Interior Fences

[Gomez]

I have the ranch separated into a number of grazing cells with 4 strand Barbed wire. I now want to break those cells into 160 acre paddocks with interior permanent fencing. I most likely will use temp fencing to divide up those 160 acre paddocks to smaller temporary paddocks as we move forward.
What are your experiences / recommendations for the interior permanent paddock fence type?
* 3 strand barbed?
* 2 barbed & 1 hot wire?
* 2 hot wire & 1 ground?
* 2 hot?
* 1 Hot?
I will want the ability to graze cows & calves, grassers & sheep on these paddocks. Our area looks like Randiliana's except with sloughs.
Thanksjavascript:emoticon('')

 

[Angus 62]

One hot and one ground of high tensile for cattle- though one of the best setups I have ever seen was two hots with a ground in the middle. Have no idea if they are sheep worthy.

 

[RSL]

FWIW - if you are just doing cows or grassers one hot is fine, one hot and a ground is better for year around grazing. With sheep, our experience was always that you need at least a hot ground hot, just because the pressure comes lower on the fence than a cow.
Invest in lots of ground rods, and a good fencer with a remote control fault finder - you won't be sorry.
If it were not for general acceptance in the neighbourhood, I would not even have barb wire perimeter fence anymore.

 

[per]

I like a 3 wire barbed non electric fence for cows. Sheep change things though. RSL, I have a 1 wire hot fence a mile and a half long between me and a neighbor. It is going on 10 years and the only breaches we have had were gate left open and moose related. Both could happen with a five wire fortress. I still like a nice 3 wire cold fence though.

 

[Northern Rancher]

If you train your sheep to bond with your cows they'll stay in whatever fence the cows do-when we had our little flock of targhees they never got very far from the cows out in the bush. Sheep alone need a fence good enough to keep them in and coyotes out. Were slowly upgrading our fences to 5 wire-3 hot-2 barbed. I have lots of two wire smooth perimeter but it's not much good once it starts getting buried in snow. If I added a 6th wire at 6 inches those new fences would be sheep proof too at least in the summer time.

 

[RSL]

I like a 3 wire barbed non electric fence for cows. Sheep change things though. RSL, I have a 1 wire hot fence a mile and a half long between me and a neighbor. It is going on 10 years and the only breaches we have had were gate left open and moose related. Both could happen with a five wire fortress. I still like a nice 3 wire cold fence though.

Your neighbour must be very open minded. Good fences make good neighbours!!!