Fencing School

On September 16th we held our second Fencing School at ESF.  We had 17 producers present and some of them were from as far away as Whitley County and we even had one producer from Ohio. It was another good field day thanks to our sponsors, Southern States (who donated some of the wood posts) and Jeremy McGill with Gallager and Buddy Rowlett with Stay Tough fence, along with Clint Quarles who lead a discussion about fencing laws.  We spent the morning in the extension office talking about everything from fence laws and responsibility, to different types of fence and electric fence systems.

We then spent the afternoon at the farm showing the producers how to build a proper H brace, how to stretch woven wire and high tensile fence.  There was also a lot of interest in tying high tensile fence knots. So that the fence line was ready, Greg and I spent a couple of days before the school tearing out the old fence and driving the post for the new fence.

We also had to clear out some cedar trees that had grown up into the existing fence row.

This is with the old fence and trees cleared out and ready to start putting post back in.

Now that we have the post up and the wire layed out we are ready for the fencing school participants to help us stretch it tight and steeple it to the post. But first we built an H brace and showed them how to tie the wire off at the brace so that we can stretch the fence from the middle. Buddy drilled the holes for the pins that will hold the metal pipe brace in place.

The producers got right in there and helped tie the knots and put the brace up.

After the brace was built and the wire tied off, Jeremy talked about installing a high tensile offset to have electric on the inside of the fence to keep the cattle from rubbing on the woven wire.

The next step was to stretch the fixed knot woven wire from the center and then splice it back together. They stretched it from the middle so we would have equal amounts of pull from both sides of the fence.

After the woven wire was tied back together it was time to tighten the high tensile offset electric wire.

I would like to thank Jeremy McGill & Buddy Rowlett for their help in teaching this fencing school. The participants gave us positive feedback and said that the day was well worth their time. We are also pleased to get a nice looking fence put up while helping to educate Kentucky producers.