Winter Fencing Projects — What to Tackle Before Spring

Winter in the Central West is the quiet season for most properties. Stock are on maintenance rations, the pastures are dormant, and there's time to actually work on the property instead of just running it. That makes winter the perfect time for fencing projects — here's what to tackle before spring rolls around and everything gets busy again.

WHY WINTER IS IDEAL FOR FENCING

The ground is soft. After autumn rains, the soil around Orange, Molong, and through the Central Tablelands is damp enough to make driving pickets noticeably easier. Trying to drive pickets into hard summer ground is like hitting concrete. Winter soil accepts the picket properly and grips it well once it dries.

Stock pressure is lower. With reduced stocking rates over winter and stock generally in containment or smaller paddocks, you can work on fences without a mob of curious cattle following you along the line.

You can see the fence. With pasture grazed down and deciduous trees bare, fence lines are visible from a distance. Damage that's hidden by long grass in summer stands out in winter.

No rush. Spring brings lambing, calving, marking, and a thousand other jobs. If you leave fencing until spring, it won't get done. Winter is the window.

PROJECT 1: THE FULL FENCE LINE AUDIT

Walk every fence on the property. Every single one. Take notes or use your phone to photograph problem spots. Tag each section as:

  • Green: Good condition, no work needed
  • Orange: Minor repairs needed (a few loose clips, slight lean, one broken wire)
  • Red: Major repair or rebuild required

This audit becomes your work list for the rest of winter and helps you prioritise materials orders.

PROJECT 2: REPAIR DAMAGED STRAINER ASSEMBLIES

Check every strainer assembly for:

  • Lean: Is the post still plumb? Any lean toward the fence line means it's losing the battle against wire tension
  • Rot: Probe the base of timber posts with a screwdriver. Soft wood means rot has set in
  • Stays: Are the horizontal stays and diagonal braces still tight?
  • Footing: Has soil eroded from around the base?

A strainer assembly that's starting to fail will get worse, not better. Rebuilding one strainer in winter is a two-hour job. Rebuilding one in spring when the whole fence has gone slack because of it is a two-day job.

PROJECT 3: RETENSION MESH AND WIRE

Wire tension drops over time — it's normal. Every few years, mesh and plain wire need retensioning to take up the slack. Winter is perfect for this because the wire contracts slightly in cold weather and you can set it to a tension that will be ideal when it expands in summer heat.

Walk each fence run, checking tension by pushing the mesh. It should be firm but not drum-tight. If it's noticeably saggy between pickets, retension from the nearest strainer assembly.

PROJECT 4: REPLACE BENT AND LOOSE PICKETS

Identify any pickets that are bent (usually from roo strikes or stock pressure), leaning significantly, or loose in the ground. Pull them out and drive fresh ones. Our 180cm black bitumen pickets at $8.40 each are the go — and they're 2.1kg/m heavy duty, which means they'll handle whatever bent the last one.

On a typical property, you might replace 20-50 pickets across the whole farm. That's $168-$420 in materials and a day or two of work that dramatically improves fence function.

PROJECT 5: FIX BOTTOM WIRE AND GROUND GAPS

Over the year, soil erodes from under fences, stock push the mesh up, and gaps develop along the bottom. These gaps let lambs through, let predators in, and let weed seeds blow under.

Walk the fence line and:

  • Push mesh back down to ground level and re-clip to pickets
  • Add packed earth or rocks under the mesh where the ground has dropped
  • Retension or replace bottom barbed wire that's sagging
  • Clear any debris that's lifting the mesh off the ground

PROJECT 6: PREPARE BREEDING PADDOCK FENCING

If you're lambing or calving in spring, your breeding paddock fencing needs to be in perfect condition before the first ewe or cow goes in. Do the full check now: every clip, every wire, every gate. Fix everything.

This is the most important fence on the property during lambing/calving. A gap that lets one fox through costs you lambs. Spend the time now.

PROJECT 7: ORDER MATERIALS EARLY

Don't wait until September to order fencing materials for spring projects. Supply chains can be tight on popular items like mesh and pickets during the spring rush. Order in July or August, stock it in the shed, and you're ready to go when the weather warms up.

We carry full stock of all fencing materials year-round at 76 Astill Drive, Orange. For larger orders or pallet quantities, give us a few weeks' notice and we'll have everything ready. Call 0434 093 077 or drop in — winter is actually our quietest time too, so we've got plenty of time to help you plan.

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