Wooden Fence Posts

[cajuncattle]

New member, & First Post. I’ve searched the forums, but it seems like I’ll need some time looking around before I know where to look. I’m looking to put in a couple hundred wooden fence posts, and am not interested in pounding them in by hand (I know, I’m lazy) , and feel that an auger is probably more then I need. What about a bale spear or a hollow piece of well casing pipe fastened to the FEL , would the down pressure of the loader (maybe some ballast weight in the bucket) be enough to push the spike or casing into the ground so I could then push a sharpened wooden post in?

Thanks in advance, and don’t worry about hurting my feelings…. I’m a total newbie to farming

If you're in marshy soil, you can push them in with your loader. If the ground is little harder, tap them in with the loader. We do it all day in South Louisiana.

 

[DieselBound]

I installed about 110 wooden posts for my fence (about 2,100 linear feet). I rented a skidsteer with an auger. Cost was about $7 per hole, which might seem like a lot but try doing it by hand and you'll appreciate how cheap that is. Hole depth was about 4'. Excellent visibility and control. I'd have gotten a PTO-driven auger stuck: the sheer weight of the soil (lots of wet clay) would make the skidsteer work a bit.

BTW - I put up fixed-knot woven-wire fencing. Allows up to 20' spacing on the line posts: I went 20'. I also HAND-PACKED every hole with a tamper, layering with some smaller rocky material and then native (more clay-ish) soil. After five years it's holding up very well, even after taking lots of hits from tree trunks and such. Would I ever do this again? NO! And that is exactly why I did it the way I did (so I wouldn't have to do it again).

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

If I was looking at augers, or post pounders, I’d look for skid steer units. I have The universal skid steer quick attach on the FEL. And mounting to the FEL I could generate down force, unlike the three point.

Your T25 has the same mount system. So, I recommend looking inn that direction. Bigger rental yards frequently have skid steer attachments that they never have for tractors. I’m in a small town, and the local yard has, augers, pole pounders, and pole vibrators. It is owned by a large local contractor, who buys equipment for projects, and then adds to to the rental inventory, when he doesn’t need it. I tried for years to convince him to get a rock bucket, with no luck. After I finally bought mine, he looked at it for a few minutes, and decided to order two. He is installing miles of phone ducts, and the backfill has to be 3-inch minus, and the native has about 60% rock from 3 inches up to 18-inches. He figured out what I had trying to tell him, that if they can screen onsite, it will cut their import by 40%. Which covers the cost of having the bucket on the skid steer he already has onsite, and moving material from the trench to the bucket with the mini-ex.

You would also need to add a third forward hydraulic circuit. TYM makes a very clean third forward kit for your loader. The third forward lets you run grapples, etc. and is worth the money. If I could still get the TYM factory kit for the third forward on my tractor/loader, I would be installing it, instead of looking for piping components to add a splitter. One of the guys on YouTube with the T25 has a good video on installing the factory kit on his machine.

 

[Surshot]

As hoss said the high tensile strength steel wire is a great fence. My ground is hard, hard. Well driller said 16’ deep of compactable road bed clay. When it gets dry, the auger just bounces on it.
I tried the dig a hole business, quickly went and bought an auger with two blades, 9” and a 12” My gate (5 gates) and corner posts are 6-8” the field posts are 4-5” all heavy pressure treated for below ground use. My wife and I put in the mile and a half of fence.
The fence itself is 5 strands of 12ga class II galvanized high tensile steel wire with coil springs at every joint, 250 lbs pressure maintained, plastic spacer-combiners between each post. Gate posts, end posts, corner posts and low posts are all in cement. I used hand driven 1 1/2” barbed staples.
If you contemplate a smooth wire fence, do watch the movie about instillation, before you break the bands on the wire. The coil needs to be put into the mounted Lazy Susan and locked down before cutting the bands.
The galvanized smooth wire makes a good looking border fence. 9 out of 10 times a tree or limb will not break the wire, but did have a 140’ pine snap off at the ground that pulled a joint apart, when it hit the ground, easy to repair.

 

[DieselBound]

If you've got heavy, wet, clay-ish soil it'll pack on the auger and be VERY heavy. And then there's the issue of getting the auger cleaned off: with the skidsteer I was able to wiggle the machine to get the auger swinging in order to sling off the excavations.

I agree that down-pressure can be important. Without it it the auger will tend to walk [a lot?] more.

 

[Carl_NH]

Agree on the skid steer and Auger - I rented a Bobcat BT-100 3500 Lb stand on tracked unit and put in 70 post holes in our rocky ledge ground this spring. A day rental is like $300 - but I rented for a week for $1000 so to get spacing correct.

Also did 40 18" hole prep for planting trees. Takes about 2-3 minutes per hole so you can get a lot done quickly. But if your in marshy/soft ground a post pounder will work and you can rent those too.

 

[Agthacher1]

I own a small horse farm in Maryland and after years of DIY solutions for fencing (manual digging, PTO auger, rented post hole digger) I've discovered the only way to go: hire an agricultural fencing company, preferably Amish. The company we use is from PA and they come in with all the necessary supplies and equipment, including a skidloader with a front end post driver/auger combination (for stone ledge). I have very rocky ground and they can drive a round pressure treated post into the ground in less than a minute, perfectly plumb and straight lined. Watching them re-fence a three acre pasture in a short afternoon on their way home from a "big job", convinced me that I have better things to do with my time on this property

The company I use is ProFence, LLC in Shippensburg, PA, but I don't think you're in their service area. A quick Google search brought up for "horse fencing near New Brunswick" brought up Sunrise Valley Fence, LLC (and others) which service your area. They offer free estimates and will probably visit your site.

BTW, after wasting a lot of money on exotic fence post solutions (locust that was supposed to last forever, but started rotting out in 3 years) I will only use round pressure treated posts from a fencing company which are guaranteed for 20 years). As noted, you didn't mention the purpose of your fencing an how you intend to connect the posts.

Good luck,
Art@wayback.farm

 

[ford2110]

We have horses in CT. Wife would have no part of high tensile wire or livestock panels. We did wood board fencing at the barn for a secure area during bad weather and for new horses. All the rest of our fields are set up for rotationally grazing. All of that area is electrified woven rope or tape. All wood posts were augured in(75 or so) the main board fence paddock area and all the corners of the separate grazing fields. All the rest is two rows of electric fencing. We started at the barn and just plugged away a little at a time expanding as we went. It's lot of time consuming work though. It doesn't take long to auger holes, but back filling and leveling each one eats up a lot of time. If you're putting up any kind of wire fencing in soft ground you will have to reinforce your corners with diagonal bracing eventually also. If had to start again today and build new with 200 posts all at once, I would start by calling local fencing companies to get a quote on them pounding all the posts in.

 

[Gil A]

New member, & First Post. I’ve searched the forums, but it seems like I’ll need some time looking around before I know where to look. I’m looking to put in a couple hundred wooden fence posts, and am not interested in pounding them in by hand (I know, I’m lazy) , and feel that an auger is probably more then I need. What about a bale spear or a hollow piece of well casing pipe fastened to the FEL , would the down pressure of the loader (maybe some ballast weight in the bucket) be enough to push the spike or casing into the ground so I could then push a sharpened wooden post in?

Thanks in advance, and don’t worry about hurting my feelings…. I’m a total newbie to farming

Forget pounding in wood post unless post are small diameter and you have soft ground. Easy way is using a mechanical post hole digger, either tractor driven or a PTO or two man engine driven. You may rent, buy or borrow. And there's the old way which I have used for the past 50+ years is a long handled human driven "Post Hole digger". They may still be purchased new or found in an antique store or flea market. If using a tractor driven make sure there is a low tinsel bolt (shear bolt) that attaches the auger to the turning gear. Know by personal experience as some put a high tinsel bolt on mine and it results in over $100 repair on my tractor driven post hole digger.
Short answer on putting a fence is there is hard WORK involved thus use whatever is necessary to reduce the effort involved.
Regards, Gil

 

[frugalangler]

Use a tulip bulb auger in cordless drill