T-post Insulators

[will-max dairy]

I'm "recovering at work" from a day of tuning up a length of T-Post electric fence.

I'm way behind for... reasons... but anyway... I could just about build this fence from scratch faster than I can tune it up.

It's two wire electric, and heavy snow last winter means that just about every bottom insulator is still clinging to the post, but the wire has broken out of it. Which means that the wire is laying on the ground, underneath matted vegetation from last winter.

(note that the 40V hedge trimmers that I bought have come in handy... I'm not sure where I would be without them)

But, even in relatively snow free winters, I replace a high percentage of them. The clip parts (whatever mechanism holds the wire) break off very easily. The ears that wrap around the post seem to embrittle and break off after just a couple years.... I thought that what I call the "black pin" types with a little pop-in retainer were the answer, and they are tougher than the yellow... but last year's snow just broke the lower lips on them.

The "lock jawz" type? About twice as much money. Don't grip the post worth a hoot. Had about 30% replacement rate for clip breakage after one year without snow being a problem. Just seems that they embrittle and crack for no particular reason.

I don't know.

The Amish around me use a lot of T-posts, but only with four wire barbed.

Maybe they are onto something.

 

[JMOR]

I use 5 stands of barbed wire and a strong post ever X number of T-posts.

 

[will-max dairy]

I use 5 stands of barbed wire and a strong post ever X number of T-posts.

On our owned property I use a more permanent build, I use wooden posts. 4 strands, top barb, bottom barb, two electric in the middle. There are fairly durable insulators for wooden posts. Especially corners, you can get porcelain screw ins. The black plastic C-shaped screw ins for line posts... also suffer from similar embrittlement problems as T-post insulators. But there are some good nail-in choices... or if you think ahead and load the line with the rubber tube insulators and staple over them... they last and hold well. But... good luck replacing them, unless you want to cut, run the tube on, resplice, etc.

The T-posts are on rented land... which I thought was going to solar panels, so I never really "permanent-ized" the fence with barbed wire.

Barbed wire has its own unique problems with snow load around here, but none of the retaining methods are plastic, which... just seems to embrittle way too quickly for my taste, even though the bags say "UV resistant"...

I like the look of a good... 4 or 5 strand barbed fence...it looks permanent. But I still like that first small paddock at spring turnout (we call it "The Probation Paddock") to be hot as blazes. That's where we use the 2 barbed, 2 electric construction.

 

[john in la]

Perimeter fence is 3 ft hog wire with 1 or 2 strands of barb wire on top.
Interior fence is 4 strands of barb wire.
Bull yard is pipe or wood with escape spots.
Electric fence is only used as temporary section off interior fence and is picked up when not in use.
I use the screw on insulators. They work fairly well.

 

[will-max dairy]

Perimeter fence is 3 ft hog wire with 1 or 2 strands of barb wire on top.
Interior fence is 4 strands of barb wire.
Bull yard is pipe or wood with escape spots.
Electric fence is only used as temporary section off interior fence and is picked up when not in use.
I use the screw on insulators. They work fairly well.

I have one bag of the screw on type from our local TSC. I used about three of them... and took them off of the posts...they don't bite tightly enough and can slide up and down the post.

It's almost as if some of the manufacturers are guessing about the profile of a T-post... selling the experiments... and waiting for complaints or sales to plummet to realize that they don't work... lol

 

[farmersamm]

Okay Pilgrim..............I'm gonna rescue you from the Wilderness

If we accept the axiom that electric fences REALLY don't work..........we can proceed.

With our bazillions of neurons, we need to be smarter than the insulator...........I bet a dog would be.

It' doesn't matter a whit what kind of T post you're dealing with. The geniuses at the wire mill have provided us with fence wire. The handyman's friend. WIRE THAT PUPPY UP IF IT SLIDES, OR OTHERWISE REFUSES TO COOPERATE.

OMG...........................................WHAT'S THAT SLOT DOING THERE?????????????????? Blasphemy!!!!

Well GEEE WHIZ..................you can remove wire from that corner post without having to pull miles of wire through the hole that the factory provided. The Lord made the angle grinder for a reason.........not just making Guacamole Dip. Works with wire, as well as rope.

Think outside the box. Be the fence...............................and more importantly......................be the cows. This electric fence crap is only good for flash grazing, or holding animals on Winter Wheat.............because I'm gonna tell ya...............if there's grass beyond that fence, and they ate up all the grass on the inside of the fence............They's gonna tear it down. They will nonchalantly walk right through it.

 

[farmersamm]

Sammy's Golden Rule.

A fence is only as good as the grass(any kind of barbed/electric fence)
And only if the neighbor's bull isn't on the other side of it.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Fences are like locks they just keep the honest folks honest and they keep the meek cattle in the rest are out looking for whatever they can find.

 

[will-max dairy]

We generally have good..."compliance" from our herd. We graze rotationally, and many times (not all)... the paddock that we are putting them into looks better than what's on the other side of the fence.

When we do have "non-compliance," it's usually where the pasture borders a hay field.

Just tuned up another section yesterday afternoon a length of exactly that... fence bordering a hayfield. Bush hogged both sides last week, so there was only a strip of vegetation under the fence itself... got through a span of about 50 posts... 3 hours... about two thirds of that time using the hedge trimmers to level the strip of vegetation, the other hour was spent replacing about 60 insulators and splicing the bottom wire in three places. Two from accidental cuts with the hedge trimmer... one was a natural break that occurred over the winter.

The hedge trimmers DO work really well, better than a weed eater or chain saw. Just maybe a little bit under-powered running from 40V battery. The noise and fumes of a 2-stroke version would be a pain... but I bet they would cut about as fast as I can move them.

 

[will-max dairy]

Okay Pilgrim..............I'm gonna rescue you from the WildernessView attachment 119358

If we accept the axiom that electric fences REALLY don't work..........we can proceed.

With our bazillions of neurons, we need to be smarter than the insulator...........I bet a dog would be.

View attachment 119359
It' doesn't matter a whit what kind of T post you're dealing with. The geniuses at the wire mill have provided us with fence wire. The handyman's friend. WIRE THAT PUPPY UP IF IT SLIDES, OR OTHERWISE REFUSES TO COOPERATE.

View attachment 119360
View attachment 119361
OMG...........................................WHAT'S THAT SLOT DOING THERE?????????????????? Blasphemy!!!!

View attachment 119363
View attachment 119364
Well GEEE WHIZ..................you can remove wire from that corner post without having to pull miles of wire through the hole that the factory provided. The Lord made the angle grinder for a reason.........not just making Guacamole Dip. Works with wire, as well as rope.

Think outside the box. Be the fence...............................and more importantly......................be the cows. This electric fence crap is only good for flash grazing, or holding animals on Winter Wheat.............because I'm gonna tell ya...............if there's grass beyond that fence, and they ate up all the grass on the inside of the fence............They's gonna tear it down. They will nonchalantly walk right through it.

View attachment 119365

For "free corners", like what you're showing... I like the good old porcelain doughnuts. But I generally have few of them. Most corners are done with 7' cedar posts, braces and ties... and then I'll use the big porcelain screw-ins to hold the wire.

 

[will-max dairy]

More than once... I've considered whether we should do the long lines of T-posts that are in and bordering the hayfield... by building really good braced cedar corners with screw-in porcelain insulators... and essentially re-doing the long lines between from scratch every summer. Bale all the lines first in June by taking, say... three haybine swipes along them... then gather up the T-posts and reset them. Go out in the fall... spool the wire, pull the T-posts... pile it up in the corner... leave it until next summer...

I've done thought experiment "time studies" on that many times...

 

[johnnmr]

I miss Red Snap'r brand t post insulators. Could remove them 1 handed and could almost install them 1 handed as well. All that is around anymore is the style that wraps almost all the way around the t post but that only happens in hot weather.

 

[Ray,IN]

I wonder who first said: "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"? We had a very large Charolais bull, wherever it wanted to go, it did, if any fence was in the way he ran through it. One time he was coming straight at me from the other side of the fence. I fired my pistol into the ground at the wire, he was unphased and I got out of the way in time. His destination, the adjoining farmers cows in heat.
BTW that 30 yr old fence was woven wire with barbed strand top and bottom, posts were cross-ties.

 

[Fred Werring]

I'm "recovering at work" from a day of tuning up a length of T-Post electric fence.

I'm way behind for... reasons... but anyway... I could just about build this fence from scratch faster than I can tune it up.

It's two wire electric, and heavy snow last winter means that just about every bottom insulator is still clinging to the post, but the wire has broken out of it. Which means that the wire is laying on the ground, underneath matted vegetation from last winter.

(note that the 40V hedge trimmers that I bought have come in handy... I'm not sure where I would be without them)

But, even in relatively snow free winters, I replace a high percentage of them. The clip parts (whatever mechanism holds the wire) break off very easily. The ears that wrap around the post seem to embrittle and break off after just a couple years.... I thought that what I call the "black pin" types with a little pop-in retainer were the answer, and they are tougher than the yellow... but last year's snow just broke the lower lips on them.

The "lock jawz" type? About twice as much money. Don't grip the post worth a hoot. Had about 30% replacement rate for clip breakage after one year without snow being a problem. Just seems that they embrittle and crack for no particular reason.

I don't know.

The Amish around me use a lot of T-posts, but only with four wire barbed.

Maybe they are onto something.

That's weird. I don't have near those problems with those pin type insulators.
I run a fair amount of 2 wire (high tensile) electric on steel posts, 25ish feet apart with the black pin insulators. Dare brand IIRC.
Single H brace on the ends, bottom wire 15-18" off the ground.
Don't remember where you're located, I'm southern Ohio, you must get a lot more snow/cold that I do?

 

[will-max dairy]

That's weird. I don't have near those problems with those pin type insulators.
I run a fair amount of 2 wire (high tensile) electric on steel posts, 25ish feet apart with the black pin insulators. Dare brand IIRC.
Single H brace on the ends, bottom wire 15-18" off the ground.
Don't remember where you're located, I'm southern Ohio, you must get a lot more snow/cold that I do?

They are still stronger than the yellow clip type, but last year's snow was too much for the black pin insulators in many areas of our fence.

 

[will-max dairy]

I miss Red Snap'r brand t post insulators. Could remove them 1 handed and could almost install them 1 handed as well. All that is around anymore is the style that wraps almost all the way around the t post but that only happens in hot weather.

Hot weather helps. The latest version of the yellow clip-ons from TSC has a little zigzag on the part that grabs the back of the post. It provides a little extra flex and makes installation a little easier. But, even with them, I've adapted a little procedure where I'll prestretch that clip before trying to install it on the post.