Post and Wire
Jonathan >
After nine years, work on fencing the boundary of our croft (and divisions between fields) is at last nearing completion
Here, where the fence between Bothy Field and High Field meets the west boundary fence, there’s –
- 1 No 6in x 6in straining post (the long upper length still to be cut down, now that the temporary holding-down wire has been cut away)
- 3 No 4in x 4in struts – or rather there will be three of them, the third has now to be retro-fitted.
- 21 No 3.1mm plain wires of galvanized high tensile steel
- 12 No 2.5mm plain wires of galvanized high tensile steel
- also 3 hold-down wires, 5 buried anchor and reaction posts, 33 t-clip gripples, 35 medium gripples, 12 egg insulators, 12 ring insulators …
Straining post and wires … and trees
Straining post and wires.
It ain’t pretty … but then it doesn’t need to be – it just needs to work!
Which it should do, with all the work I’ve put into it!
Unfortunately, as soon as I’ve finished the new fencing – some time next year, I have to set about replacing all the fencing at Eight Askernish – which will probably won’t be fully complete until the year after : I just can’t afford the time to focus exclusively on a single job until it is finished.
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That is a heck of a lot of pieces and parts!
I take it that this should keep the sheep in and intruders out?
Is it electrified? If so you could charge high hair salon prices for giving people permanents the electric way. That could be a great way to use your croft to bring in a little extra money.
J > For our circumstances, the fencing is mostly to keep our sheep in, and others’ sheep out. Intruders : well there’s a general ‘right to roam’, and it is not permissable to prevent bona fide walkers : however it is legitimate to deter them from crossing fences by climbing over then (which some do very roughly – resulting in expensive damage), and encouraging them instead to use the gates which we’ve provided at intervals for wakers – at significant expense. It’s impracticable, in this terrain, to build a fence made with mesh : instead we use plain wire tensioned very highly (and so difficult to force apart to get through). However this does not deter adolescent Hebridean sheep : and the three additonal electrified wires at the bottom half of the fence is to ensure they only try to get out once (usually it will be brief contact with their nose – they’ll jump back involuntarily – and never try again!). There’s an electric wire offset from the top of the fence too : officially this is to teach cattle and horses not to press down on the top of the fence with their heads and long necks, but unofficially this is the chief means of encouraging humans to use the crossing points designed for the purpose – ie gates! As for the permanent wave : how do you think our sheep get such lovely crimp in their wool?!
Aha, so that’s your secret to your sheep growing thier crimpy wool! I shall recomend that as a Scottish secret to the many sheep owners and alpaca breeders that I know here in the US. 🙂