Barbed or electric fence

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

The downside to external electric fencing is, stock from your neighbours can break in from the other side. Say you stop a field for silage, you will need to keep that part of the fence on all the time and so have to keep grass cut back from it.

Electric fence should NEVER be switched office

riemann wrote: »

The only advantage of electric over barbed is cost.

Depending on your stock, 3 or 4 rows of barb on Octos or PDM posts is a serious long term fence. If you're putting up 1 row it only takes a few minutes to put up another few when all the tools are on the ground including a hayes wire strainer. I often stick a row of electric on top to ensure stock don't bother trying to get near the fence.

Electric might be quicker to install and cheaper, but all the time over the years clearing back overgrowth and finding faults has a cost too.

Great peace of mind with the barb. If I had the money every bit of electric would be replaced in the morning. It's great as a temporary fence, not a permanent one.

Why do people keep recommending PDM posts on this forum as if they are something special? They are native Spruce timber that half the time arrive on dripping in creosote. They are responsible for putting more contractors off of creosote timber than anyone I'd say. You'd be burned alive from it and 15 years is about the max life span of spruce no matter how its treated. There are a number of better timber options out there.

Its mainly electric fence we have and I would be very slow to change it. We very rarely have to clear back overgrowth and once you have a good fault finder its very easy to find the source of the problems.

There are 4 strands of good barbed wire on other parts of the farm and animals have come in and out at times. It's not as fool proof as people are saying here. A good electric fence properly earthed frightens them more.

lakill Farm wrote: »

From doing a bit of fencing here your looking at approx the same price per strand run for the wire apart from sundries like the inline tensions (buy yourself the tensioning handle ) and buy the eggs and the good insulated core wire.

Barb wire you will need to put H frames at each 90 degree angle and need a post every 4 yards. So twice the posts and twice the wire .

Electric fence a post every 8 yards. Length of a hammer off the ground for bottom strand and the same again between that strand and top post

If you buy decent size posts 5'' or better you will push distances to 12+ metres. Barb wire is more expensive than same high tensile wire/metre. You are at least 3 times the cost if not more than 4 times the cost if you put up 4 strands. As well an electric post only needs about a metre above ground above ground for a single strand so 5' 6'' posts are usually adequate. Four strands of barb wire will need 1.2-1.5 metres above ground. Cost gets really horrific to do it right.

badtoro wrote: »

I'll bite. What are the better options specifically?

Anyone who uses better varieties of imported timber, treated with good quality creosote. In particular Scots Pine, European Larch (Not hybrid/Japanese) or Douglas Fir. Spruce is very difficult to treat and has no lasting qualities without treatment, hence they never use it for telephone poles unlike the other 3. Douglas Fir without treatment can last 10-15 years, whereas spruce will be rotten within 3. All PDM round posts are Spruce. They are undoubtedly much better than the green tanalised posts you will get in most Co-Ops but as proper creosote posts go they would be pretty average to poor. It's not like they are cheap.

White Clover wrote: »

How much are your posts and do you deliver ?

What part of my post has irked you?

Your welcome to post your opinion/experiences on the treatability and longevity of timber if you feel like it. There is a wealth of research/experiences out there on treatability and longevity of timber. Spruce is a difficult to treat timber. It's not used in ESB poles. All the other three varieties are. Please feel free to point out which of these statments you have a problem with.

Edit: never mind. I just read back my post and it was a bit of a narky response. I suppose it does sound like a sales pitch but I'm not selling for anyone. I just don't understand why people continually recommend pdm posts when they are more expensive for lower quality timber. I went a different route for my own.

I only use 6ft PDM here For either the barb or electric . Only time I use others is for staking a new tree. And they get creo/burnt oil treatment before they see outside.

Must see will I get 12m. I need to edit above post. It’s 4 & 8 good paced yards not meters.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

If you buy decent size posts 5'' or better you will push distances to 12+ metres. Barb wire is more expensive than same high tensile wire/metre. You are at least 3 times the cost if not more than 4 times the cost if you put up 4 strands. As well an electric post only needs about a metre above ground above ground for a single strand so 5' 6'' posts are usually adequate. Four strands of barb wire will need 1.2-1.5 metres above ground. Cost gets really horrific to do it right.

Yes you can done it many time. Gripple are more for repairs. I do not have a gripple set so any repairs are just joining. You just join one wire to the other to carry current on as you did. You can ring loop it all the way back if you like. However points like that should be left in such a way as you can break them out if testing for a fault.

Running out high tensile is tricky. The trick is to 3-4 could off the left hand side of the roll and then 3-4 off the right hand sid. This way the coil effects balance each other out. You need a slight strain on it to whip them straight

Thank you

Fully agree on the neighbours side breaking in. Got man in with saw over winter to dress ~ 500m of ditch that had gone wild, then cleaned few bits with chainsaw myself and gathered all up. Was contemplating barb or electric... in end when for 4 barb on nearly it all and 1 strand electric on last part (not joined to neighbour). Huge addition on cost and I would be 99% sure my cattle would not go thru electric (very strong and they haven't for 20 years) but would be fairly sick seeing his in at the electric wire after all the effort that went in.

Unrolling the high tensile wire is very tricky. Best is to be really careful that you start off with the first coil in the roll. You might have to look carefully through the first 4/5 possible to identify the right one. To unravel the twists tie the end to a twine attached to end post. there are probably better techniques than that.

The trick to unrolling HT wire is to reverse the coils coming out. You are correct to make sure first rings off the roll are not tangled and to Tue wire tie post.

There are two ways of reversing the coils. You need to be uncoiling from the outside rather than the center. First way is to uncoil 3-4 coils to the left had side then right hand side of the roll.

Second way is to uncoil again 3-4 coils reverse roll 180 degrees and uncoil 3-4 again.

In both cases the uncoiled part will run into each other to straighten out the ring effect of the coil

What kind of strainer can you get for 20 quid? They all seem a lot dearer .

Closer to 30 seems to be the price. Seems a little extreme around gaps and that but I have limited experience of electric, but plan to replace a decent amount of it this winter.

does no one use a spinnig jenny, I made one years ago, still have it........... somewhere.

Very handy for rolling up wire too

https://www.glanbiaconnect.com/shop/product/Spinning-Jenny-Wire-Dispenser-Dc35/9003257