Deer fencing for beginners

[Spruce Pirate]

3 hours ago, MattyF said:

£500 for every 200 tubes and stakes , probs cheaper to fence ?

Don't know?  Haven't done either for ages, but small areas used to be cheaper to tube than fence and 200m isn't going to fence a very big area therefore I assumed it wouldn't be that many tubes and might be cheaper.  Last time I bought 4' stakes was spring this year and they were about 50p each.  That leaves quite a lot for tubes but like I say I'm out of touch with prices for both tubes and stakes and deer fencing.  It also depends on planting density obviously.

 

Just thought it was worth asking the question.  There could be a lot of other reasons for preffering to fence or not to fence.

[drinksloe]

5 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

I guess there might be an argument that square posts last longer- being cut out of the heartwood- rather than cundys which are basically the shit sappy top of the tree. I’ve seen a lowland  contractor try and twist square 5x3s for post and rail up here on  Dartmoor- didn’t end well for the posts. They’d snap rather than twist and it ended up looking like a dogs dinner.

 

I mind doing a pipeline fence down that sort of area  years/decades ago and it had loads of post and rail in horsey areas, boss ended up going with un pointed posts and they seemed to twist less, think they battered stone out the way if they could rather than twist.

That was using sumas so plenty of grunt to batter in flat bottom posts.

But like u say once they get a twist on ur never going to turn them straight by hand.

I'm sure the new suma's have a ram to turn posts, how many it turns and how many it snaps would i have no idea, mibbe help keeping them straight in the 1st place which is half the battle.

 

Must admit in the past i always liked cundy posts and thought they had a slightly harder skin than the same sized machine rounded, but the sawmill we always used was a proper old fashioned mill where timber was cut and stored to dry under tarps for treating.

He stopped doing cundys as couldnt do them cheap enough the way he was doing them, his square sawn timber is still 1st class thou.

Nowadays the cundys are bloody massive seen smaller turning posts can hardly mel them nowadays.

 

As for the OP i meant to say i wouldnt bother with ur auger unless for strainers.

Lot of work packing posts to get them tight, just not worth it for intermediate posts

Also a tirfor for pulling wires would be a pain, if u always have other fencing jobs to do buy a set of wire pullers (either drivall or hayes are the best in my opinion) and if ur using stock net u can make urself a clamp easily if u can weld, but i know 1 squad still use an ancient crappy timber clamp to pull the net, no idea why as their boss owns a fencing shop so could easy have a brand new clamp.

Just steeple 2 bits of Re bar on 1 side of clamp and a single bit in the middle of the other piece and 3 or 4 bolts with handles welded on so u dont need spanners.

If u make a clamp and can get access to the strainers with ur tractor many pro fencers will pull net with there tractor and clamp

[woody paul]

Have put loads of unpointed posts in and they definitely twist less then pointed. 

You can twist then straight by hand but need to be loosened a bit first by wiggling them about with thumper.