New Old Fence

After moving our pivot sprinkler and planting the field to pasture, it was time to rebuild the north fence line. Of course you could just go buy new material and knock the job out. But where's the fun in that? With no livestock on either side of the fence, we took our time to rebuild it inexpensively and right.

The old fence was shot, to say the least.

So last summer we tore it out.

And hauled it off.

Then set new brace posts.

Here's where the fun begins. I've seen always seen this old highway right away wire, spooled up along the roadside. And, I've always wanted to rummage through it and make a new fence out of the good old wire. Well, my buddy Will down in Kaycee, hooked me up with two bundles to help make my dream come true. 

So we hauled in home and unrolled it. There was barb wire spooled up with it, which was a tangled up mess. But when it was said and done, the hog wire looked pretty good.

We had to make about three splices. I've hardly worked with woven wire, so I researched how to splice it. On each side of a vertical, cut the horizontals and spin them around each other. One spinning backwards and one spinning forwards. That way, as the pull, they tighten against each other. 

Then we wrapped it around a pipe and hooked it to Dad's truck to tighten up. 

It really stretched up nice. 

For the top strands of barbwire, we turned to Grandpa's old scrap wire pile. This is good wire, just needs a new home.

A good single strand splice follows the same logic, one forward, one backward. This way there is no kink to weaken the wire and break at a later date. 

Again, she tightened up real nice.

It's always a good idea to put the wire on the side of the post that is going to get the most pressure. As critters push against it, they are pushing against the post and not just the clips that hold the wire on. Here's our wire ration: 50" at the top and about 1.5" off the ground. The first barb wire sits right on top of the woven, to keep a cow from wanting to stick her head through. And the top two remove any funny ideas of trying to jump. 

Should work. 

Good fences do make good neighbors. They also allow for a little peace of mind, knowing that it would take extreme circumstances for a critter to breakout. I like building fence. And I'd rather do so with left over material that still has life. I think this wire and posts would rather be serving a purpose than rotting away in the dirt. Looks good to me. We'll see what the cows think. On to the next one.