Setting Boundaries With Barbed Wire Fencing

Barbed Wire Fencing

Barbed wire fencing is most often found in rural areas, where it is used to contain livestock. It's one of the least expensive fencing options available and one of the easiest to erect. When working with barbed wire fencing, use the heaviest-duty gloves you can find that still allow you to work with the material; safety glasses are also recommended because the barbed wire is strung under high tension.

Standard barbed wire fencing usually has wood or steel posts spaced 10 to 12 feet apart. Wood posts are less expensive but steel posts are durable, fireproof, lighter in weight, and ground against lightning. Posts are strung with three to five strands of wire. Suspension barbed wire fences are made from rows of wire stretched taut, with a twisted wire stay or fiberglass post placed every 10 to 12 feet. Main posts are spaced 50 to 60 feet apart.

Costs vary between distributors and are determined by the number of barbs per inch, the number of points per barb, and the wire gauge. Barbed wire runs anywhere from 90 cents to $2.50 a foot. How the wire is spaced and the number of posts used, and whether they are wood or steel, also contributes significantly to overall fencing costs.