Hello all, new to the forum and to farming. My wife and I just bought a 27 acre farm. The fences (all barbed wire) are in bad shape. T posts and wire are all rusted and most of the perimeter fence is very overgrown. It’s nice having the privacy but how can you maintain the fence once trees have grown into the wire? As it is most of the fence is in tact and would hold livestock but it just doesn’t seem right to leave it that way. I would like to hear what you all would do in this situation. BTW I thought this would have been a FAQ but my searches didn’t find anything. Hopefully I’m not bringing this up for umpteenth time.
I am anti-barbed wire. When we bought our farm 17+ years ago, we took out as much of the barbed wire as we could and then built new non-climb fence with a top board inside the old barbed wire/field fence perimeter of our front pasture. Frightened horse/goat/sheep and barbed wire = big vet bill. So I’d spray the overgrowth with a good brush killer, wait for it to die, then chop out all the barbed wire I could and remove the rusted T-posts. Many metal recycling places will take both the T-posts and the barbed wire. Start fresh - you’ll be glad you did.
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Maybe I should post some photos. We’re not talking about brush we’re talking 20’ trees with 6”-8” diameter trunks. Many grown into the wire. I’m not sure spray on brush killer would do the job. I like the idea of no barbed wire. So did you leave some of the old t-posts in place to mark the property line?
In your case I’d fence the wired areas in (or out as the case may be). Not knowing where the property line is in relation to the existing fence, let’s just assume you have room to add a new fence line a foot off of the existing barbed wire fence. If possible, I’d add another fence behind it too, making it safe in both directions. That allows the trees to keep growing and adding privacy and valuable habitat for birds and other hedgerow lovers. Think of it as an intentional wildlife area, and it will enhance your property.
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unless you have a bulldozer and a lot of time it would easier to re-fence into horse safe paddocks inside the property line leaving the existing fence as a border
27 acres is about 1.2 million square feet so you would need about 15,000 feet of perimeter fencing to enclose such an area if rectangular (5000 by 2500).
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I agree with Clanter. Just run a new fenceline inside it. We did that to a 26-acre pasture in Kansas, not for safety concerns necessarily, but to preserve the 100+ year old original barb wire on hedge posts that was installed by the first generation of our family to live on that section. Heritage…
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First, if by containing livestock you mean cattle, barbed wire is standard for them.
If you mean horses, well, millions of horses over decades have been kept behind barbed wire without harm, the right horses and right large pastures for that.
It is not what you want for smaller paddocks where a horse may run another into the fence or where the fence is hidden by brush so a horse may not see it before hitting it.
Whatever you do there, first be very sure where the legal perimeter fence runs.
Have it surveyed if you didn’t already.
If the fence is on the right place, if you want to keep the fence as is for a visual barrier, do just that and build another fence, suitable for the livestock you want to keep in, a bit in front of it and maintain it properly.
Remember, if you take that fence out and build another one inside your perimeter to the land, the land you are then leaving free for the neighbor to use, by not having a fence there, can be claimed later by adverse possession, depending on the laws of your state.
Think about that before you do anything there to that one existing fence.
A mile 16’ strip equals one acre, best I remember, so think if you really want to chance losing land to redoing that fence.
To take that fence down, any fencing and/or landscaping company can kill those trees for you and take it down for you, if you want to replace it right on that line with a more suitable one.
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I’ve been pondering the same thing. No barbed wire but 10 years of hedgerows, think 6-8 inch diameter cherry trees and a some cedars along the shrubby stuff. My first thought was to doze them but after living in the place six months I love the cover for the birds and other critters. I’m working out a strategy to fence in or around or a bit of both. Enjoy the new farm. Just watch out for the poison ivy …
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your eye sore might be beauty beholden by neighbors (and Big Brother)
might want to check with Big Brother before removing trees of size as some states/local government have some pretty hefty fines for unauthorized/unpermitted tree removal
Brothers in Michigan are facing nearly $500,000 in fines for allegedly removing more than 1,400 trees from their 16-acre property without permission,
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What’s your goal, @Artorius? You don’t mention horses or other livestock. Is the fence just to mark the property line? If so, cleaning up whatever scrub and (growing) garbage exists and leaving the rest is probably fine.
If you’re housing horses, good chance you’re going to want something other than what you have. You could do anything from adding hot wire on stand offs to the existing fence to keep them away from it (and clearing whatever brush is there to keep the wire from grounding) to putting a new fence inside the old one (leaving space between to mow and ride) to ripping out there whole shebang and replacing.
Cows or other livestock have different needs.
I’ve got some overgrown fence here and it’s been a real pita to bring it back–but I need it to contain horses. If you don’t have that need, then you really have a lot of options.
Horses for sure, no plans for cattle other than feeding out a calf or two.
just a note the more valuable the horse the greater the chance of it finding something to injure itself on
one of our mares who was in a large paddock that was fenced with v-mesh found something to jab into her chest…never ever found a source for what it was
We have some barbed wire fences here, we have 160 acres, and our neighbours have cows. So our perimeter fences are barbed wire, done before we moved here, and are necessary to keep cows OUT of our place. We have horses. We have found that as long as the horses know where the fences are in advance, we have had few issues with barbed wire. It is important to NOT have horses on each side of a barbed wire fence, if this happens, you WILL have injuries. But barbed wire works a lot like an electric fence does… horses touch it once, poke their nose, and know to stay away from it, especially if there is no “attraction” of other horses on the other side of the fence. If there is a situation where horses ARE on both sides of a barbed wire fence, adding an electric wire helps. Or double fence it, if you have that sort of money to spend. But barbed wire fences that are well buried in bush/prickles/etc work as a “hedge”, which is the best type of fencing for horses, better than ANY other type of fence IMO. I encourage the wild rose bushes to grow up in the barbed wire fences we still have, if possible. The more they are buried in thick prickly bushes, the better.
As with so many things, “it depends.”
Clanter and Bluey have given excellent advice. In enclosing large acreage it’s very difficult to not rely at least in part on barbed wire (unless your name is Clinton, Bezos, Kerry, etc.).
As long as the overgrown fence is intact it’s likely that it will do its primary job (keep something in) and will likely also do its secondary job (keep everything else out). Adding “privacy” is just an extra benefit. There is downside, though, and that’s the problem of the fence that has failed as a containment (due to a break of some kind). Horses, and cows, are passed masters at finding the ONE break in the fence that allows them to test the grass on the other side!!! If you’re going keep the fence “natural” then it will require periodic, careful inspection. Of course “riding fence” is actually not an unpleasant task and is a good training exercise for most horses. Just carry a can of marking paint with you and if you find a questionable area mark it and comeback later on the 4 wheeler (or whatever) with your repair tools and materials! 
A couple of years ago I hired a guy to clear about 1500 feet of fence line where trees had overgrown sufficiently that I could not get my cab tractor pulling my bat wing bush hog close enough to the fence for effective mowing. We cleaned my side of the fence pretty well and I’ll spray my side a couple of times year to keep the vegetation down. This is an old fence and it has some repairs from previous breaches. But I’m no longer loosing almost an acre of graze/hay due to poor fence maintenance!!! 
As Simke notes to accomplish your goal of “fencing in” some type of stock you have to consider the needs of that stock. Cows and horses actually are pretty similar which is why barbed wire can work even though it does present a larger risk of injury to horses. But same fence that works well for a horse or a cow might not be worth a bucket of warm spit if you’re trying confine goats or sheep or hogs or emus or deer.
If the fence is working and there is no other reason to mess with it then I’d leave it alone. As noted a heavily overgrown fence will take a lot of dollars to clear and replace. And you need you neighbor’s agreement to do it if its a “common fence!” The good news is that, depending on your state, you might be able to stick the adjoining owner with half of the bill. The bad news is that if you stick them with a bill they don’t want to pay it’s likely to make for poor relations with your neighbor. That last item is something to carefully consider as you do anything with a common fence.
Last thing to consider is state law. Many states have statutes that govern fencing (not just location and duties, but also types). In TN, last time I looked, there were four different statutes on fencing for stallions and all had different requirements! So a quick check with your Extension Officer or Farm Service Office would be a good idea as they usually have good information on this sort of thing. Or if they don’t have it they can refer you to places that do.
Good luck as you go forward with your project!
G.
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The 50 acres my guys are on is fenced mostly with barbed wire - at least on the perimeter but at the front where the gate is it has the wire mesh with one strand barbed wire on top. The fence is very old and the property line is mostly in the woods. The fence sits in about 4-5 feet from the property line. We intentionally do not clear that 4-5 feet so as to not entice the horses to want what’s on the other side. On the horse side we mow as close as we can get but also consider the brush/bushes/trees to be a natural deterrent for the horses to even go near the fence. While there are neighbors none have any livestock and again all of the shared property lines are in the woods on both sides.
Ah, my mistake. Trees, not brushy undergrowth. You’re right, brush killer won’t work on mature trees. Then I think you can either leave it or not, but I’d still fence inside the perimeter of where you want paddocks/pastures with another fence. And I had my property marked when I bought it by a surveyor so I’d know where my property line was - bright orange tape/paint marked the “property markers” (which were natural things like trees, bottlecaps nailed in tree roots, rocks, etc.).
If you leave the old barbed wire, you’re right, it can be hard to adjust if it is slack in places and too taught in others. But selective placement of new T-posts can help with that. Be aware that when the barbed wire get trapped in growing trees, it can eventually snap, so you want to be diligent in checking it from time to time. One option that just came to me, you could always add a top hot wire that sticks out into the pasture side to encourage the horses to stay away.
And I’d get post caps for those old rusted T-posts if you’re going to leave them. Those will be inviting as scratching posts for horses, if they can reach them.
I would want to get that barbed wire out permanently. I would leave the big lovely trees and cut the wire off as close to the tree trunk as possible then place some kind of epoxy over the wire ends until the tree trunks just absorb all the wire with growth. I would leave the large trees and cut back the undergrowth so that I could run the new fence line in accordance with the property line and appropriate set backs. I would choose a relatively inexpensive fence like high t posts with no climb and cemented wooden corner braces so that I had a secure fence for my perimeter then I would cross fence inside it with whatever you would like. If I wanted a garden or landscaping and lived around deer I would make that perimeter fence 8’ high. If it was going to be a fence horses had direct contact with I would add two strands of horsegaurd hot tape. I also love the idea of that fence keeping stray dogs, wild boar, and other critters out while being a safe barrier should a horse escape from other interior fencing.
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I second Bluey’s recommendation for a survey. I was surprised to find that a section of our fence was outside the line after I had a survey done. You do want to take a close look at the trees that have grown around the wire. That can weaken a tree overtime. I have one like that. I cut the wire and let the wire inside the tree alone. It’s a bit crooked at that point but doing well. When we cross-fenced in the interior of our property - some sections go around a tree. When we built the barn we saved every tree we could. I’m very glad we did. When we added fencing - to enclose our entire perimeter - we placed it a few inches inside our property line. We didn’t want an adjacent owner to tie up to our fence.
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Around here there are old pastures where the barbed wire is hidden in Himalayan blackberry vines ten feet tall and ten feet deep, with thorns . Those make very effective hedgerows but those vines will eventually take over the whole field like kudzu does.
How much money do you have???
thankfully the 25 acres of an old cattle farm we bought was completely perimeter fenced in woven wire. Some of the fence row is clean, other areas have anything from brush to very old oak trees growing in or near it.
We did not have to replace any perimeter fencing but the cross fencing cost around 12K. If you decide to bulldoze out the entire perimeter fence and the things that have grown into it, you might bankrupt your barn/pasture funds.
Were it me, I would clean out and replace the sections of fencing that might be the easiest for the horses to go thru and then know you have to keep those fence rows weed-whacked – on a continual basis:). Let the areas go, at least for now, that are so covered in brush the brush is the better fence. What I might do, would be to put orange marker tape every few feet to alert the horses, provided your horses are fence savvy and have learned what that means:)
part of of our fence boundary is up in the woods on the ridge. The horse don’t go near it. The neighbor on the other side has cattle and thankfully maintains it so his cows don’t come visiting:)
also, as someone else commented, before you go stringing new fence, you need to know for absolute certain where the survey markers are. We got a big surprise when we paid to have our property re-surveyed — we owned more than we thought we did on two sides , less than we thought on one side, and exactly what we thought on the fourth side.
best wishes and enjoy:)
