Fencing

Fencing is a built boundary of posts and wire (or other material) used to contain livestock, exclude predators and unwanted wildlife, or mark a property line.

Inputs

• Materials: posts (wood, metal, or composite) strung with woven/welded mesh wire, smooth wire, or barbed wire; posts are typically spaced about 3.7 m apart along the line, with vertical stays sometimes used between posts to maintain wire spacing on wider spans.¹
• Wire height and spacing (interior cattle/sheep fencing, adapted from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department): for cattle or horses, 4 wires from about 40-45 cm (bottom, smooth) up to 100-105 cm (top, smooth), with two barbed wires between; for sheep, 4 wires from 25 cm up to 80 cm.¹
• Exclusion fencing to keep out deer and elk should be 2.1 to 2.4 m tall, with a highly visible top wire or rail.¹

Type

• Barrier

Functions

• Predator exclusion

Footnotes

1. Minimizing Impacts to Wildlife from Livestock Infrastructure, NREM-9028 | Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service (Kauffman, Elmore & Goodman, 2019) ↩ ↩² ↩³