Barbed Wire

timbrayford

Well-Known Member
Having lost a small fortune in ruined shooting clothes and boots, scratched guns and paid a substantial amount in vets bills for stitching up dogs I am no fan of barbed wire, wouldn't it be nice to see it replaced by alternatives like high tensile plain wire or electric fencing
 
Barbed wire when used on the top of a fence attracts a farming grant and as i shoot on a sheep only estate find it unbelievable barbed wire is used at all... not a cow within three miles.
 
Round here putting it on tops not always enough, what's it with some people putting it at the bottom aswell. It doesn't stop the Badgers that's for sure!
 
wouldn't it be nice to see it replaced by alternatives like high tensile plain wire or electric fencing

Well it would, but cattle don't pay much attention to a 2' high 12v electric fence nor are they really put off from shuving at fences by plain wire. Just learn to cross fences without scraping your gun on them or snagging clothes on them, because the barbed wire fences aren't going away. I am slightly biased at 6'4" so my legs are more suited to hopping over them!

Tom
 
Well it would, but cattle don't pay much attention to a 2' high 12v electric fence nor are they really put off from shuving at fences by plain wire. Just learn to cross fences without scraping your gun on them or snagging clothes on them, because the barbed wire fences aren't going away. I am slightly biased at 6'4" so my legs are more suited to hopping over them!

Tom
Often it's the long forgotten rusty wire overgrown and partly hidden by vegetation that does the damage
 
This should bring a tear to your eye, because I'll sit on the fence for this one. Being a shooter and also keeping stock I see it from both points of view.
But we should remember this. So long as it's legal then any farmer has the right to use barbed wire where ever he wants to. He has a legal responcability to give safe access over any fence where there is a legal right of way, but nowhere else. As we the shooters rely on the farmers good nature to allow us the shoot over there ground then it's us that have to learn to live with it. Most farmers will be OK with you wrapping a couple of feed bags around the top strand and cable tieing them on, happy solution for everybody.

Paul
 
If you have shooting rights over land that's also got stock fences then you should get permission to build stiles wherever you might need to cross. The farmer only has to provide crossing points on public footpaths etc.
I farm quite a bit of land that I don't have the shooting rights over, but if I see anyone getting over fences where there's no crossing points then I'll tell them to clear out, even if they do own the sporting rights. At the end of the day it's my land and my fence, and the whole concept of someone else owning certain rights over my land is a little outdated in this day and age, so they need to behave themselves or I could really put a spanner in the works of their shoot! As it is, provided that we all look after and tolerate each other's interests then we get along fine.
 
If you have shooting rights over land that's also got stock fences then you should get permission to build stiles wherever you might need to cross. The farmer only has to provide crossing points on public footpaths etc.
I farm quite a bit of land that I don't have the shooting rights over, but if I see anyone getting over fences where there's no crossing points then I'll tell them to clear out, even if they do own the sporting rights. At the end of the day it's my land and my fence, and the whole concept of someone else owning certain rights over my land is a little outdated in this day and age, so they need to behave themselves or I could really put a spanner in the works of their shoot! As it is, provided that we all look after and tolerate each other's interests then we get along fine.
I suppose this must be the hazard of renting out your sporting rights, your sporting tenant might actually require access to the land so that they might benefit from what they have paid for!
 
If any landowner is renting out sporting rights then of course he will look after his tenants - they are giving him part of his income, after all!
The landowner might not be the farmer, either. The farmer might be a tenant of the landowner, in which case he will certainly not grumble about the behaviour of the sporting tenants - he wouldn't want to upset his landlord!

In many cases, though, the farming landowner doesn't own the sporting rights, and therefore has no control over who has access to his land and derives no income from sporting activity on his land. Lots of farms were once part of large estates, and when the estate was broken up and sold off, maybe 50 years ago or more, the original gentry retained the rights. The rights can now be sold / leased to anyone, without any consultation with the landowner. In this situation, no landowner is going to give a stuff about whether his barbed wire fences scratch someone's gunstock or rip their trousers!
 
Try splitting lengths of 1" PVC (or larger) tubing, in 3ft lengths, and put over the barbed wire at srategic crossing points for guns and beaters.

Simon
 
We use tree guard tubes on the wire , they split easily and are found in plantations where the young trees have failed
 
On our shoot they generally use pipe insulation foam (like you used to get on BMX bike frames) or a plastic fertilizer bag wrapped round multiple times and tied with binder-twine - does the trick very nicely.
 
U can easily un burl the barb's so u are left with jist the plain wires of the barb, if u un burl them at a stile it saves u bothering with all the padding/fert sacks that eventually get chewed and go missing. A word of caution this is fairly permanant so only do it at a few places and make sure u have the farmers permission.
 
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