Farm fences, aka welded wire fence, cattle fence, barb wire fencing, livestock fencing, etc are a fact of life when living with land. We wanted our children to be able to safely play in front of our house without us worrying about them wandering into the road or people wandering in.
Our welded wire fence and gate have been installed for 5 years now and have aged exceptionally well. There are no sagging or tilted posts, even after a hurricane. The fence has kept our kids in and at times, people out. If you have a property without a front farm style fence, what are you waiting for? I would install again in a heartbeat.
What do you need to build a farm fence with a drive gate?
My priorities were to build good looking farm fence that would remain properly aligned for at least 2 decades and also would not break the bank. My search online turned up conflicting results about how to brace end posts, spacing between posts, putting tar on the posts, using concrete, covering the tops of posts, etc. As an chemical engineer, math teacher, and physics teacher, I would like to share the techniques I used and most importantly, any mistakes I made or avoided.
We successfully installed our farm fence in December 2012. Shortly after, we automated the gate. The farm fence installation is labor intensive, but nothing outside of your ability. Cost for 161 ft of farm fence with automatic gate came to under $1000.
Most of the large items you need are available at your big box home stores(fencing, hardware, posts) or local feed stores (gate & hardware, fencing, posts). A few of the smaller, more specialized items (barbed fencing nails, spike nails, gate bolt hinges, etc) are cheaper or only found online.
Ready to build you farm fence?
7 Mistakes to avoid when installing a fence
Building a farm fence – Posts, bracing, and fence material
Installing an Automatic Drive gate
