WAWOTA, Sask. – Neil Dennis splits a quarter of pasture into four long paddocks with high tensile wire, then makes temporary paddocks across them using temporary fencing.
With so many wires crossing his pastures, Dennis wanted to avoid opening and closing gates. He developed a system that allows him to drive over the wires with his all-terrain vehicle.
“I used to stick my leg out to the side, hook the wire, push it down and catch it with the tire. But I’ve got one of these Gallagher fencers and they’ve got a lot of juice in them. In the morning when your shoe is wet, it really nails you. I decided there had to be a better way,” said Dennis, who has a custom grazing operation near Wawota, Sask.
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Dennis built rails on the front of his ATVs that push his fence wire down low enough for the tires to ride over top.
“As long as you’re going fast enough, it pushes (the wire) down and it goes straight out the other end. All the wagons I haul around have a rail under them, as well,” said Dennis.
The system works on the high tensile as well as the temporary fence.
“The posts are so far apart, about 50 to 80 feet (15 to 25 metres) depending on how level the ground is, and you’ve got long stretches of wire, they may be half a mile long, so there’s enough give in them. They just go down and come back up again. Your fence carries the juice better, too, because you’ve got no gates.”
He plans to put rails on his water truck this winter, on a tractor and possibly on his 3/4 ton, as well.
Dennis has another setup on his ATV, to make moving temporary wire more convenient.
“On the front of the quad where I hang my (wire) reels on, I use a cordless drill to roll up my wire. It takes me about three minutes to roll up a quarter mile of wire. As long as it’s not a geared reel, it works.”
