Rabbit Proof Fence ........Hopefully

Now the new year is upon us we thought we  had better make a start on the veggie garden, we had prepared some beds and planted some fruit at the end of last year but held off doing any more before the area was fenced. We haven't actually seen any rabbits in our field but we have seen droppings, we have however seen rabbits and hares in the lane next to the field so thought it best to take steps to protect our precious crops. 

Having only ever put up wooden fence panels before the thought of using agricultural wire fencing was a bit daunting, we bought a really good book that was easy to understand. We have several 'Gold Cockerel Series books and they are really easy to read and cheap too.

We also downloaded a copy of the Woodland Trust's guide to erecting rabbit fencing which is available HERE  This was very useful and gives you a handy shopping list to take to the agricultural supply shop. We bought 26 - 60mm x 1.8m fence posts and 4 - 100mm x 2.1 m posts which cost us £93 we paid another £4 on staples but everything else was recycled. We estimate the cost of buying new wire and netting at £200 a hefty saving but it comes at a price, re-using poultry/rabbit  netting is not advised and we soon figured out why it is misshapen and saggy.  we got around this by securing the hexagonal wire to the straight top wire in more places than recommended which took up the slack.  The book gives a handy tip for joining the two wires without the need for wire rings( and the special tool to apply them)  you  use a headless nail to twist the thinner hexagonal wire around the straight wire. I also used this technique to join broken sections of the rabbit wire, we also used a sledge hammer instead of buying a post driver so we saved  about £60 by not buying special tools for the job.

We started out by marking the area out with some small posts and string , we then hammered in the corner posts . Next we bashed in the smaller posts 4 metres apart, we treated all our posts with a creosote substitute  before use to extend their life. This process took 2 people  two days to do, we did consider getting a local farmer with a post driver attachment on his tractor to do this but the ground was far too wet, in the end we rather enjoyed the process and burned off a few Christmas calories in the process :) The two at this end are so close together as this will be a gate already made and painted and drying in the barn, some of the posts look a bit wonky but I promise we did use a spirit level!

Next we attached 4mm galvanised wires to the  posts, we used a spirit level and a string line to make sure it was level, this was the most difficult job as getting the wire taut took ages. We ran the line 3 feet from the ground, we used 4ft tall wire but more about the difference in size later. We unrolled the  rabbit wire and laid it on the floor along the length of the soon to be fence, we  attached the rabbit wire to the posts with staples, we positioned the top of the hexagonal wire slightly higher than the the straight wire. we stretched the wire between the posts as best as we could without breaking it. The surplus wire that hangs at the bottom will be buried into the ground like an apron around the perimeter fence, this is supposed to stop rabbits digging under the fence....we'll see.  I then went along the length of the fence and twisted the two wires together. On one of the shorter sides our neighbour had some stock fence up so we just attached our wire on the opposite side to hers.

So far we have done one long and one short side and I will post a picture once its finished(and its not covered in white stuff. In the meantime we have decided to use one corner of the veg plot as a poultry run, the hens are finally showing some interest in the great outdoors but we aren't convinced they will go home of an evening and we don't fancy searching our farm, the lane and the farmers field for them so have decided on a permanent run of sorts for now.  This will be surrounded by orange builders barrier fencing (below) not really a fence as such more a demarcation area, we were given this by a friend in construction. we aren't really sure if it will work but this will be done over the weekend weather permitting, we will use proper posts but have a feeling the girls will dig under it :)

Do you have any useful tips for fencing amateurs like us?