Product Review: High Tensile Fence Wire Strainers

For sometime, I have wanted to share what I have learned from my experiences with products that I use or have used on the farm and how they have worked for me. Jim (a local helper) and I have ran just over five miles of wire this year for an EQIP project to fence out our spring fed creeks. We have used a wide variety of products that I have picked up along the way. One of the earliest things I learned is what I like and dislike in a high tensile wire fence strainers.

In line strainers seem easier to use, but it is a myth

When we started building fence, we used the two different types of inline strainers. The advantage these strainers have is that you do not have to cut the fence wire and insert the strainer. Despite this advantage, I would highly recommend avoiding these strainers. They are much harder to actually get onto to the fence and tightened then you might think. They do not tighten as easily as my recommended strainer style because they do not have a stop on them. You have to keep holding the stainer tight wile you inset the pin they come with or a piece of wire to prevent them from loosening, making them much harder to adjust. I have often found that these strainers are even expensive then the ones I prefer as well. The clunky nature of tightening these strainers means that you can not get them as tight as our preferred strainers and I have had considerable trouble keeping sheep in where these strainers have been used so come spring they will all be replaced (luckily there are only around a dozen of them).

I would highly recommend framed or box strainers

Since I started using these strainers, I have not looked back. I put in about 250 of these strainers this year.
To install them, you have to cut the wire and insert it through the loop end (left side of pictured strainer) and either put on a crimp-sleeve on it or learn to bend high tensile and tie it off (it will save you a crimp sleeve which are $13 cents each).   Then you thread the wire through the spindle (right side of pictured strainer) bend it off and cut it so it does not catch. Lastly tighten the stainer to desired rigidity. The strainer tool (blue hand tool) is essential and inexpensive at less then $5. The best price I have found is from Premier One Supplies over in Washington, Iowa.

We also use the box strainer for holding our corner posts together

So when the weather breaks this spring and you find yourself out fencing, stick to the framed or box strainers and you will be much happier in the long run. I hope you enjoyed this review and stay tuned for more thoughts on products we use.

Hunkering Down & Catching Up

Our first winter storm is rolling over us. We are fortunate that much of it will likely drop north of us. I don't really care for snow. Don't get me wrong it can be lovely, but having it on the ground depresses temperatures a great deal. When you accumulate more then 8 to 10" inches of snow early in winter it usually takes a very long time to melt off and it can hold on all winter (like last winter). I have been racing to get ready for winter. I have cleaned-up the random farming items that littered the yard, dug up the annual bulbs, built most of a sheep shelter (no permanent roof yet), and  hauled in a manure spreader that I purchased a few month back, but never had time to pick-up.

Sheep shelter with temporary roof

Sheep shelter two days ago was just four posts in the ground

I am most happy about getting the sheep shelter functional in time for freezing rain and snow. Jim, from Pella, came out yesterday and we took four posts and got the thing walled up and framed to receive a steel roof. The steel being about the only random farm thing left lying around the yard. If we get a nice day here, we will try to get that steel up on the roof. I would like to build another one of these small loafing sheds yet this year, but with the one, we now have enough space under roof to get all of our sheep some shelter during the worst winter weather.

We dodged a bullet this time, but winter is long and we are bound to have significant snow fall before too long. Thanks for reading. I am going to put up a several farm product reviews for items that we use around the farm, especially fencing items, so look for them in the coming weeks. If you have any farming equipment that you have heard us mention and would like to know how it has worked for us, drop me an email.

You Might Be A Beginning Farmer If...

You might be a beginning farmer if you haul hay to the farm in your livestock trailer.  A 16 foot livestock trailer can haul three medium sized bales. Net wrapped  bales can fit in there a bit better, but if the fit is tight they tend to be tightly packed and give much if any. To unload the trailer, you just back up to a stout post or tree and wrap a chain around it and the bale. Then drive forward and unload.
As a word of advise, it is helpful to wrap a chain around each bale as it goes in. It makes unloading much easier.

Livestock trailers double as hay haulers

You can fit one in the truck bed as well

I have made two of these trips now, hauling 4 bales of hay each time. I have four to five of these trips left to complete to have enough hay to get through the winter. I would like to make it to April 15th before I start grazing. I wish I was not feeding the rented bull for half the winter, but I can't change my current situation. Next year, we have about 27 more grazable acres either coming on line or rented so we should be able to tray to stockpile more grass and avoid feeding so much hay next year. 

You might be a beginning farmer if you go with a local Christmas Tree. We have not put up a tree in years, but with Hazel here, I felt it was time. I went out to the pasture and cut down an Eastern Red Cedar that was still pretty green. They tend to turn a reddish brown as winter sets in. I also looked for a female tree. Cedars are pretty much a weed around here, but they do provide decent cover to wildlife. I try to remove female trees (the ones with the blue berries) to keep down on the seed source. 

Red Cedar Christmas Tree

I know It is a bit sparse, but it has character

If any friends or customers decide they want a tree like our, let us know and I will take you at pasture and send you home with one free. We have a wide variety to choose from. 

You might be a beginning farmer if your livestock get out regularly. It does seem that use beginning farmers are still building much of our farms and that out fences are not always what we want them to be. I have had the pleasure of putting various quantities of sheep back in the pasture about a dozen times in the past 5 to 6 days. I think we have tightened things up to the point that we can keep most our sheep in. On Friday, the sheep sprung the cattle as well so I had to call Janice for help in reining the herd in off my neighbors land. I had to put temporary fence up all around them before I could funnel them back on to our land. 

Putting up temporary fence to break-up the party my cattle & Sheep were having

It was a stressful week, but we are now focused on winter feeding and I think we have things to the point that there should not have any more incidents like this one until Spring. 

If you have other thoughts on what makes you a beginning farmer, feel free to leave them under the comments. 

Where Did November Go?

Well it has been some month. I really never intended to go so long between blog posts, but life gets very busy in Novemebr and we can end up doing about 1/2 of our annual business in the space of about 5 weeks. We are past all of that frenzy now and are working on final preparations for winter and are beginning to look a head at the 2011 production season.

During the blur of deliveries before Thanksgiving, we sold over 150 turkeys, about two lambs, and most of our remaining chicken supply. We had eight freezers running full to the brim of product before deliveries started. You can never have too many freezers, but we are beginning to run out of space for them. Needless to say, we are down to one freezer running these days. We will continue to have product available at the Iowa Food Cooperative and on farm until we run out of supply.

Sheep & Cattle Grazing Stockpiled Forage

On the livestock front, we are still grazing cattle and sheep, but our grass supply is running out. I have just been moving the fences further and further out each day. Unless a blizzard stops us sooner, I will be grazing until the middle of December before we will be completely reliant on hay until mid April. I wish we could stockpile more forage, but our grass grows slowly and rarely exceeds 6 to 8 inches at its maximum height. Someday, we might be able to improve the soil so this is not such a limiting factor.

I am renting a bull to breed our cows right now

We do have an extra mouth to feed for a few months. I have rented a bull from farmer in the area to see to it that we have calves next summer. He is unfortunately, not a belted galloway, but is a BueLingo. BueLingo is a more modern breed created in North Dakota. The BueLingo and Belted Galloway look similar, and share the Dutch Belted Cattle ancestry, but BueLingo also contain Shorthorn and Angus genetics. When it came down to it, I could not get the bull I wanted and I do not have the facilities to artificially inseminate my cattle. Besides the straws of semen alone we going to cost more then just renting this bull close to home. Needless to say, I compromised.

The Last of the Waterway Fence Wire is Strung

The fencing is now in and pretty much done. We ran the last wires over a week ago. I am still working on connecting all the wires at the posts so they can care power with short jumper lines. A few shut off switches are also going to be part of the end design. Other then that, I have some gates to craft to cover a few access points we hardwired into the system.

Hazel pushing the cash box across the floor of the living room

With fewer chores and the reversion to normal time, I am inside a lot more at night and am able to spend more time with Janice and Hazel. I rather enjoy singing Hazel's Lullaby in duet with Janice, even if I have terrible pitch. Hazel is now on solid foods at least once a day, can craw, pull her self up to a standing position, and has cut her first two teeth. She is still a very happy baby and is a great deal of fun to be around. She will likely be walking in the next month or so. I do wonder how I will farm next year with a little helper. I really don't know how it will go, all I do know is that I will find a way.

Well that was most of November. I am looking forward to a quieter December and hopefully some mild weather to allow me to push a few projects that have yet to receive the attention they deserve.

Tumbling into Turkey Time

The farm is marching on into its busy season very rapidly. Fencing is going up, slower then I would like, but there is progress every week. All of the remaining posts are in the ground and braces are built. It is basically a matter of running the remaining wire. That being said, it will likely take me and my super helper Jim a couple of weeks at the rate that we are able to work on the fence, but we are making good progress.

Last Batch of Turkeys Ranging

The weather here has been dry for over two weeks now and it has been great for our poultry. The last batch of chickens and the first batch of turkeys went to the locker a week ago.  The chicken weights are about a pound larger than they have been for some time. I moved the last/second batch of turkeys this year a week ago to range on the orchard. These turkeys are doing very well and get moved about once a week to a new paddock.

We have also teamed up with an Amish family from the Drakesville area to provide additional turkeys for our customers. Their turkeys are from the same source as mine, are raised in pasture pens, and have a similar ration to my ration with the addition of oats (but the same mineral base). We will try to get customers our birds first, but our supply of turkeys raised on this farm is very limited because of the bad weather back in August. 

We did our October deliveries last week to Ames, Des Moines, and Pella; and so now by the end of the week I'm so tired Janice is typing this while I dictate. I also made a trip to Drakesville to pick up some of the Amish birds on Tuesday; now I'm in the market for more freezers. They are very full right now and the new freezer will have to contend for space with some of the windows stored in the corner of the shop.

Planted Nine Fruit Trees

We've added nine trees to the orchard, they were a gift from my mother-in-law. I've been watering them frequently in this dry weather. There are 5 pears, 2 cherries, and 2 apples.

Burning off Brush Piles from Spring

I finally, finally burned off the brush piles from cuttings back in February and March. I burned 7 off today because it's supposed to rain tomorrow and this is the first time it's actually been dry enough to burn these piles. Some of them still have wet ground underneath them even though it's been about 3 weeks since our last rain. I left a couple piles behind for wildlife cover. 

Over the next couple of weeks Janice will be on a business trip for a few days so I'll be watching Hazel more, keeping up with fencing, and trying to market turkeys. I'll be trying to stay ahead of the curve going into fall, stay tuned to find out how well I do with that. 

Going the Distance

It has been about a month since we blogged about farm progress. I have been building fence with every free moment and have been getting a lot of help from Jim in Pella. We have finished fencing out the south waterway, and are now focusing on finishing the south side of the large north draw. The video is a quick pan of the south waterway. Jim and I should have the last of the posts sunk and all the remaining braces built by the end of this week. The goal is to start laying out wire this weekend and to be all done with fencing by the end of October. That is a very high hurdle.

Completed South Waterway Fencing

The chickens and turkeys are all coming along well. This weather has been fantastic. It has been dry for over two weeks now. The local weather station said back when we had 12 strait dry days that it had been over three years since such an event had occurred. Our locker date is next Friday, and I can honestly say that our chickens have not been this large in some time. They are doing great. The turkeys love to attack the cat litter scoop that I use to clean dropping out of the feeder. I took a video of them going after the scoop after one of them picked it up and carried it off.

Turkeys at Play

The sheep and cattle are now working their way onto the neighbor's land. I am renting the 10 acres of pasture to north of us from now until the end of April. It is a pretty rough piece of ground, but after two passes with the sheep and cattle, it should be looking much better.

Recently Rented Ground On the Horizon

I have been moving hay made on the pasture just north of our rented land. It was made by our neighbor to the south of us.  That will give us 19 bales to try to get through the winter with. I think that will carry us from February into mid-April. We will try to graze up until the end of January. That might be possible as long as we do not get a winter like last year.

Moving Hay with our Massey Ferguson 135

On top of all of this, I have an INCA Planning workshop, I will be planting 9 fruit trees, and I will be helping to do some flowering perennial transplant work at our church. Things are never quiet on the farm when we are going the distance. 

A Concern For Beginning Livestock Farmers, A Commodity Grain Bubble

Maybe you have noticed that the price of food at many grocery stores have gone up. These prices increases are linked to an increase in commodity grain prices. Commodity grain prices (Corn, Soybeans, Wheat, rice, etc.) are increasing for several reasons.

The first is climate change. A massive drought in Russia and wet conditions elsewhere are sending wheat prices soaring. As weather has become more volatile (more persistent droughts and more torrential rainfall), grain supplies have become less consistent and prices have become more volatile. Since grains can often be substituted for other grains, they all become volatile when one becomes volatile.

Demand for commodity grains has also increased as populations in developing counties have become more affluent and can spend more money on foods, like meats. 

Another alarming force driving up commodity prices is speculation. Since the crash in the markets in 2008 and the subsequent fall in oil prices, there has been a considerable amount of investment money sitting out the sidelines. This money has been looking for a place to go make money after sitting in "safe" places like treasury notes. With the upward trends in commodity prices speculative forces have been moving considerable funds in those directions applying further upward pressure on prices and generating a likely bubble in commodity grains. 

Inflated grain prices hurt livestock producers by increasing what they pay for feed and eliminating thin margins. The same is true for us beginning livestock farmers. As an example, I was paying $0.13 per pound of poultry feed a month ago and now it is up to $0.22 per pound, about a 40% increase in a month. 

I am worried about what the future might hold for us beginning livestock farmers. Many of us rely on quick turn around animals like poultry and hogs to cash flow our business. To lessen our reliance on purchased feed, we have been and will continue to expand our lamb business. Our lamb rely on no purchased grains and as such have a much more stable pricing and margin for us to rely on in the future. 

Cattle & Sheep out on Pasture, Low Input Agriculture at its Finest

Now it is time for our shameless plug. We have 4 lambs going to the locker in the middle of October and they will be ready for our November delivery runs. 

Whole Lamb: $235 (approx. 40-50 lbs of meat)

1/2 Lamb: $125 (approx. 20-25 lbs of meat)

Lamb Chops: $10 per pound

Leg Roast: $8.50 per pound (likely 4-5 pounds each)

Rack of Lamb: $12 per pound

Ground Lamb: $5.50 per pound

Stew/Kabob Meat: $6 per pound