New Fencing

Fencing, the cheapest and yet most expensive thing on the farm. I mean, it appears cheap, but man does it add up!

So some history here. My horses currently live at what used to be 40 continuous acres of farm, but then my nana passed away. The farm was divided between her three children; my stepdad and his two sisters. LONG before her death, we all knew what was going to happen. EXACTLY what my nana didn't want to happen. The two sisters were going to sell their plots of land. They never had an intention of keeping them. (Heck, one sister wasn't even in the will to begin with until she went and whined to her aunts and they went to my nana saying that simply because she was her daughter, she deserved something too.)

So yea, fun stuff. Fun, drama stuff I really don't like to get involved in. Both sisters are "selling their property, but one hasn't even listed it while the other is just plain going to have a rough time selling hers. You see, my step-father's portion is right in the middle. The one aunt who wasn't even supposed to be in the will got the portion that is lined on 3 sides by road. She is the one who has actually listed her property for sale, but there's an issue. The property line is HIGHLY contested, with neither party willing to pay the big fees of having the land surveyed to find the actual line.

You see, the issue is that she believes the property line starts at the fencing, while my parents believe it starts in the middle of the road, past a 10 foot right between it and the fence. This would DRASTICALLY reduce how much usable property there actually is (and honestly, I do believe that is where her property begins) and it would mean that the boundary between hers and my parent's place has a good 20-30ft of uncertainty. With such uncertainty, we are not going to set up permanent perimeter fence and have that incorrectly assumed to be the actual property line.

SOOOOOO, with all that taking into account, and the fact that the only separated pasture we have from the two sisters is a tiny barn lot corral, we needed to put up new fencing. We know the exact line for the one side of the property but not the other. So while we can set up a sure line on one side, we can't set up anything that could possibly be mistaken as perimeter fence on the other, least it be declared the actual property line. Meanwhile we have around 10 acres of land with growing thick grass that can't be grazed because there's no separating fence between my parent's property and my two aunts.

So onto the fencing.

We have set up one small paddock, which has plenty of thick and tall grass to last (hopefully) at least a couple of weeks. We used some T-posts we had around the farm, some left over barb wire, and I went out and bought a few more posts and another spool of wire. Let's face it, neither is ideal, but they're cheap and effective. Bonus to the fact that we had a bit already laying around.

Now before you go off on your speel about how both are horrible, let me stop you. I already know. I know very well. We had a horse that was injured at separate times by both. He was also a bit of a hot stud (was not supposed to be stud, we rescued him and was told he was a gelding).One time the horse reared up, coming down on the top of a T-post (no, none of our posts have caps) and put a nice deep cut into his chest. Then at a separate time, horses down the street got out and worked our horses up into a frenzy along the fence line. At that point he got his hoof caught up in the barbwire, which nearly took a hoof off. He had to be sent to a friend's after seeing a vet so that he was away from other horses in order to keep him calm and moving around as little as possible until it healed. So yes, I know T-post and barbwire are not ideal or very safe for horses. I also know that we've had around 20 different horses with only those two incidents.

However, that all being said, we used up all the materials. We're out of wire and we're out of T-posts. Last time I went and bought T-posts and wire, it was $4.25 per t-post (I bought 17) and nearly $40 for 1 spool of cheap barbwire. Plus money for gloves for handling the barbwire.

I however, have been a fan of electric fencing for a long time now. It's safer, it's cheaper, and it's effective. So why not? Now I've looked around a few times, and the best prices I've found (without really digging) are through Kencove. So I'll likely be buying through them and will do a product review for what I do buy.

Now, my biggest issue when looking around for electric fencing was the height of the poles or posts. Everything was only 4ft tall, which was making it start to seem like I was going to still have to pay for t-posts, which are more expensive than say step in electric fence posts. My girl is already 17 hands at 2 years old, she could step over a 4 foot fence. Anything taller was going to be more expensive a steel t-post, and I was beginning to lose faith. That is, until I got a new catalog from Kencove in the mail. (I'd ordered one before, so now they just send them to me. Great timing)

In the new catalog, I saw these fiberglass poles. They come in different diameters, and in lengths of 4-6ft. (Woohoo!) And they're only $1.80! WHOO! Technically they're meant for rotational and strip grazing, and technically, that's what they will be used for. After all, if they do get out, they'll still be in the original perimeter fencing of the 40 acres with no other animals on either side. It'll be no different than if they got out the front and took a stroll down the road. We'll just get an annoyed call from a neighbor.

Ok, so then I had to sit down and start figuring out what I needed. (They honestly don't just tell you this like, anywhere! Everyone just throws a bunch of products at you and seems to expect that you'll magically know what everything is, what you'll need, and what is just luxury.) I knew I needed posts, electric wire, twine, or tape, and someway to power it. That was only the tip of the ice burg.

After many many hours of going between my catalog and the website, (and sending a couple questioning emails) I came up with everything that I'll need. Now let me just state that at first I was considering buying electric netting at first (which the help will quickly tell you is NOT meant for larger animals such as cows or horses) because of it's easy to set up. However then I saw something on another website while comparing prices. One of their chargers could charge up to 4 164ft electric nets, OR 2 MILES of 3 strand electric fencing. DING DING DING, we have a winner! That's a no brainer, considering the solar energizer costs over $200 a piece. It was going to be a heck of a lot cheaper to do strand fencing than net fencing. (then again, it always is)

Electric fence is generally easy to set up as well. I'm not going to use an electric wire, I'm going to do a fence of 2 strands of electric twine and 1 strand of electric tape. The electric tape will be the top strand, and it's going to be there so that the horses can clearly see the fence line. Since this is what I'll be using, I wont have to deal with stretching and putting a lot of tension into the line. I can make it as tight as needed by hand. (Since electric fence won't be leaned on by animals, it does not need to be strung as tight as materials such as barbwire). And get this, the spools of electric twine are only $27 for 1640ft, and the electric tape is only $30 for 1320ft. Much cheaper than the barbwire. You pair that with the $1.80 for posts, and you're looking at $120 for those three spools and 20 posts. Verses $125 for 20 t-posts and 1 spool of barbwire.

There is a catch however. (There's always a catch!)

There is a bit more of a start up cost for electric fencing. Not to mention that these posts don't come with connectors to attach the wire to. Those have to be purchased separately. The twin connectors are 100 for $16 and the tape connectors are 25 for $12. Plus you need special items to end your lines. It's not like barbwire where you just twist off the ends. These need to be clamped and attached to end posts with end insulators. None of these are really expensive, but a dollar here and a dollar there start to add up. Truthfully though, the biggest cost, is the energizer and grounding system. Good solar energizers (since we don't have electric out in the pasture) cost a pretty penny. A low impedance 12 volt solar energizer usually cost $250 or more. Lucky for me, we have an energizer, and it will do for now. So that's not a cost I'll be factoring in. The grounding kit though is another $40.

It took a lot of time figuring out everything I would need, but right now, my cart is sitting at a total of $203.40. Now the grounding rods are all I'll need. I won't need to purchase any more of them with the size of our set up. And I doubt I'll need a bigger energizer either. So these are not going to be costs that will be repeated later on. Everything considered, after the initial investment, electric is much cheaper than even barbwire. For 20 t-posts and 2 spools of barbwire, I'd be paying $205 roughly. So even with the tacked on grounding rods, going electric is cheaper (and as I said, will be easier to set up).

I'll be placing my order for the items once we get back from vacation. We'll be going up to NY to visit family for the 4th of July. After that I'll have the money to buy more fencing material and set up another paddock or two for the horses to graze down and enter into our rotational grazing program. The electric won't harm my horses, the posts won't impale them, and it won't rip out their hair. (My poor baby currently looks like I pulled her mane as I would for a show!)

Look forward to my coming review on the products I buy. I'll do my best to remember to record on my phone our setting up, as I'm sure others could use the help.

Until Next Time!