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Before you build your fence...

talk to your neighbors as they may be thinking about building a fence as well.  In many rural counties, if a neighbor or property owner builds a fence, you may be expected to share in the cost or labor or both of building the fence.  In my county, the rule is that if you put livestock on your side of the fence, you are required to share the cost of a fence. Either way, be a good neighbor and confer with the extension office for details on these laws and talk to your neighbors and coordinate your fencing effort with them. 

• Decide on the property line and stake out your corners with marker flags.  This makes it easier to coordinate with your neighbors.

• Set your corners.  These consist of corner posts and brace posts as well as braces between the two types of posts.  The corner posts and brace posts should run directly down the fence line towards the next corner.

• String your bottom wire between corners.  Use this as a guide to place your line posts / T posts.

• Place your line posts along the bottom wire.  Make sure the wire is between the line post and the animal.  This way if they push on it, the post takes the strain and not the flimsy little clip that holds the wire in place.

• String your top wire and tighten it and clip it to your line posts.  This strand puts the most pressure on the fence.  If you do the top wire last, it usually makes the lower strands loose once the top of the posts tip in a bit.

• String and clip the rest of your strands.

I have strung my share of fencing on my two farms and I hate to say, I did a lot of it wrong.  I am now having to go back and redo some of it, mostly reset the corner posts because they are popping up out of the ground. Here is a basic procedure for building a wire fence to contain livestock. Differences for horses and cows are addressed later in the detailed sections. 

My mistakes include:

• Bad angles on the braces between corner posts and brace posts

• Holes not 40" deep or more

• Not enough concrete

In short, there are a few rules for setting fence posts, especially the corner posts.

• The corner posts should be a larger diameter than the rest of the fence posts.

• Use 8 foot wooden posts at least 7 inches in diameter and set them at least 40 inches in the ground and toss in about 3-4 bags of concrete.  If you have access to hedge trees, the natural water and insect protection in these posts is far superior to treated lumber.

• Set the angle on your diagonal supports to be greater than 45 degrees.  At 45 degrees or less, the force of the wire pulls in a circular motion and will still lift your end post. (This is the voice of experience from someone who did it wrong folks)

• If you are using this technique, for cows, I would use 6 strands of barbed wire.  For horses, 4-5 strands of smooth wire.  I would also add a hot wire for horses fenced with smooth wire. (See the hot wire example)

• Make sure you lock in your corners by cutting notches for your your braces between your corner and brace posts. (See corner detail)

• Place your wire between the T post and the animal.  This way if the livestock press on the wire, the post is holding it and not just the clip.

Line Posts

The two main types of line posts I have seen used are T posts and smaller wooden posts.  Again, many people that have access to hedge trees often times use hedge posts for line posts.  Another good technique, especially for fences with no hot wire is to put a wooden post every 5th or 6th post.  This prevents livestock from bending your T Posts.  (See what our pony did to our fence before I lowered the hot wire)

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