# Trees as fence posts



## livinzoo (Aug 29, 2007)

I'm a city girl trying to have a farm, so I need lots of help.

I am building a fence. It will have to contain both meat goats and pigs. I'm planning on using Red Brand Goat Fence off the ground about 2 inches. With a strand of barb wire 1 inch from the ground. Will probably put a strand on the top too. I'm trying to save some money as we are going to try to slowly fence 5 acres into sever padocks. We have found old telephone poles to use as corners. But the line posts are pretty expensive nowadays. We have lots of woods on the 5 acres so plenty of hardwood trees. We are thinking about running a line of hot wire inside the fence to help keep the animals off it. But worry about trees and what not breaking the line if they fall.

Can we use live or fresh cut trees to staple the fence to? What diameter do you recommend? Is there anything we have to do to preserve the wood? Is there any type of tree that we shouldn't use?

We have an old tractor auger to dig the holes (if it still works).

Thank you so much!


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Fence posts made from fresh cut trees won't last as long because they haven't been treated with preservative. The treated posts that you buy are *pressure* treated, and the chemical is throughout the wood. 

If you paint the outside of a freshly cut post with something, it will have very little effect.

That said, you do what you have to do to make your situation work. If you MUST use your own posts, then make them at least five inch diameter.

Do not staple into live trees if you can avoid it. Years from now, someone will be cutting that tree with a chain saw and the embedded staple can ruin her equipment and possibly cause physical harm if the saw jumps.


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## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

City Girl:
Without knowing what kind of trees you have on your land the question cannot be answered definitively. 

Let's start by saying that some treeks make good posts, some do not. I will say this; If you staple a fence to a live tree, the tree will either die and fall over or it will grow out over your staples and wires so that you cannot ever again tighten, move, or work with that piece of fence. You can nail a treated board to a live tree and then staple fence to the board, but that too is just a temporary thing. 

Now as to cutting posts from trees: There is a variety of oak called "post oak", so named because posts split from it last fairly well in the ground. Old timers sharpened the ends of the posts and drove them with sledge hammers.

Black Locust makes good posts if you cut trees that have much heartwood or split the white wood off. (When you put a post in the ground the white wood quickly rots off or is attacked by termites; it is the black heartwood that lasts 50 years in the ground. 

Osage orange makes great posts, but the wood is so hard that you almost have to drill staple holes in a dried post. You can staple them when green, but hardly ever again. I'd prefer Osage orange to any--by the way, Osage orange and Bois D'arc are the same tree. One disadvantage is that you can hardly ever find a straight post. Farmers use even the crooked ones, turning the post to get the straightest possible side toward the fence. 

Texas hill country cedar (juniper) posts have been used for as long as Texas has had fences. Again, the white wood rots off; it is the heartwood that lasts. If you have cedar, check the heartwood. Here they grow so quickly that it takes a very large tree to have an acceptable heart post. 

If you have scrub black walnut on your place the heartwood makes excellent posts. Indians in OK used them in the early days as the scrub walnut in the hills here is not timber quality. My old ***** friend told me they split posts out of the trees. 

There is one variety of Catalpa that makes good posts, but I have never seen the tree nor do I know anyone who has used catalpa posts. I'm told that the good post tree (Catalpa) grows well in Kansas. 

The Dept of Ag. has a brochure on posts made from trees, including the ranking for longevity in the ground. Call your local agent. 
Ox


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## Ramblin Wreck (Jun 10, 2005)

Post Oak, locust, and red cedar are used for posts in our area (NW GA), and they hold up pretty well. You can nail to a live tree with some success (but the problems noted above too). If this is going to be your permanent home/farm, I'd recommend putting up a temporary, low cost (well as low as you can make it) fence for now and then search Craig's List/e-bay or other sources in your area for the right materials. Utility polls and solid cross ties make great corner/pull posts. Metal posts are now very expensive, but they were just $2 each not that long ago. Sometimes you can find bargains on these, and they last a long time. Good luck and best wishes.

Edited to add: I try not to use treated material near fresh water sources, especially a well if that is applicable to you.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Don't cut the trees down... use the living trees as fenceposts.

If it weren't for living trees, I'd be in trouble, and have to buy thousands in fence posts each year. Any tree that grows near my fence is going to get staples in it. If, for some reason, I need to harvest that tree later, I cut it at the five foot level, above any potential wire or nails.

Ox is right... the wood will grow over the wire. But, I've never had problem tightening the wire... no tightening needed if the trees are close enough... they stay tight... whenever they 'do' get loose, I simply staple the wire onto the tree a few inches off to the side. Nailing into pines is risky... if beetles are present, the tree will die. 

Only fresh wood I'd use would be cedar


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

> Osage orange makes great posts


In my part of the world they're called "hedge posts" and you tie the fence on with wire. It's more expensive than staples, but hedge posts are cheaper than creosote or even steel, in most cases. 
But I've seen a lot of fences made of hedge posts that have lasted for over 50 years... (and many that were probably closer to 75 years or better)


So far as other trees, cedar is good, obviously. 
Cottonwood is fun. So long as there's a bit of water on a regular basis in that spot, it's quite common for a cottonwood post to be "planted" and turn into a new tree! lol


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## Oggie (May 29, 2003)

The trouble with using live trees as fenceposts is that, as the tree grown, your fence will end up 20 feet off the ground.


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## sungirl (Jan 23, 2008)

Cedar fence posts will last 10 years for us. I have talked to some old dairy farmers who had had fences in cedar poles even longer. They are great since they are so cheap. We paid $100 to get 100 cedar poles for our new riding ring. 

Good luck! Congrats on wanting meat goats, what breed do you plan to buy? 

Patty.


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## poorboy (Apr 15, 2006)

Oggie said:


> The trouble with using live trees as fenceposts is that, as the tree grown, your fence will end up 20 feet off the ground.


I can show you fence here in Mo. that has been stapled into oak for over 60years and none of it has raised up, trees grow out from the fence level and grow over the wire, but they don't raise it.:rotfl:


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## Oggie (May 29, 2003)

poorboy said:


> I can show you fence here in Mo. that has been stapled into oak for over 60years and none of it has raised up, trees grow out from the fence level and grow over the wire, but they don't raise it.:rotfl:




Shhhhhhhhh.

She said that she was a city girl.


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## ninny (Dec 12, 2005)

Oggie said:


> The trouble with using live trees as fenceposts is that, as the tree grown, your fence will end up 20 feet off the ground.



That shouldn't be a problem. When it grows up, you just add a strand of barbed wire at the bottom, pretty soon you have a twenty foot high fence. You can now stock giraffes.

.


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## livinzoo (Aug 29, 2007)

It is mostly hardwoods. So now I have to learn what all these trees look like to see if we have any. I know we have a few different types of oak, sweet gums, a few types of maples, and some black walnuts.

In a living tree could I keep the stable a little loose and be able to pull it out a bit every so often?

I know the fence does not grow up. In fact there are many trees that I will have to cut the barb wire off from each side as the tree has grown over the old fence many years ago.

I'm planning on getting some Kiko crosses I have heard they do much better in this Georgia Climate.


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## plowjockey (Aug 18, 2008)

Why not really save some money and put up a 5 or 6 wire high-tensile electric fence arround the land perimeter? It will cost less than using panels and you can save a lot of money on posts, buy using used "t" post for the line posts. We can still get them here for about $1.50 each.

This electric fence will keep hogs/goats in and most predators out, plus no chance of injury from barbed wire.

Once your permiter fence is set (which should be done first), paddocks are easy to create, using either temporary electric fence, or goat panels.

If the fence is installed right, the only maintenance is to keep the weeds cleared from the lowest wire. It should last 30 years or more. Setting the corner posts is the hardest part of installing the fence. The "t" posts are driven with a hand-held post driver.

There is plenty of on-line help and instructions to make the job easier.

Marty


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## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

LOL Oggie; the girl must have been exposed to the country somewhere if she knows you were pulling her leg.

I would not suggest making a permanent perimeter electric fence unless it was made of high tensile wire and put together in the New Zealand style. No matter how conscientious you are, the fence is bound to require more maintenance than you are willing to give it. I have such fences and every so often I find the meter in the danger zone and have to go find the place where a deer has hooked a wire and pulled it off the insulator, grounding it. Cattle push against the barbed wire and tangle the stand-off, grounding it. 

Baby calves know no better and run thru the wire--sometimes mama follows if she is young and anxious. Hot wires are fine for interior paddocks, but they have their limitations. I have some single-wire fences that hold cattle just fine, but deer and calves still cause trouble for me. I would not want to have to maintain 25 miles of electric fence. 

I am now in the process of pulling posts, moving wire and mowing fencerows, deferred maintenance. In contrast, barbed wire fences are generally left to grow up in weeds and brush, the fence rows being cleared only when the fence has to be replaced. Only rarely do you find a rancher who sprays his fencerows. 
Ox


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

sometimes fences do grow up with the trees. i have seen it.


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## Native Texan (Oct 18, 2020)

Oggie said:


> The trouble with using live trees as fenceposts is that, as the tree grown, your fence will end up 20 feet off the ground.


Your trees will not lift the fence off the ground. As they grow they will keep your fence tight as they grow in diameter. Also, the top growth gets higher, not the base.


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## 101pigs (Sep 18, 2018)

Native Texan said:


> Your trees will not lift the fence off the ground. As they grow they will keep your fence tight as they grow in diameter. Also, the top growth gets higher, not the base.


You are right. My last fence i build 20 years ago was nailed to a lot of Pine and Oak trees. The fence is still good. Nails not growing up as the trees grew. I have nails in trees from 60 years ago. The nails are still at the same heighth. One problem is when the fence is gone and the nails stay in the tree if you saw the tree down and try using it for lumber the nails will dull your chain on your chain saw.If you saw the log up on sawmill it will mess the mill blade up. I always double check the logs i saw up on my mill to make sure there is not any nails etc. in the log.


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## Rodeo's Bud (Apr 10, 2020)

We have an oak tree with the old fence posts stuck in it 15 feet up.

Doesn't keep many critters out.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

I wonder how much those trees have grown since 2008, when that post was made on the forum.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

They have likely kept someone warm since then.


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Alice In TX/MO said:


> I wonder how much those trees have grown since 2008, when that post was made on the forum.


It depends on if when the trees were used they were young and still growing up in addition to only growing wider at the base as they added year rings and spread their canopy coverage.

A neighbor fenced a pasture back in 1997 or 1998 and used a mature white oak on the fence line as a mid line anchor instead of building a creosote post anchor frame to hold the fence tension turnbuckles as he owned the land on both sides of the fence line the then 4 foot diameter oak had one side in line with.

He was able to keep his fence in good shape at that corner for about 15 years with adjusting the turnbuckles as the oak increased it's base diameter and his cattle used the tree for shade until the oak dramatically increased its diameter at the base by about 3 feet stressing the fence.and eliminating the squared corner. As the tree wasn't growing up anymore, it only pushed the corner into the east pasture and caused the fence to lean.

This summer he put two creosote corner brace anchors 10 feet north and east of the corner tree to turnbuckle tension the proper fence rows and screwed in turnbuckles in the center of the tree to close the gap and square the fence so his cattle can continue to use the oak for shade and the two gap sections keep them contained and he and his son figure it should be okay for another20 years or so with normal fence maintenance.


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

If you want the fence to last a long time, it's typically best practice to clear all trees and brush both sides of the fence.


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