Gotta Getta Betta Fence

Well, it looks like the deer knocked my electric fence down again last night. This is the one that keeps the cows home. All it is is a single strand of 12 gauge steel electric fence wire held up on rebar posts. It works great almost all of the time. The trouble is that the deer have a hard time seeing it at night so they knock it down from time to time. The cows know where the fence is so they tend to get out during the day, when they can see that the fence isn't up. I usually have some kids in tow so we've ended up chasing cows with the minivan from time to time. This morning was one of those times. I have been cutting fenceposts this winter, so my days of fence failures should be numbered. My neighbor had a post driver that mounts on the 3 point hitch of his tractor, so when he is done with maple syrup and cleaning his sap lines I'm going to get him to come over and pound the posts in. A couple of years ago I put 2 strands of high tensile fence around the perimeter of one side of the farm. It's great stuff. The deer can't hurt it, and because you can stretch it so tight you don't need nearly as many posts. I spaced those posts 100 feet apart, and we have never lost a cow through it. 50 feet would probably be a little better. One of my goals is to have a barbed wire free farm in the near future. Barbed wire is a lot harder on the people who have to work on it than it is the animals its supposed to keep in. They love to scratch on it and end up stretching the fence out so it won't hold anything. If I had the replacement cost for all the clothes I've torn and bandaids I used because of barbed wire I could buy all the high tensile fence supplies I need to fence this farm.