Fencing in the Mountains

[w11]

I’m looking for guidance on fencing woven wire on 3 acres in the Appalachian Mountains. The terrain is hilly, rocky, with several dips, turns, hills, ect. The pasture is irregularly shaped, meaning it has several turning points. I can’t see how anyone could afford to build a standard H-brace at all of these variances.

Has anyone experimented with doing short pulls of fencing without bracing?

My thought is to set 8" wooden anchor post in concrete every 60 feet, with 5 t-posts in between, and stretching the fence with a hand tool. No bracing. I’m thinking every 60 feet should better accommodate all of the turns in the pasture. I can’t imagine posts will lean with only the force of 60’ stretches?

I’ve already dug a few holes. The ground is sandstone, which had to be chipped away with a crowbar. I can’t see how a post would lean.

Any $.02 would be appreciated.

[Frog_Pond]

This is a good article from The Horse – it’s called Fencing on the Rocks, and it’s a good description of fencing on difficult terrain. I live in coastal MA on 8+ acres of bedrock granite with pockets of dirt, which is full of loose rock.

My fence is HorseGuard bipolar tape on 7’ t-posts (so, 5’ exposed) that I installed with a hand-held t-post pounder. You can’t use a post pounder with tons of rock – you just bend & break the posts, or create javelins out of t-posts that slip out of the thingamabob, and you can’t use an augur unless you have all day and don’t mind knocking yourself around. I found it pretty simple to slam in t-posts, moving a few feet over if I hit rock (that’s when your skull starts to ring – it’s unmistakable!) I put a t-post every 50’ and the HG fiberglass posts in between every 10’ – they only go in about 18", and are easy. I’ll eventually replace most of those with t-posts and probably spring for the HG t-post covers, which I think are snazzy.

The longest straight line of fence is probably 50’ – the rest of of meanders up and down and around the contours of the land, but, I think it looks fine.

It would cost me both arms and legs to fence this place with solid posts – I’ve had two fence guys just walk away mid-quote because they felt bad when they got above 20k to do two lines of 3-rail split rail.

My dry lot is a 70’ roundish pen made of 5’ x 12’ Behlen panels, chained together, square tops, with a t-post at the middle-bar every 3rd panel or so. Good-enough for my herd! Best of luck.

[Ridge_Runner]

In this region, most of the good fence was put in using black locust posts and old field fence and done by hand. I can’t imagine the work hauling all that up the side of a mountain by hand…and the fence was woven wire also. I still have locust posts 70 years later that are completely solid and whatever brand of field fence that was is still so thick you need bolt cutters to get thru it. I don’t think they make fence like that anymore. Being a petite 53 year old woman, i’m not going to be hauling heavy wire and posts up the side of a mountain any time soon…so I had to come up with something else that I could manage.

Having said that, I ended up using t posts and electric for my fencing so far…not ideal but fairly inexpensive and effective and easy to manage on all terrain I am fencing hogs as well as horses and eventually cattle. It is also a lot easier to repair when the inevitable tree comes down on the fence…that has happened a lot this summer with our bad storms in WV…just last week I had two down on the fence line…a bit of chainsaw work and tighten up the tape, and it’s fixed.

What we’d like to do eventually is build a Virginia Rail or Russell type fence. We’ve found that the deer are very hard on electric fence here…always pulling it down…and I have miles of it…so managing shorts and grounds is a really PITA. The old wood rail type fences are labor intensive but in our region, again, they can last 50 years if you do it right…and hold hogs, cattle, horses, etc… with little maintenance other than repairs from trees falling. They are also very easy to do in rocky soil as there are no posts put in the ground at all and you can easily adjust to rough terrain.

[Guilherme]

Fencing in mountains, particularly the Appalachians, has two big issues:

First, how are you going to run the fence?

Second, how will you maintain it?

I’m not sure where the OP is but in East TN we get just about 50" of rain a year. That means vegetation in vast quantity and diversity.

Woven wire would be a poor choice in most areas in question because it’s difficult to put up and will be difficult to maintain (it will be a “vine condo” in short order; ask me how I know). Unless it’s necessary because you’re going to run stock like sheep or goats I’d not even consider it.

Even “horse safe” products like RAMM fencing will be hard to put up and will still need to be cleared of vegetation several times a year.

If you look at real farms in the area (folks running cattle or other commercial livestock) they don’t fence difficult terrain. Or if they do it’s the easiest fence possible to erect and keep maintained. That’s generally barbed wire (which gives horse folk “pearl clutching moments”).

Maybe the question becomes “how much money you got?” With enough you can hire someone to cut your line with a small 'dozer. That will give you a nice, clean run and room to work to erect it and keep it clean.

G.

[Foxglove]

If you have lots of lumber, consider buck and rail. Seems to work well on difficult terrain. http://www.backwoodshome.com/build-an-inexpensive-but-durable-jackleg-fence/

[PeteyPie]

[QUOTE=w1;8812187]
I’m looking for guidance on fencing woven wire on 3 acres in the Appalachian Mountains. The terrain is hilly, rocky, with several dips, turns, hills, ect. The pasture is irregularly shaped, meaning it has several turning points. I can’t see how anyone could afford to build a standard H-brace at all of these variances.

Has anyone experimented with doing short pulls of fencing without bracing?

My thought is to set 8" wooden anchor post in concrete every 60 feet, with 5 t-posts in between, and stretching the fence with a hand tool. No bracing. I’m thinking every 60 feet should better accommodate all of the turns in the pasture. I can’t imagine posts will lean with only the force of 60’ stretches?

I’ve already dug a few holes. The ground is sandstone, which had to be chipped away with a crowbar. I can’t see how a post would lean.

Any $.02 would be appreciated.[/QUOTE]

Could you cut some of the cost of corner posts by not following your property boundary and having only four or five corners? Will it really matter if you fence in say, two and a half acres instead of three and leave out a few odd zigs and zags? You might like it that way. Even if you don’t, you could always use it that way for a while and then fence in the odd areas later.

You might find advantages to having some areas which have no horse access.

[Ridge_Runner]

[QUOTE=Foxglove;8813329]
If you have lots of lumber, consider buck and rail. Seems to work well on difficult terrain. http://www.backwoodshome.com/build-an-inexpensive-but-durable-jackleg-fence/[/QUOTE]

That is very similar to a Russell Fence. I’ve seen those very kind here in WV in areas that are too rocky for posts. Great site! here is one with some other wood type fences.

https://books.google.com/books?id=VAkAyVXEF9cC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=how+to+build+a+russell+fence&source=bl&ots=8cHLxPHGeK&sig=n58sYMBuTkbPZQmmYmvtZlwL8ro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9hoyijf7LAhXLWBoKHeZIAVYQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=how%20to%20build%20a%20russell%20fence&f=false