Pulling Up a Mesh Field Fence?

[FrontRangePonies]

Our new horse has taught the others to lean over and push down our wire mesh field fence. We’ve now added a hot wire, so end of problem.

Is there a reasonable chance of stretching the pushed down fencing back to the height it’s supposed to be? How will we do it? We’re considering using the tall car jack.

[crosscreeksh]

We have the same issue…with almost 3/4 mile of perimeter fence!! We, too added top electric to stop the problem from progressing (horses have 65 acres INSIDE of the fence, but still abused the fence. American wire/field fence has an age old description for horse folks…“from the minute you put it up…it starts sagging down”!! You won’t need a jack to fix it IMO. We just go section by section (we have T-posts…the post of choice out here in the west) so we remove the top clip, raise the section by hand, re-clip them. Using big pliers we put several half kinks in the wires to remove the slack. It is a PITA repair, but the fence will look nice again…and stay that way if you keep your electric on. The problem in the sagging is that EVERY vertical wire is in a twist around the horizontal wires…so it sags just under its own weight. It is a good, cost effective, confinement fence…but it does like to sag and droop!! Good luck.

[FrontRangePonies]

Thank you for responding. We are pretty much all T-posts, also. We’ll just have to go at it section by section like you suggested. I have hope now that we can pull the fence back up and get it looking almost normal again.

[gumtree]

I suppose it comes down to the type of wire mesh one is working with. This is how I went about it with V-mesh. Which is made with heavy wire and is very stiff. A tree came down and broke the top board and flattened the wire. The section ended at a gate. There was no way to just pull it up and reattach.

First I had to stretch it length wise and to be able to reattach to the end post. Took 2 pieces of 2x4 and wood screws, secured it on either side of the wire. Took 2 ratchet straps, attached to the top and bottom and then to the back of my tractor. Drove the tractor slowly stretching it length ways. Took the straps off the tractor and attached to the the post one section down, ratcheted it tight.

Took two 2x boards and wood screwed them to the top of the bent wire section. Attached a chain to it and then to the bucket of my tractor lifted it to the height of the top board that I replaced first. Used wire nails to attach to the top board. Without using the “stretcher boards” the chain and ratchet straps would have pulled through the wire attachment points. It would not have stretched, lifted reasonably straight.

This was a real PITA to fix. Took a lot of time and effort. Compared to a wood board fence when the same thing happens. A 4 board wood fence I can fix in less than a 1/2 hour with a chain saw, hammer and nails. I will NEVER put up wire fencing along a tree line, lol.

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[FrontRangePonies]

That’s what I’m worried about: needing to force/stretch it up with the bucket. I cannot possibly lift it myself. We’ve got fence stretcher tools out the whah zoo, and we’ve used the tractor to be the come along. Lol, hindsight…

[crosscreeksh]

FWIW…we had Diamond Mesh Horse Fence in NC on the perimeter of our 100 acre training center…a totally different “animal” than field fence…and the price tag to go along with it!! Diamond Mesh NEVER sags like field fence…but if it does…repair is as shown above!! A car rolled over and off the highway squashing 200 feet of our DM fence…PITA to fix, but doable. Field fence…much more economical… sags just for the fun of it. Repair is easier…but ongoing!! “Square Deal” horse fence is another non-sagging horse fence…but again…way more expensive than Field Fence…less than DM. We had to do 100% fencing and cross fencing for our new farm of 65 acres when we relocated to Tx. Field Fence was the only mesh fence we could afford. You just have to pay/work for the economy!!