# Live trees as electric fence posts?



## mailman (May 8, 2004)

Hello, I have 10 acres of newly logged land I want to fence in for goats. Is it possible for me to save some money and use the live trees on the property border as fence posts? 
Thank you in advance....Dennis


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## lacyj (May 14, 2002)

DH says, yes, but you still need to use the insulators. check them occasionally to make sure that the tree isn't growing around them.


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## Dee (May 12, 2002)

Another problem is if a tree falls, messes up the fence line.


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

My Papa did this and fenced in about two acres with three strands and kept up to nine goats for years. My PawPaw fenced in five acres with field fencing and cattle panels and that didn't hold the three goats he purchased from my Papa. I will probably do a combination of both for my perimiter fence when we move and use three strands of electric to cross fence.


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## keithil53 (Oct 9, 2003)

I have used live trees as posts successfully.I use plastic insulators to attach to electric fence.During wet weather sometime it will arc to wet tree but is no geat
problem.I think a good charger is a necessaty to contain goats.
Keith


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## eb (Sep 14, 2003)

mailman said:


> Hello, I have 10 acres of newly logged land I want to fence in for goats. Is it possible for me to save some money and use the live trees on the property border as fence posts?
> Thank you in advance....Dennis



Yes, you can use trees...a healthy one is a lot stronger than any post you are going to put in...BUT, I would recommend not attaching directly to the tree (many people do), nail an old piece of lumber (pressure treated is better)to the tree and attach the wires to the board instead...as the tree grows out it will push the board away...if you nail insulators/staples to the tree it will tend to grow into/around the wires.


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## DayBird (Jul 26, 2004)

eb said:


> Yes, you can use trees...a healthy one is a lot stronger than any post you are going to put in...BUT, I would recommend not attaching directly to the tree (many people do), nail an old piece of lumber (pressure treated is better)to the tree and attach the wires to the board instead...as the tree grows out it will push the board away...if you nail insulators/staples to the tree it will tend to grow into/around the wires.



Yep, Papa did this too. He cut 2X4s into 2 feet lengths and nailed them at the top and at the bottom into the tree on the inside of the fence about a foot off the ground. He then nailed three plastic insulator into that, one at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom of the board.


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## GoatTalkr9 (Aug 1, 2002)

Are any of them pine trees? We learned last summer that the darn sap will drip onto the connectors and zap the heck out of our wires.


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