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Another Fencing Post

Last week I did a post on some fence we'd put up. It got to be fairly long, so I decided to split the fencing project over two blog posts.

Once the corner posts are set, one wire is run between them. This provides a straight line to set all the other posts by. We use a combination of sassafrass posts and steel t-posts. I think the t-posts are called that because when you look down at them from the top, they are shaped like a T.

With electric fencing, you need to run the wire through "insulators" so the electrical current is not disrupted or grounded. Here is a clip-on black plastic insulator on a t-post.


On the wooden posts, we attach the plastic insulators with screws.


Once the posts are all set, and the insulators are all on the posts, we start putting the rest of the wire up.


Here's where our little green 'Gator comes in handy. The coil of wire turns on a turntable on the back of the traveling 'Gator. One or two walking "grunts" hook the wire on the insulators on each post. 



The corner posts have to be really sturdy, as they have a lot of pressure on them once the fence is under tension.


There are a variety of things that can go wrong--but running out of gas is fairly easy to fix.


This time we just ran a long single 6-strand line of fence out to the edge of our property. This fence will form one side of many movable pens, with the other three sides of the pens made up by temporary net fence. This one single line also provides the electricity for any pens we set up. Eventually we hope to have more perimeter fence put up to enclose the whole area. But for now, this will do. It's nice to have this part finished, at least.

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