Putting up a 5 Strand Barbed Wire Fence

At the farm in Oberlin where our family's beef cattle roam, the saying that "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," is often proven true to my Dad.  Cows are inquisitive creatures and even after we sold many of the cattle that liked to escape, other remaining cattle have taken up their bad habits of pushing their way through the perimeter fence to eat in the roadside ditches.

The older portion of the perimeter fence is constructed with hog wire.  Over the years it has rusted, deteriorated, and weakened so that the cows can poke their heads through.  Once their heads are through, they go ahead and figure how to get the rest of their bodies through to escape.  We planned a workday at the farm to replace the fence.  Russ came in from college, my nephew came with my Dad, and Benjamin and I drove in from Jennings.

The first order of business was to unhook the existing hog wire from the T-posts and corner posts and then roll up the wire.  Benjamin chopped the weeds in the way with his machete.  The cattle were right there in the pasture, so once the old fence was down, we were committed.  We couldn't leave for lunch so Dad went to town and picked up some big fat burgers and we sat under a tree and enjoyed our lunch.

Russ & Conner rolling up the fence

We opted to replace the hog wire with a 5 strand barbed wire fence.  According to This Link, Barbed wire was invented in 1867 by Lucien Smith of Ohio as a great new technology for restraining cattle. It is still widely used today.  We anchored one end of the wire to the corner post and put the spool of wire on the back of the All Terrain four wheel drive vehicle and unrolled it.

Unrolling the barbed wire

We started on the bottom strand and once we had it unrolled, we stretched it tight with a "Come Along" and once we had the desired tension, we fastened it to the corner post and used clips to anchor the wire to each T-post.

Working on the third strand

We repeated that process until we had the full fence completed.  Here are the workers admiring the finished product.  This fence is tight and secure and will keep the cows within the pasture.  However, cows will search out the next weakest place in the fence to break through.  We took a tour of the next portion of fence that needs to be fixed on the south side of the pasture on another Saturday.  Fence mending is a never ending job.

The completed fence

It was a blistering hot Saturday and the work crew was hot and tired once the day was done.  We drank lots of water to replenish liquids lost during the workday.

The Fence Menders

The fence builders got the job done.  There's more work to be done, but we'll schedule that on a cooler day.