Favorite Equipment / Devices?

[Does’ Leap]

It seems that many of us make a living either farming or logging and I am interested to hear what equipment and or devices folks use to make their lives easier. Here are a couple of mine – one purchased and one made:

We have our goats on a 12 hour pasture rotation. So after each milking we are taking down and setting up anywhere from 2 to 4 net fences – multiply that over the growing season and we log a lot of hours handling fence. I have purchased a number of different net fences (Premier, Gallagher, etc.) and Kencove stands out above the rest for ease of handling, ability to stand up straight, and longevity. We use a 40 inch fence for our goats with a step-in post (essential). These are not only the best fences I have used over the past 10 years, but the cheapest ($100 for 165’). So any of you with small ruminants needing fence might consider these fences (http://www.kencove.com).

We use the net in conjunction with high tensile fence. This is convenient because we can use the high tensile for 1 or more sides of our paddock. However, we often have to set up fence in the middle of the field necessitating moving power from the high tensile to the net. This is the same when we set up poly wire for horses, pigs, cattle etc. Tired of setting up posts and poly wire to get power to the nets I coil single conductor, multistranded #14 wire around a plastic extension chord reel ($8 at a hardware store). I drill a hole through the sidewall of the plastic chord reel to expose an inch bare wire tied with a knot so it doesn’t pull back through. I then coil 150’ of #14 wire around the reel and attach a battery clip on the end (see picture). When I need to get power to a fence I simply clip on to my power source (high tensile, battery powered energizer, etc.) and reel the insulated wire on the ground until I reach my fence. I then take a short piece of wire with 2 clips (see picture) to clip from my reel to my fence. Since the wire is insulated, it is run on the ground and the double ended clip at the fence serves as a switch.

Hope this was intelligible.

George

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