A variation of Murphy’s law often favored by geeks is: The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. Today, this proved true of our fencing endeavors.

The task was pretty simple: add a brace post and cross brace to the chicken lot corner post nearest the house. I wanted to time the operation, as I’m building up a time and materials list for this fencing system. The brace post needed to go in the likely path of our well pipe and wiring, but this seemed a small risk. I’m digging a 6″ hole in a 10′ to 20′ area that might have the well pipe, right? Wrong. At exactly one foot I hit a decent root. I didn’t examine it too closely, as building code requires well wiring to be 3′ under ground. Two good strikes with the post hole diggers and the root sheared with a … big spark?

Uh oh.

Obviously I went wrong when I assumed the former owners did anything to code. I’ve ranted about this before–our state fights for draconian building permit requirements as if it protects people from bad work. Who are they kidding? Nobody who’s doing bad work is going to get a permit anyway.

The well pipe was immediately under the cut wire, so the post hole was shifted by 2 inches. I’ll just have to cut the cross brace to fit. I then dug a series of shallow holes on either side of the post to find both ends of the wire. Since we plan to reroute all the well plumbing and wiring anyway before the summer is over, I fixed the well wire temporarily with two lengths of 3 conductor cable and a bunch of wire nuts. The result is shown on the right.

It isn’t pretty, but before anyone gets too worried let me remind you of the pump controller and pressure valve assembly that we inherited with the house.

Slow progress is being made in the future chicken lot area. Lee installed the 6th corner post today and has one more to do before going on to the H-braces. The hot weather, Lee hurting his foot again, and me not being able to help due to some health issues has all conspired to slow down this project.

The future gate placement has been figured out. We are going to put in a 12 foot gate due to the well head being inside the pen. That way if something goes wrong, a repair truck can make it’s way into the chicken pen without any trouble. A post was also put beside the barn in two areas where it will meet up. Lee didn’t want to attach anything to the barn sides as we will be doing barn repairs in the future.

Tonight we set up the fence charger temporarily using a 1″ galvanized pipe as the ground rod and a really long extension cord. I added apple-scented baits to the hot wire, and connected it all up. On dry earth at the far corner, the meter reads 10,000V and makes a pop sound on each pulse.

Bring on the deer.

After we installed the polycord the next day we started to install some of the hot wires. Yes those lovely wires that will keep the deer out and future livestock away from going through the garden.

Lee got to use more new fencing gear so he was excited. I never knew that putting a fence together would require so many different parts. That’s one benefit of doing just high tensile New Zealand type of fencing.  It would go together faster. The down side of New Zealand style fencing is that you can loose livestock though it and it lets predators come in. This was the main reason that we chose the high tensile woven fencing.

First new part Lee got to use is…..the tube insulator. The tube insulator is stapled to the wooden post with the hot wire running though it.

The wraparound insulators are used to tie off the hot wire at the post.

Bull nose insulators are used on the interior corners.

A four and a half foot high H-brace was connected to the gardens seven foot H-brace earlier. This was done because there is going to be a entry gate right off of it. It was put up so we wouldn’t have to stretch woven wire for a few feet off the garden end post. This corner was where the two bull nose insulators were used.

We put two hot wires running down the fence at 16 inches and 47 inches. 16 inches is low enough to prevent sheep from rubbing on the fence but high enough that they could eat the grass below it. 47 inches is below the top of the woven fence but high enough to prevent livestock from climbing or leaning on the fence.

The hot wires are here for livestock but they are also the first line of defense against deer. Scent caps are placed on the highest hot wire to encourage deer to take a sniff and zap themselves. Once they experience that  hopefully they will cease trying to siege the garden.

After we put in the hot wires, we then went about constructing a temporary gate. This gate is ten feet wide, big enough for a truck or tractor to go though. We used two cattle panels and trimmed the ends to size. Right now we just used some wire and hemp rope to tie it to the wood posts. Later on we will make a more permanent gate.

Lee wired the two cattle panels together with wire and let them overlap.

After the gate was up Lee made a temporary connection to run the hot wires together through the fence. Later on he plans on running the hot wire under the fence using double insulated cable though a plastic pipe. He made the connection using split bolts and an insulated wire.

Once we completed this we discovered we couldn’t hook up the electric charger because we didn’t have a long enough extention cord. So the fence is still not hot. One of these days though….

In addition to the woven wire and smooth wire protecting our garden, Lee decided that we needed polycord offset by two and a half inches at the top of our fence. Visually when the deer will walk up to the fence it will look higher because it will lean out over their heads. Not to mention that the black and white stripes will make it very easy for them to see. Polycord actually has tiny metal filaments and is designed to be electrified. We’re thinking about using it for movable pasture subdivide fences at some point in the future, but in this application we’re just using it as a highly visible and durable rope.  There’s no point in electrifying something 7′ off the ground.

First Lee went around and measured where to drill all the holes. After drilling holes,  TuffRing and SplitBall insulators were added.

At the corners a combination of both types were used to form the curve.

Once all the insulators were up then the stringing of the polycord commenced with the polycord spinning jenny Skipper paying out the cord and Lee following hooking it into the insulators.

Next up came using a polycord rope link to tie off along with a rope link attached to a tension spring.  You could just tie a knot, but the rope link acts like Chinese handcuffs and makes a cleaner (and easier to change) connection.

To keep the polycord from fraying a blow torch was used on the cut off ends. For some reason men always seem to like using this tool.

We mentioned a tool called a spinning jenny a few times while describing our fence building process.  This is a rotating carriage that holds a roll of high tensile smooth wire so it can be pulled off in a controlled manner.   Without this device, cutting the ties on a high tensile roll would likely produce a 4000′ slinky.

If I was building a lot of fencing (miles?) I would probably just buy one, but I feel like I’ve already bought so many tools for this fencing project that I might as well try building one with scrap materials.  Most agricultural colleges have articles about high tensile fencing, and they all suggest building a simple reel to hold the wire.  So I tried that, and mounted it in the yard cart for portability:

This design doesn’t work. We pulled about 500′ of wire with it and it was obnoxious.  Loose wires come off and bounce around, the weight of the wire roll (100 lbs) rests on the top point of the reel and THUMP, THUMP, THUMPs each time you turn it.

So, I rethought the design.  Version 2.0 needed bigger arms to contain loose wires so they don’t come off and a horizontal design that keeps the weight off the inside of the reel.  The result was this:

This was a major improvement.  Loops of wire don’t come off accidentally.  The only downside is that it’s harder to transport and still difficult to turn (albeit much smoother).  If I had some scrap casters I might consider mounting them on the bottom plate of the reel so they’d reduce drag.  As it is, someone still has to sit at the reel and turn it by hand while another person walks the wire out.

So, moral of the story: save money where possible by building your own tools, but don’t always expect them to work quite as well.

With the smooth wire up we were ready to start putting up the high tensile woven wire. We chose high tensile woven over conventional soft metal fencing because it is stronger, more resistant to damage, and better coated against rust. Unfortunately, Bekaert, the largest supplier of high tensile woven, is an east coast company and the product selection is limited out here. We eventually had to special order our fencing from a local farm store.

First step is rolling out the wire.

Then some finagling to get the wire on the opposite side of the fence posts. It was rolled out on the other side so it wouldn’t hurt my planted veggies.

Next came wrapping the post with the woven wire and tying it off.

The next several steps take a while as you have to cut  each  square knot and pull off the verticals until you have enough bare line wire to tie back on itself.

Each wire has to be tied into a slip knot down the length of the woven around the wooden post. In the picture below, on the left is the slip knot that terminates the woven line wire. On the right is one of the woven square knots that gives this fencing its strength.

Lee made a homemade stretcher so we wouldn’t have to buy one. This was the first version of that stretcher. We put the fencing in between the boards, bolted it together, and then hooked the two come-alongs to the eyelets on the board on one side and two cables around the post. Then once the fence was nice and tight the tying off process started all over again. After the post was tied off then you could release the come-alongs and unbolt the stretcher. After that we went along and stapled the woven wire on the fence where we wanted it on the posts and wire clipped  it on the T-posts.

This whole process was very time consuming and we only managed to get one of the four woven lengths up per day (working in the evenings). But it is done now. HORRAY! The below picture doesn’t show it well but there really is woven fencing all around. The woven wire is hard to see from a distance when looking straight on. The top three wires on the posts ended up being the most visible on the fence.

With the H-braces completed we were ready to go on to the next step, pulling the top three wires of the garden fence. This process was pretty easy.

Starting out, Lee marked with chalk where each of the wires would be placed using a pre-measured board as a guide.  Sometimes the wire can’t be placed on the mark if it has to cross a wood brace.

Next, we hammered staples at the corners or midpoints.  Just enough to hold the wire but not to create a lot of drag.

We pulled the smooth wire off our spinning jenny, through the staples we’ve put up.  This process went much faster the second day, after we rebuilt the spinning jenny.  When we reached the end of the wire run, we looped it around through a staple, and crimped it.

Back at the start of the run, we added another crimped loop and a strainer ratchet.  The top wire gets a tension spring.  The spring is there to indicate 150 pounds of pull, so you can pull on the wire and check that the others are similarly tight.  It also helps cushion impacts if a deer does try to jump the fence.  We connected the two wires and take out some of the slack.

We walked back around and added staples at posts we missed the first time.  Posts that are at the top or bottom of a hill get a double staple arrangement to resist the pull.  (Like this one.)

We clipped the wire to the T-posts.  The wood posts really hold the wire, so the height at the T-post is mostly determined for us.

At the corners we dropped staples behind the wire to minimize friction when it’s tightened up.

Then, we tightened up the ratchet to the appropriate tension (determined by measuring the spring).  After repeating the process 5 more times the garden top wires are done.

The strength of our fence comes from H-braces, an assembly of three posts and a wire which creates a strong resistance to the lateral force of the fence.  This is important, because each strand of smooth wire transmits about 150 pounds of pressure to the corner posts, and the woven wire causes 300 pounds or more of strain.  There are other ways to brace a fence, but many of them don’t age well and some are harder to construct.  Driving around Oregon gives you plenty of examples of badly installed fences.  If I had really hard soil, I might consider the floating brace.  Otherwise, the H-brace is the way to go.

I was going to discuss the mechanics of an H-brace, but I found a blog post that provides a good overview without being boring like I would.  There are a few important rules of thumb to remember when designing H-braces.  The cross brace length should be 2.5 times it’s height above ground.  Many people put the cross brace at the top of the vertical posts, but for a 4 foot fence this requires a 10 foot brace.  Since 8 foot posts are cheaper, you should put the cross brace 3 to 3.5 foot above ground and rely on the strength of the vertical posts to support the top of the fence.  Also, try to place the cross brace where it won’t interfere with line wires.

For our garden fence (84″) I placed the posts at 59″ above the ground.  For my 10′  cross braces, this only gives me a ratio of 2.0, but I was also trying to site it to avoid the high tensile wires and woven.  12′ cross braces would have been better, but they were spendy and harder to transport.

Anyway, too much talking.  This is supposed to be a picture post about installing an H-brace.  When we left off in the last post, we had installed our corner and brace posts and pinned the cross brace.  The brace post had the tail of it’s brace pin sticking about an inch out and facing “down” the fence line.

First step is to drive two staples about 5 inches above ground level on the back side of the corner post.  Leave these well out of the wood.  You will be threading two wires through them.

Next, pull off 12.5 gauge high tensile smooth wire from your spinning jenny to create two complete loops around the posts.  Thread the wire through the staples at the bottom of the corner post and over the pin at the top of the brace post.  Some people cross the wire to form a figure eight.  I’m going to have high tensile hot wires tied off at the corners and running through that air space, so I kept the loops straight. High tensile smooth wire has a breaking strength of 1700 pounds.  Two loops should double that number.  If using a ratchet to tighten the wire like I am, be sure it ends up on the inside of the fence (away from the woven wire).  I also made sure that my end wire was going “downhill”, but that’s only because I’m a little OCD.

Slide two crimps onto the wire end you’ve been pulling, then add a strainer ratchet.  I suggest buying your crimps and crimping tool from Kencove online.  Local farm stores will hit you for 5x or more the price.  Ratchets are best purchased at Premier1Supplies online.  They are about 2.5x more expensive at farm stores.

Crimp the two crimps.  This is also called “swagging”.  Who knew?

Check that you have sufficient slack and then cut the wire off the spinning jenny.

Thread the newly cut end into the ratchet.  About 1/4″ or less should poke out of the hole, then twist the wire around the ratchet and crank it a bit.

Before you get too carried away, drop two staples over the staples and behind the wire loops at the bottom of the corner post.  This reduces friction  so you can equalize the tension on the loops.

Crank the ratchet to tighten the H-brace.  I probably overtightened mine when I first installed them.  My recommentation is to bring them up good and snug, but don’t really tighten them until you start pulling wire on the fence.  Otherwise you can lean over your braces with this cross wire and nothing to counterbalance it.  Some sources suggest tightening until one of the posts moves a 1/4″.  I think this is probably bad advice.

Here’s what my completed H-brace looked like.

Sometimes you see H-braces with two cross wires in an X pattern.  There are only two reasons to do this: for an inline H-brace in the middle of a long fence and for a corner post that will also support a gate.  Otherwise, the second wire actually works against the brace, adding it’s strain to that of the fence wire and causing earlier failure.

So what have we been doing the last week and a half? Figuring out how to put in a high tensile garden fence. We were supposed to have this all done in the week that Lee had off work but things didn’t work out as we had quite planned. So get ready for a lot of pictures as I bring you step by step through what we have done so far.

First, in overview, our garden fence encloses an area 100′ by 128′.  This protects 14 fruit trees and about 9000 square feet of garden (in rotation).  It will be 7′ high to discourage deer jumping, and have baited electric “scare” wires on all sides but along the public road.  The bait is an apple scent which encourages the deer to sniff, ensuring that the deer’s first experience with our fence is a wet nose touching a wire with 10,000 volts.

The fence has two gates and uses 20 treated wood posts.  We considered other post options, such steel pipe in concrete, but all have environmental positives and negatives.  Wood posts are a proven and reliable technology when installed right.  Most farm and building supply stores in our area sell extremely low grade fence posts.  We were very unhappy with our options until we found a supply of great posts (and the best price) at Tinker Toy Fence Posts in Junction City, OR.

The post hole digger has marks on them so we would know how deep down the hole was. We were burying the posts three feet deep with the corner posts having 120 pounds of concrete in them. The corner posts leaned away from the strain of the fence and were offset one inch for every four feet.

We wrapped the posts with heavy 6mil plastic 3 feet and 2 inches up on the bottom of the post. Why would we do this? Well acording to a study done by the Oregon State University it can double the life of your post.  It also minimizes leaching of the wood treatment (ACQ) into the surrounding soil.

For the end posts that were getting the concrete treament we put nails into the bottom so the concrete would have something to grip into.  Instead of mixing the concrete in a wheel barrel we just poured about 30 pounds at a time into the hole, tamped, and added water.  The idea is that the concrete will wick sufficient moisture from the ground to set up hard enough for fence holding purposes.

The posts were 10 feet tall with 7 feet being out of the ground. We really don’t want the deer in our garden. Here is what the post looked like next to Lee out and in the ground.

Most of the post hole digging went really smooth. Then there were the few that didn’t…… Yes there was some rocks. And some barbed wire under the rocks about 18 inches down. We scratched our heads on that one. There was also a charcoal line that was dug through, toys in the top 6 inches several times, and one horse shoe about a foot underground.

Lee didn’t want to buy a tamper for the holes so he made his own from a piece of Fir tree around our property.

Each corner post was part of an H-brace to resist the pull of the fencing. Here is how we made them. First a hole was drilled 57 inches up the post. The height was chosen to maximize the strength. Lee will probably discuss the reason for this height in a future post. Then a 5 inch brace pin was hammered part way in.

A hole was drilled in the center of the cross brace that would be fitted onto the 5 inch pin. This was done usually with me sitting on the post so it wouldn’t spin on Lee

The cross brace was fitted on the first post.

Next step was getting the cross post level.This was fun sometimes as the posts being uneven made it a challenge.

Once the cross brace was level with the brace post it was then marked with chalk.

Then the chalk mark was measured and a new hole was drilled all the way through the brace post.

Once the hole was drilled then a 10 inch brace pin was hammered just barely through. Basically enough so the cross brace will catch onto it. Once the cross brace was in place then the pin was hammered in leaving an inch of the pin out of the brace post.

Then came the level reading and adjusting of the post as it was filled back in with dirt.

One thing that took us so long was making sure that every post was level. We used wire though a hole in the level to hang them off the post. That way we could keep a constant eye on how we were doing.

In addition to the wood posts, we used 10 T-posts as line posts to support the fence material.  (In retrospect, it would have been stronger and cheaper to use all wood posts of slightly smaller diameter.)  Lee put in the last of the metal T-posts today. They were also 10 feet tall. Lee hated putting them in as they twisted and were a huge pain.

The garden fence posts are all in. Now we will be moving onto the next steps of putting in the fence in the coming week.