Barbed vs. high tensile wire

[Bruce14]

The question below got me to wondering if any of you have experience and thoughts to share on barbed vs. high tensile/electric fences.

[magpie]

We have used high tensile wire and barb and will never go back to barb. we have ripped out the old barb fences and replaced with tensile.One is forever fixing barb fence,seems to break more so under pressure from cattle or winter snow in our area. Not so with tensile,put a good fencer with lots of ground rods and cows won't go near it once the get jolted. It is faster to put up than barb and you use less posts and your gloves will be in better shape lol. Try it

[cswilson]

I build all our new fence with high tensile-the higher pressure areas I use 6 wires but that will keep cattle in with no power on it in the winter.

[WoolyBear]

Gripples or the fancy knot? Which do you use for joining wire at the anchor end?

I use the Gripples........faster, and I can't figure out the knot if my life depended on it.

[cowman]

Well personally I can't stand high tensile wire and messing around with electricity, but then I'm an old timer and don't buy into a lot of these new fangled ideas!
The boy did this rotational grazing thing on 67 acres and he ran high tensile to split it into 6 paddocks. I got "fried" one day and I'll tell you those souped up fencers give you quite a shot!
Give me a nice "singing tight" four wire barbed fence anyday and you can keep that springy high tensile!

[cswilson]

I use gripples mostly or Gallagher Inline tightners-we raise some rough stock and I find smooth wire electric works best for them.

[wd40]

You can have every pound of HT wire for picking it up around here.

[kato]

We use high tensile to divide paddocks, but still have the perimeter done in barb wire. For splitting the corn field up into parcels we use that stringy stuff (I can't remember the proper name LOL), and temporary posts. It seems to work just as well.

One thing about high tensile is it's a real hazard around a horse that doesn't know what it is! We've seen some really bad leg injuries where the wire has peeled the skin back from the hock to the hoof just like peeling a banana. These things take months to heal.

First time my horse was in a paddock with this wire, he walked right through the fence without seeing it, and flipped himself over on his back. Luckily he only had about a four inch long flap of skin to deal with, mostly due to the fact that he was walking when he wiped out. If you're going to use it around horses, make sure they learn under supervision just where it is, and just what it is.

[cswilson]

I put on a couple pretty good bronc rides over the years with horses touching the hot wire lol-All our horses will step over it if you hold it down for them but it takes a bit of coaxing lol.

[cowman]

So I wonder if some of this lighter wire works okay for electric fences? We used this old springy stuff that we had lying around in a big roll and it is a pain to work with! But maybe that light 17 gauge stuff would be okay?

[cswilson]

I'd stick with 12 1/2 gauage myself-once you learn how tto use smooth wire you can build a lot of fence in a hurry.

[grassfarmer]

I was told to stay clear of the 17 gauge stuff - tends to break and tangle around any passing wildlife. I really like the regular high tensile and fibreglass posts although we need to put in light wood posts when we need to cross fence as there is too much give in the fibre glass. Only disadvantage with the fibreglass is that they degrade after a while and you get shards of it in your fingers unless you use gloves to handle them.

[cowman]

grassfarmer: Have you ever tried the re-bar type post? Visited a rotational grazing setup where the guy said he tried it all and found the re-bar the most cost effective and durable solution. We put in light wood posts but think the re-bar would be more handy as they are easy to pull out and put in.

[WoolyBear]

I used rebar and cut 6, 40" pieces for a cost of just over $1 each. If I ever have a pail of orange paint open sometime, they will all get painted orange. You sure wouldn't want to miss one and put it through a tire. Fiberglass splinters in my hand was enough reason to change to rebar. Speedrite has a good insulator, but so does everyone else. I used Gallagher twine on a hand reel (600M) and that was about $115/unit.

[grassfarmer]

Never used rebar Cowman, we got a bundle of light (2.5"?)wood posts when they were on sale at @60-70 cents which is the cheapest option I've seen. Of course I was talking about what I use on the permanent field divisions - we use plastic step in posts on the daily crossfencing. Thus ease of movement isn't an issue with the wood or fibreglass posts other than to replace the odd damaged one. Catching the fibreglass posts with the edge of the harrows is the usual culprit in their demise.