FARM FENCING!!

Have you looked at the cost of woven wire fencing?    The price has sky rocketed.  Not to mention that most of it is made in China or some other job-stealing country.  The idea of getting foreign countries to depend on ‘U.S.’ for buying their products has worked too well (i.e. loss of jobs, depression of gross national product, debt, etc).  The only real big ticket items we export are military products (we give food away).

For fixing or improving farm fencing, there is a low cost (other than some elbow grease), green recycling, functionally better, answer.  Cargo pallets! 

Pallets are usually imported forest hardwoods that are very durable and strong.  I get them for free, but you can find them for sale for $2 to $5 per pallet. 

I put two 2x6 treated and coated, one-foot pieces on the bottom of the pallet (to keep the pallet off the ground).  I then stand the pallet up, with the slats vertical, and wire it to the existing fence.

You can buy horse, sheep, goat, etc., no-climb fence, but it's very expensive and hard to install.  The pallets are easy to install and you can do it over time.  The slats, being vertical, make it much harder for the animals to climb to eat bushes, trees, crops or whatever.

One of the problems with animals climbing regular fence is that they break the horizontal stays and open holes in the fence.  Especially nowadays, the galvanization process is not as good or long-lasting as older ‘toxic’ fence material.  If you really want to get anal, you can paint the pallets, but that is a waste of time and money (in short supply for most of us independent farmers!).

If you want to make a stand-alone pallet fence, it is a little more difficult than patching/redoing a fence with lots of holes in it.  You will need fence posts in the ground and more wire or wood between pallets and screw those together – more money, time etc.  But it will be worth it in the long run!  Have fun.