T-Post Fence Inspiration

[dearmeghann]

Good morning! We want to start building a property fence, and I'm unsure of the best direction to take. We want to keep costs down and avoid making something super permanent (cementing in 4x4s). We're thinking about doing t-posts and then super sturdy 2x3 hog wire or hardware cloth. I would love to disguise the t-posts with wood. Has anyone had any luck? Any suggestions for tackling this project?

The main goals are:

• keep our chickens from roaming into the neighbors' area
• budget-friendly (we're doing it ourselves)
• not super permanent in case we don't like it. not super time-consuming, we want to be able to do most of the back yard in a weekend

Our bigger girls won't fly over the fences, the littles probably will. I'm not super concerned about that. We can trim feathers if they become escape artists. They don't free range without supervision, so this is definitely for us, not having to keep an eye on them all the time.

Apologies if there are threads with this exact topic. I tried searching, and all I could find were electric fence threads.

 

[casportpony]

I would love to disguise the t-posts with wood. Has anyone had any luck?

Have you seen these?
https://www.horseguardfence.com/shop/cat46.php

 

[TioBollio]

Good morning! We want to start building a property fence, and I'm unsure of the best direction to take. We want to keep costs down and avoid making something super permanent (cementing in 4x4s). We're thinking about doing t-posts and then super sturdy 2x3 hog wire or hardware cloth. I would love to disguise the t-posts with wood. Has anyone had any luck? Any suggestions for tackling this project?

The main goals are:

• keep our chickens from roaming into the neighbors' area
• budget-friendly (we're doing it ourselves)
• not super permanent in case we don't like it. not super time-consuming, we want to be able to do most of the back yard in a weekend

Our bigger girls won't fly over the fences, the littles probably will. I'm not super concerned about that. We can trim feathers if they become escape artists. They don't free range without supervision, so this is definitely for us, not having to keep an eye on them all the time.

Apologies if there are threads with this exact topic. I tried searching, and all I could find were electric fence threads.

T posts are a great solution, I just don't know how you would disguise them.
We have a neighbor who painted his brown, it actually looks pretty good.
The hardest part is going to be making sturdy corners (and depending on distance stretch panels) to get your wire tight.
I know there are hardware kits that allow you to use t posts to build the corners, I've never used them so can't comment on how sturdy they are.

 

[TioBollio]

Have you seen these?
https://www.horseguardfence.com/shop/cat46.php

Wow! I've never seen those before. I bet they could be adapted for hog wire.
They're pretty proud of them! $$$

 

[casportpony]

Wow! I've never seen those before. I bet they could be adapted for hog wire.
They're pretty proud of them! $$$

They aren't cheap! But they look nice.

 

[TioBollio]

They aren't cheap! But they look nice.

Yes they do!
I'm fencing the place off this year, I might give these a whirl for the front of the property!

 

[casportpony]

Yes they do!
I'm fencing the place off this year, I might give these a whirl for the front of the property!

Our Neighbors did this:

It's 4' vinal fence with some type of hog wire.

 

[springvalley123]

A temporary solution might be PVC, bare in mind it'll rot in the sun in a few years. When I was on .7 acre, I had a 18x36 ft run. We built it with T posts, then undid the wire fencing and sleeved the T posts in round chain link fence posts. Depending on the diameter of the T posts and the **inside** diameter of the chain link fence posts, it might be cheaper than the plastic sleeves. I recall seeing the horse fencing sleeves at the time and the chain link posts were much cheaper.

 

[texsuze]

I have Horseguard fencing around 2 pastures but didn't use the t-post covers, just the caps. Love HG but the components are truly designed to work with the HG system, plus they are expensive and quirky.

I'd suggest using a 4' mesh and t-posts. Go ahead and make the fence height something that impedes neighbor dogs and other critters from easy access to your chickens and keeps chickens at home. T-posts can always be removed, so can mesh fencing. As mentioned, there are kits available so you can use t-posts as H-bracing and corner bracing without having to use pipe or wood posts; I don't have experience with that type of hardware.

You could also go with cattle panels and t-posts. Again, chose a height and configuration that keeps chickens in and critters (mostly) out. Panels are easy to work with and would likely have good resale value if you get to that point in the future.

 

[perkolator]

I have two types of t-post fencing on my property that are integrated with the chicken run.

Have a t-post and 7.5ft Tenax deer fence on the perimeter of whole property. I don’t mind the look of t-posts.

The deer fence is on one side of our chicken run, with an old 3-row barbed wire property border fence at the bottom, and also backed with 3ft of 1/2” HC and dig skirt.

The front 3-sides of the run are t-post with heavy gauge 5ft 2x2 woven fence, with 3ft of 1/2” HC and dig skirt at the bottom. I used chicken wire to extend the fence to 6ft and also enclosed the top with it.

Any place where I added wood to the t-post, like on my door, I used plumbers tape/hanger strap to adapt the wood. Everything is fixed together with galvanized wire. I used angled t-posts to brace the t-post corners.