Barbed Wire vs. High Tensile Electric

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Why does it have to be fiddle string tight? As long as it is taut enough to stay out of the grass, it's good enough.

And there you have it, Pure. A high tensile electric fence, when installed and powered properly will be every bit as wild critter proof as barbed wire. More so, in my opinion. I've watched bears tear up barbed wire fence, but get zapped hard by electric and turn tail and run.

I always run the bottom wire as a ground, then the fence doesn't get grown in. The grass grows up, lays across the second and bottom wires and gets burned off. Works well in cleared areas where small poplars and willows try to grow up against the fence as well.

I tore down all the barbed wire around here 12 years ago, and will never allow another strand of the crap to come on the place.

Rod

 

[Soapweed]

This is one fight I am going to stay away from, but if you were to have a poll, my vote would go in favor of barbed wire.

 

[Ben H]

From the PCC newsletter


Nowhere are chains of
habit (tradition) harder to break than
in production agriculture. Lance Gartner, a
long-time PCC customer and one of the moderators
at the Winter Grazing Seminar in North
Dakota that I spoke at, shared the following
thoughts about accepting change.

• In most Industries – innovation is accepted
and implemented within 17 to 24 months.
• In Agriculture – it takes 17 to 24 years for
innovation to be accepted and implemented.

 

[Grassfarmer]

Just got in from doing a little temporary electric fence project on a new quarter we are renting this year. It has quite a few areas of willow bush on it plus some decent open flats and a river. Used some of the light weight 17 gauge wire for the first time - 1/4 mile for $15. I set up three short fences going in different directions all connected to an old solar charger I got free from an oil lease fence. Materials total $60 for wire, posts and insulators etc. Time to complete 1.5 hours. Estimated benefit through controlled grazing extra 5 AUDs/ acre worth 70 cents/AUD - total $500+ in year one. Where else can you get that type of return on investment in agriculture? If I am not grazing there next year I can pull the materials and use them elsewhere.
Our cows all know what electric is and if they forget there is a 6300v reminder right there. I have never seen cattle that can't be contained with a single wire electric. Sure they might need trained first but that's a 2 day project shutting them in a small field/corral with an offset electric wire from the barb fence.

Out here water is too scarce to do any rotational grazing on 80% of summer pastures so we just put 4 barbs around the whole works.

You should check out some of the holistic management info Doug. The drier the climate the more the need to rotational or mob graze cattle not the reverse. There is an outstanding powerpoint presentation on the web that I can't locate at the moment which shows mob grazing in areas of Africa which are substantially drier than anything in North America. The effects are almost unbelievable - literally turning desert into lush pastures. I'll post the URL for that powerpoint when I find it again.[/u]

 

[RSL]

We run barb perimeter fences (tradition, existing infrastructure, happy neighbours) but any new fencing is hi tensile electric. Even our gathering facilities and most of our alleyways are now electric fence. If you are particular electric is not so great, but at our place if you are a bit laid back and don't string things too tight, it is the greatest and cheapest thing since sliced bread.
I would argue that electric fence has successfully at least doubled our forage production (if not tripled it).

 

[bverellen]

From the PCC newsletter


Nowhere are chains of
habit (tradition) harder to break than
in production agriculture. Lance Gartner, a
long-time PCC customer and one of the moderators
at the Winter Grazing Seminar in North
Dakota that I spoke at, shared the following
thoughts about accepting change.

• In most Industries – innovation is accepted
and implemented within 17 to 24 months.
• In Agriculture – it takes 17 to 24 years for
innovation to be accepted and implemented.

I saw that too, and believe there is alot of truth to that.

Along with Soapweed's poll, I'll bet that if you polled younger or new producers they would lean towards Hi Tensile.

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

bart.

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[Grassfarmer]

Here is the link to the powerpoint I mentioned earlier - www.scribd.com/doc/6389317/08tl-Sccppp-En
I think this should be viewed by everyone in agriculture who has grass and livestock. It takes a couple of minutes to download on our crappy satellite high speed internet - don't know about dial-up.

 

[Blkbuckaroo]

Here is the link to the powerpoint I mentioned earlier - www.scribd.com/doc/6389317/08tl-Sccppp-En
I think this should be viewed by everyone in agriculture who has grass and livestock. It takes a couple of minutes to download on our crappy satellite high speed internet - don't know about dial-up.

I personnaly like the combination of both barb,and electric.I think a barb perimeter with high tensile wire to form smaller grazing paddocks is a good and economical idea.Probanly takes a long time to download on dialup,have ta; wait on that one.Thanks for the link.

 

[Ben H]

I think Ian Mitchel-Innes runs about 5000 head of cattle on 6000 acres in South Africa using Holistic High Density Grazing. Basically, as I understand it, you are letting the plant mature then graze at a stock density between 100K-300K lbs/acre. They are only on that grass for a 1/3 to 1/2 a day. The cattle pick what they want to eat and trample everything else into the ground. The key is letting the plant fully rest and re-grow, we're talking a rest period upwards towards 150 days. The holistic part refers to the planning, you plan in advance the rotations. You can predict what exact paddock the animals will be in a few months down the road.

 

[Soapweed]

Here is a thought. Why not just hire a "cattle herder" to do what sheep herders do. A good man and a few cow dogs would eliminate the need altogether for fencing of any kind. The cattle could be rotated in mob grazing fashion, and probably the wages for the cattle herder would be much cheaper than the least expensive of any kind of fencing. The herder could take along a few good books, train some cow dogs for pay, and enjoy a wonderful way of life. :wink:

I'd be interested but I'm too old. Besides, cow dogs and me don't hit it off.

 

[Faster horses]

I think Mr. FH fits into a different catagory than intense grazers do.
He likes some (cattle) bunches here, some bunches there and some bunches there aren't any. :shock: :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

He's said that for years now.

As for me, I'm more open to it, for all the good that does. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Grassfarmer]

Good point Soapweed, that is certainly something that still happens in "less developed" countries around the world where wages are low (and often the only cash expense)
Growing up in Scotland we had the tradition of the hill shepherds that moved their flocks on a daily basis, up onto the higher ground at nights and down onto the flats in the evening. The areas of the property they concentrated this grazing action on differed with the growing seasons and the different plant species growing cycles. Most of the hill farms had "open marches" at one time - meaning there were no fenced boundaries on the properties and the sheep were bonded or "hefted" to their own farm by daily shepherding with collie dogs. This really was the ultimate, efficient, way to maximize production off poor quality hill grazing but unfortunately "progress" over the last 30-40 years has seen this practice abandoned on most sheep farms, replaced with a good perimeter fence, shepherds on quad bikes and continuous grazing :roll:
Result - overgrazing, reduced plant diversity and reduced carrying capacity. It's sad to see how much knowledge we have lost in a generation when we think we have made so much progress.

 

[Ben H]

I had a guy come and meet me to see how I do things last year, he works for a company that is developing a headgear for cattle with a GPS transmitter. It will show you on your computer where all your cattle are. But the next step is to be able to draw "fences" on your computer. It works like a dogs invisible fence but with GPS, when the cattle get close to the border you create, it gives them an audio warning, a little further a shock. The warning and shock are on either side of the head to direct them. You can also use it to herd the animals where you need them to go.

 

[ecofarmer]

I have kept up with the GPS callers for cattle but don't see it working for anyone that moves there cattle a lot.

 

[Blkbuckaroo]

I had a guy come and meet me to see how I do things last year, he works for a company that is developing a headgear for cattle with a GPS transmitter. It will show you on your computer where all your cattle are. But the next step is to be able to draw "fences" on your computer. It works like a dogs invisible fence but with GPS, when the cattle get close to the border you create, it gives them an audio warning, a little further a shock. The warning and shock are on either side of the head to direct them. You can also use it to herd the animals where you need them to go.

That's interesting,a shock collar for cattle.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

I had a guy come and meet me to see how I do things last year, he works for a company that is developing a headgear for cattle with a GPS transmitter. It will show you on your computer where all your cattle are. But the next step is to be able to draw "fences" on your computer. It works like a dogs invisible fence but with GPS, when the cattle get close to the border you create, it gives them an audio warning, a little further a shock. The warning and shock are on either side of the head to direct them. You can also use it to herd the animals where you need them to go.

That's interesting,a shock collar for cattle.

What's next?

A shock collar for men, the wives can just zap us if were headed for the wrong place. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Northern Rancher]

We use alot of smooth wire-if you have land along way from home-I'd be putting up barb wire also-once you get used to smooth it's hard to work with barbs again-it actually works best at keeping bulls apart.

 

[Big Swede]

A year or two before I bought the place from my Dad he replaced all the old wooden towers of the windmills with new steel towers. It was something that needed to be done but one of my first projects was to put pipelines to all the wells and also install about 3 times more tanks and capacity than we had. It was the first step in my new grazing system that used higher stock densities and rotational grazing with high tensile fences. We run herds of up to 400 pairs through this system and the tanks are always full. My Dad, being the traditional rancher would never have made a management move like this so I never even brought it up while we were in partnership. You know, pick your battles kind of thing. These days he sees the windmills not turning and pumping water and wishes I would at least turn them on, but I don't see the point of wearing out a mill and wasting water.

As far as high tensile fence, I have put in miles of 2 wire fence and made money in the process with NRCS cost share practices. Carrying capacity has increased, the range is improving and blowouts are healing. Just imagine how the grass will respond to being grazed 15 to 20 days of the year and the rest of the time is for rest and recovery. The Great Plains of North America at one time were an ocean of grass until man began to fence it off and continuously graze it. Just look at the brush country around the country and imagine what it used to look like with grass instead.

Anyway, high tensile for interior cross fencing is an excellent management tool. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

I have used smooth high tensile and barbed high tensile Gaucho wire,and I prefer two strands of Gaucho High tensile barb for cross fence. No electric.

 

[George]

I have a saying - - - -"If your cattle get out when the power is off it was not hot enough"

With some of the storms we get ( and cars going thru fences ) and other work loads it is not uncommon for me to have a fence down for two weeks or more and no cattle out. But the charger I have states 12.5 jules of pain and I can turn cattle in fields that are not powered and never have a cow out. The chargers that state 2 or 3 jules are good for pets in my opionion. Make sure you put in steel or wooden gates though as opening a wire will not get them to go through.

With this power on the charger the deer and coyotes quickly learn to jump high or go around. Do not use ceramic insulators with this much sting as if you do one or two rains and the spark will arc around the ceramic and they will start a grove and then split and fall off.

I am not sure about other areas but I have no problems with my fences. But I only have about 5 miles all within 1 mile of the charger and the charger is rated for 150 miles - - - - I guess over kill is good!