Cattle and fences

What is it with cattle and fences? *sigh* I've had more fence work this past weekend.

First to be fixed was the hayfield fence that runs along the road. From the yard to the gate, which is almost half way in the hayfield, dad had added two rows of 2x4 boards to the three strand barb wire fence. I guess since this was a hayfield and not pasture fence the original owners felt three, and not four, strands was sufficient for the fence.

Since the fence wasn't built to have fence posts at the ends of the boards, the boards would join together between fence posts. Time passes and boards age. Yup, the boards easily come apart now.

After my hike in Glacier Park last Friday I came home to find quite a number of boards with one end in the air and the other on the ground and the middle of all but a few of these cock-eyed boards still attached to a fence post. The cattle didn't get out as the original three strand barb wire fence still stood.

In a perfect world I would take the fence down and build a new one. This is not a perfect world so Saturday afternoon was fence repair day. I found short odds & ends of boards and nailed them to the 2x4 fence boards to re-join them. Not the prettiest, but it works. My repair job has held so far. Ask me again after my next hike. While the cat is away the mice will play.

The other fence repair was to the patio fence on Sunday. Again it was the cattle that broke it. A rebuild of the patio fence has been on my long to-do wish list since I got here. The people who originally built the patio and fence made one mistake. The fence is just outside of the patio roof so the rain water from the roof falls on the fence on one side. Add in many years and you get a rotting fence.

This summer the cattle have slowly been dismantling the patio fence. Along the patio fence is one of their siesta spots. What I find is that not all cattle feel like taking a siesta. Bored, they will fiddle around with stuff. The patio fence is short 1x8 boards standing up-and-down attached to long 2x4 boards. (The only vertical fence I have.) The cattle have been taking some of the rotting 1x8 boards off the fence here and there. Not enough to get through - but they are working on it!

The damage to my patio fence was because I wanted to avoid the breaking of my far backyard/hayfield fence. The cattle love the apples so much they push and strain to be the one to get the most apples. Almost 20 cattle that weigh 600 - 900 lbs against that little fence (again not built with cattle in mind) and I have seen the fence really bow towards me as I fed apples. Whoa!

So I decided to go over to the fence west of the house. The cattle were so excited they rushed over. The patio is carved out as a rectangle from the hayfield and as the cattle came they tried to cut the corner and snagged the corner of the patio fence tearing the south part of the fence away from the west part of the fence.

I had to get a short 2x4 board and nail the corner together again. That worked for a day. I had left my bedroom window open last night to cool the house down. I could hear some of the cattle sleeping in the hayfield outside my window as they were breathing deeply. I guess not all cattle felt like sleeping the night away! Bored cattle were up to no good last night trying to take my patio fence apart again. Today I noticed the patch job was coming apart and I had to fix it again.