HOWLE’S HINTS BY JOH N HOW L E
THE HERB FARMER May HOW’S YOUR GARDEN
“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”
- Robert Frost Fencing around the farm serves many purposes. It marks your property boundaries, separates grazing paddocks and it contains your livestock. Once you have perimeter fencing in good shape around your property, you can subdivide easily and inexpensively with solar-powered electric fencing. For the purpose of this article, I will focus on a divider fence. For permanent fencing, using barbed wire and a mixture of T-posts and wooden posts are the most inexpensive options. We put up a divider fence to keep heifers isolated from the rest of the herd until they are mature enough to be bred. Most barbed wire fencing consists of four or five strands of barbed wire attached to T-posts spaced every 12 feet. Since we are dividing groups of cattle, we opted to go with six strands of barbed wire. That sixth strand results in smaller spacing between the wires and helps prevent fence sagging and bending from cattle pushing their heads through the fence to graze on the other side.
SIMPLE TIMES
THE CO-OP PANTRY This photo shows the completed divider fence with “H” braces, gate, T-posts and six strands of barbed wire.
May 2021
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