Fencing... Again.

Since the cows got out fencing has again reared its ugly head.  I have taken a club and am attempting to beat it back into submission.  Annmarie thought the cows were getting out right next to the road so I spent 7 hours cleaning up the fence line (lousy 100 feet), removing each strand and retightening it, patching the old sheep fencing and repairing it where I could.  It is in the upper 90s these last two days.  It is miserable.  I finished that all up today and the fence looks great, good for another 5-10 years with me doing nothing to it.  The deer are going to be pissed as there were two different deer highways crossing the downed fence. 

I happened to be driving along the CRP to the house and thought I might check the interior fence going into the hay pasture.  The gentleman leasing the pasture had already tilled the ground.  I drove up to the dried creek and found a huge gaping hole!  The cows did not crawl through the fence I just spent 7 hours repairing.  They just walked up the dried creek or went through the hole in the fence next to the creek.  I another three hours dragging the panels back in place over the creek and repairing the fence on both sides of the creek.  The power company had pulled the meter out of the old pump junction box and disconnected the transformer from the power line.  They used to back up the creek and install a pump into the back creek and irrigate the pasture.  There is a whole row of 4 inch aluminum pipe alongside the fence.  I need to empty the irrigation pipe trailer and start snagging all the pipe I have found since last year.  I am still trying to get it all into one location so we can get it repaired or scrapped. 

I ended up retightening about 60% of the sheep wire in that whole fence line.  It looks a lot better, but the upper three strands of barb wire need to be tightened also.  The fence bordering the CRP along the upper pasture has multiple low spots were the deer have created their own crossings.  The deer are lazy and don't want to jump over the fence.  Instead, they crawl through the fence and push it apart in the process. 

One of the hens has decided to sit on some eggs, so I am letting her.  We should know in 21 days if this works out or not.  We will see if she can stay on top of them.  If they hatch I will put them and her into the baby area alone so no one can pick on them.  More fencing tomorrow, I will add some more sheep fencing up at the cattle guard and fix our four gates so they open and close easily and attach boards to the bottoms of the gates so the sheep cannot crawl under them.