I've heard of machines that deploy barbed or razor wire, making it easy to set up fences, obstacles, etc. However, I'd never heard of a machine that got rid of those fences, even decades after they'd been strung.
A wire winder mounted on a skid steer can roll up a half-mile of old fence in about two minutes, a task that would probably take a half-day to accomplish by hand, said John Graves, director of conservation and resource management for the Sheridan Community Land Trust.
“It’s pretty darn cool,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “To sit there in the cab of the skid steer and watch that wire come in, it’s great.”
The importance of removing old barbed wire and woven-wire fences can’t be overstated, said Steve Martin, Wyoming director of the North American Pronghorn Association.
Old fences can block pronghorn from reaching thousands of acres of habitat in the Red Desert and other places in Wyoming and Montana, Martin told Cowboy State Daily.
There are countless miles of fence that must be removed and replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing, he said.
. . .
“Unlike deer and elk, pronghorn will rarely, if ever, jump a fence. They want to crawl under it,” he said.
So woven-wire fences are particularly hard on pronghorn, he said, because there’s no way to get underneath them.
Researchers from the University of Wyoming concluded that fences trapped pronghorn in areas of the Red Desert during the harsh 2022-2023 winter, and many of them died.
Recent upgrades to wildlife-friendly fences in the Red Desert opened up about 10,000 acres to pronghorn, Martin said.
There's more at the link. Here's a brief video clip of the wire winder at work.
That's pretty ingenious. I wonder who came up with the idea? It's just another addition to the huge variety of tools and equipment that can be hung onto or off of skid-steer machines. I saw one around here that had more than a dozen different attachments arranged in a long row at one side of the yard. The driver could simply drive up to a gap in the row, drop the attachment he'd been using into the open space, drive to the next gizmo he needed, connect it up, and away he went. It can't have taken more than a minute or two per attachment. That's productivity for you!
Peter
6 comments:
Many a rancher had to remove or replace the (now prestretched) barbed wire so made a simple hand wind contraption that could be mounted on a tractor or pickup to save on hands (plus legs and arms…) and time. Very cool.
So will a disk type hay mower. Ask me how I know!
The biggest problem is with "sheep tight" fences left in place for years. No easy answers. Geo (satellite) fences work on cows and horses. Sheep?
Looks like you still need to detach them from the posts by hand, and it didn't appear to handle rubbish getting tangled up in the wires very well. But still much faster than gathering it all manually.
I wonder what getting the wire off that spool after looks like.
Apparently it's taken to a recycling center. It probably gets melted down along with other scrap metal. I certainly can't see them bothering to unwind it again!
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