When you own a small acreage with animals it is imperative that you have good fencing.  Not to just keep animals in but to keep animals out of each others pens.  Predators will have a harder time getting to your animals with a good fence.

Torn out, fixed and built many different kinds of fence.

A fox was stealing our chickens so we put up a fence.  He hasn’t been back this year.  Of course we got a miniature guard donkey so that helped.

Our grove needed to get eaten down.  A hot wire fence was installed to keep the cows in the grove.  However, Emma doesn’t care about them and broke out anyway!   I would like to be able to put the goats in there to eat the weeds and plants they love.  A different fence will have to be built a few feet away from the hot wire on our property line.  That fence has been there over a hundred years and it has grown into so many trees.  That went on the list for next year. HA!  No more fences this year.

The best implement we have purchased is a three-point auger that goes on the PTO of the tractor.  Without it we would be lost and exhausted.  I couldn’t imagine digging all those holes by hand.

The fence above was the longest wood post fence we put in from beginning to end.  It took a lot longer than I thought it would.  My animals love it.  So in the end it was worth all the work.  All my animals can use that pasture because of the kind of fencing we installed.

 

The fence above was built to make pens for specific animals.  To keep them from getting out.  We used cattle panels instead of our regular fence.  Most of farming is learning from your mistakes!  Well our kids (baby goats) taught us a lesson.  Now we will have to put up an overlap on the bottom to keep them from going into the pens.  They keep visiting the pigs and eating their food.

After many tries the bucks were secure and haven’t broken out in a couple of months. That is how we ended up with deliveries in the middle of this past summer.  UGH

Fencing is never done.  Once you install it you have to maintain it.

You may ask why the wood posts and the fence we choose.  The answer to that is I want my farm to look nice.  It is functional and pretty.  I want visitors to come and see a beautiful place to relax and enjoy the animals.  I may drive my husband crazy over how perfect I want it but when we get compliments he realizes why we spend a little more on fencing than most farms.