Fencing

I’m here to tell you what I learned about fencing – not the kind you do masked and dressed all in white, a-la The Three Musketeers - although I tried that a few weeks ago too! No, I’m talking about erecting mainly agricultural fences to mark boundaries and keep animals in (or out).

I had the opportunity to participate in a farm work exchange in the Bega Valley (far south coast NSW) in 2023. The landowners hadn’t updated the chicken run and its attached coop since purchasing the property 9 years prior, and it needed expanding and updating. I had never done this sort of work before, but my carpentry skills came in handy anyhow!

As always, having the right tools for the job helped. Some useful ones include:

• Parrot nose/beak pliers for cutting wire
• String line
• Shovel (especially narrow ones for removing soil in deep holes)
• Crow bar
• Spirit level
• Drill & Driver
• Gripple tensioner
• Star picket rammer
• Star picket remover
• Clipping tool & air compressor
  

OK, now that is out of the way, let me tell you, fencing is hard work! The right tools definitely makes it easier, but between overgrown kikuyu grass, driving and digging into dry, hard earth, and being outdoors under the beating sun, you’ll work up a sweat for sure! What’s more, it can be a little hazardous, so I highly recommend safety glasses (anyone say wire
flicking into eyeballs?), gloves and hearing protection (steel hitting steel is extremely loud!).

PREPARATION

We started by removing all the old fences using a combination of wire cutters, pliers and a screwdriver for the U-nails embedded in the timber posts, together with good old fashioned elbow grease! The fact that they were stuck fast with overgrown kikuyu meant a shovel to cut into the ground layer was necessary. At some points we even needed to chain it to the ute and pull it out that way! This was definitely the hardest part, so the lesson is…

A lot of the existing chicken wire mesh was sagging and therefore stretched, and the fence wires had degraded (or weren’t great quality to begin with), so we actually discarded most of it. The fence posts were a combination of hardwoods and pine – the former were kept for other uses, while the pine was rubbish we dumped in a hole where the landowner was trying to regenerate eroded areas.

As we were actually moving the boundary line of the chicken run, we needed to set out string lines to both measure and mark the new boundary perimeters, as well as provide us a straight line to work to.

THE SUPPORTING STRUCTURE

Next it was time to dig new post holes for the box ends andother end posts. More thirsty work! In our case we dug down about 600mm which doesn’t sound like much until the ground is rock hard and full of stones. Once dug out, we lowered in the square hardwood timber posts into the centre of each hole, checked for plumb, and held it in place with temporary stays (or braces).

Time for tamping. You can fill the post holes with concrete, but that wasn’t our method. We simply added layers of soil (and sometimes rocks, and even some lime to harden up the earth), and tamped it using the end of a crowbar, until it filled up to almost level with the surrounding ground, then wet it down by hosing it.
  
Our main fences were going to be 1800mm high so we were stringing up 5 lines of fence wire, with the 3 middle ones doubling back to also act as a climbing trellis for the rose bushes just outside the enclosure. We attached a header piece across the top of each set of posts to create the ‘box end’ structure. This is mostly for aesthetics, although it also provides extra strength to the fence.

Hardwood timbers are, well….hard! The dense fibres make drilling or cutting into them more difficult, so high torque, lower speed and strong drill bits are required. Also, the drill holes easily clog with debris, and you have to constantly clear them during the drilling. Be careful not to scorch the timber with overheated drill bits!

Each of the star pickets in between the box ends needed to be driven into the ground at roughly equal intervals. The more supports, the stronger the fence. You can probably drive in the star pickets with a sledgehammer, but it can be a bit dangerous, especially at 1.8m high! Thankfully we had a star picket driver (and a tool for removing too).

Time for the fence to start taking shape. We rolled out the fence wire from a spool of several hundred metres and fastened it to one end post, and strung it along the fence line through the star pickets.

Once in place, it was time to tighten (or ‘tension’) them. Fencing was revolutionised by a device called a gripple. It requires comparatively little strength and can be strategically placed to tension the wires over a large distance.

THE FINAL TOUCHES

There’s not much point in an open fence, so the final step is attaching the mesh to the wires. We used some chicken wire, attaching it using a clipping tool powered by an air compressor (very easy and quick!). We also attached an overlapped skirting of more rigid rabbit wire at the bottom to keep out feral animals– foxes, snakes, dogs that might attack the chooks – and rabbits or native animals from taking up residence.

LESSONS LEARNED

Building the fence took over a week with two people working on it. I can’t remember the length, but probably over 100m in total. For sure the longest part was the preparation – especially warring with the kikuyu! – and digging the post holes. I wished we had a bobcat with an auger to drill them, but it wasn’t to be. Refilling them and tamping was tiring, or maybe I’m just a soft city chick. 😊

The biggest takeaway with building a fence is that you definitely can’t underestimate the importance of getting the posts in line, at the right height, and plumb. This is truly the secret to a quality, long-lasting and effective fence!