Farmer Focus: Rotten posts and cut fence wires delay turnout

Springtime is always a busy time of year.

For every job that gets ticked off the list, another two get added.

The ground is hard and, while there isn’t a great deal of grass yet, the cattle have started to go out with some buffer feeding.

See also: How to build the perfect livestock fence

About the author

Ben Harman

A fourth-generation farmer with 247ha on the Chiltern Hills, Ben Harman owns the UK’s oldest herd of Charolais, as well as Salers and meat brand “Chagyu” (Charolais cross Wagyu). He is chairman of the British Cattle Breeders Club, vice-chairman of the National Beef Association and is a Checs board member. 

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Turnout would be further advanced were it not for the fences that need to be fixed.

And the fences would be further along were it not for a couple of issues.

Seven or eight years ago, I got tired of the state of my farm gates. Of those that weren’t tied up with a bit of “farmer’s friend”, some were hanging crooked, or off one hinge.

I took decisive action – I bought new gates and new posts, and (with a friendly local contractor), set about making the place a bit smarter and hopefully more functional to boot.

As it turned out, I could have done a better job of buying the gate posts.

Perhaps I just got a duff load, but one by one, they’ve failed, and now I’m pretty much back where I started.

This time it will be different, as they’ll be replaced with 10cm box steel – that should see me out.

The other, more tiresome, issue is a subset of the good folks from Chesham, who like to walk across the farms.

Most of them are great people. The minority, though, are a serious burden.

We’ve always suffered with fences being cut – honestly, I do wonder what sort of person goes for a walk with a small set of bolt croppers. Or at least I did, until I caught someone in the act.

It wasn’t the spotty teen or tattooed tearaway that I had imagined, but a lady of a certain age who informed me that she “wanted to walk this way” and wasn’t to be deterred by a mere stock fence.

This winter has been worse than many for the even more invasive off-roaders.

Padlocks have been smashed off gates, heifers let loose, and crops driven through by the four-wheeled variety.

The two-wheeled version merely churns up the fields and disappears as soon as I turn up.

I’m not fluent in British Sign Language, but I’m fairly sure that’s not a standard gesture of thanks they send my way.