, they seem identical. I buy on price, and who has it in stock.

Here is another video of the Auger drilling in my soil. This area is iron ore that we drove over a lot in the last 20 years. It's super hard on the top, but then it gets better once I'm through the crust. Usually in really bad areas, I just have to dig down a little ways with my SDS MAX to where the Auger can do it's job. Of all the Posts that I put in, I only had to do one all the way by hand.

 

[gsganzer]

Eddie, I always thought people do an "H" because that's where they pull and terminate the end of a roll and start a new one. At least that's what I did. I used 200' rolls and did an H every 200', but I' would have done the same with 330' rolls too.

On my H, I used a top and bottom rail and welded a piece of stall channel to each that I slip cedar fence stays in, to make a decorative touch. I then followed that theme around other parts of the property to give it a unified look.

 

[EddieWalker]

I like how your cedar looks in your fence. I thought about doing something similar around our veggie garden, but felt overwhelmed by the time it would take, and having too many other things to get done.

I read where some people use wood posts to terminate each roll of wire, but I didn't like how it forced me to put a post where I didn't really need one. I chose to use crimps to connect each roll, and pull past my wood posts so it was really tight, and then staple the wire to each post, every 100 feet, or less.

When the ground changes height, I added extra posts to deal with the extra force caused by following the contour of the land.

My issue with H Bracing is that the only way to make it really strong is to add a diagonal support to it. On exotic high fence ranches, I've seen 3 diagonal braces on double H bracing. Basically two H's together with each post having a diagonal pipe going into the ground.

The diagonal bracing gives the H all it's strength. The horizontal brace between poles doesn't add any significant strength to the post.

In the old days, wood posts where set in dirt, then wire was used to hold the H together. This was all they had, and the engineering was brilliant. But with concrete and metal poles available today, there isn't any reason to do corners that way. There are a ton of inventions out there to make the traditional H Brace better, but the design itself is weak without a metal diagonal brace to hold it in position.

One of my big mistakes/learning lessons was trying to pull the roll of wire with my backhoe to get it tight. It's 80HP and 2WD. I can spin my tires pulling the wire, but instead of getting tight, it breaks the wire. My corner posts do not move under that much force.

When I broke the wire, I had to cut out about 3 feet of it to get to undamaged wire, then splice it back together. I hate splice wire, it's slow, painful and frustrating. But I believe it's the cleanest and strongest way to do it, so I suck it up and deal with it. I just don't want to do it one more time then I have to, and breaking it was the most annoying thing in building that fence!!!