High-Tensile & Electric Fence in Lawton, OK
Lawton Farm Fence builds high tensile and electric fence for rotational grazing, cross fencing, and perimeter runs on cattle and horse ground across Comanche, Kiowa, Caddo, and Stephens counties. We serve Lawton, Elgin, Sterling, Apache, and Indiahoma, and we build permanent multi-wire systems rather than temporary polywire strung for a season.
The wire is twelve and a half gauge high tensile smooth wire in Class 3 coating. It carries well over a thousand pounds before it stretches at all, which is the whole point: soft wire stretches once and never comes back. Each run gets a Gallagher or Speedrite in-line strainer with a tension spring, so the tension is a number you can read and adjust instead of a feel. Energizers get sized to the total wire length with headroom for weed contact and grounded through a field of driven rods, because an underpowered ground is what turns a live fence into a decorative one. Insulators are the other quiet failure point, so posts get proper porcelain or heavy plastic rather than a staple driven half in. A hot wire tacked to steel posts with no insulator and no ground field will read hot at the energizer and nothing at the far corner.
Ends Do the Work
Six strands pulled to tension put a serious load on the last post in the line. Ends and corners get a double H-brace here, posts eight inches across and four feet down, tamped in lifts. Line posts can then stretch out farther than woven fence allows, which is where the cost per foot comes down. Where granite sits close to the surface west of town we drill with a rock bit or move to a steel post set in concrete, since concrete under pipe does not carry the rot problem it causes around wood.
Spacing by Species
Cattle hold on five or six wires with the hot strands at chest and nose height. Horses want a taller fence, wider strand spacing, and something visible on top. Goats want more wires, closer together, and a hot strand low enough to stop a nose at the bottom. Wildlife matters too. Deer move heavily through the draws near the refuge and a slack top wire is what they take down.
Booking
Southwest Oklahoma gives us a long working season, and electric fence goes in faster than mesh once the line is cleared. We quote year round and start when the ground will hold a tamped post. Call (580) 555-0139 and we will walk the pasture with you.
How many ground rods does an electric fence need?
More than most fences get. Grounding is where weak fences come from, not the energizer. Plan on three galvanized rods, each six to eight feet long, driven at least ten feet apart and clamped together with continuous wire. Dry ground conducts poorly, and this country goes dry in summer, so we put the ground field where the soil stays damp longest and add rods rather than cut them.
Why does my high tensile fence go slack in the heat?
Steel grows when it warms and shrinks when it cools. A long run visibly loosens on a hot August afternoon and tightens back up on a cold morning. That is normal and it is why every run gets an in-line strainer with a tension spring. You take a few turns on the ratchet and the slack is gone. Without strainers you are restretching the whole fence instead.
Is high tensile cheaper than woven wire?
Per foot of finished fence, usually yes. You are buying five or six smooth wires instead of a roll of mesh, and posts can sit farther apart. The savings move to the ends. High tensile pulls hard, so corners and ends need heavier, deeper brace assemblies than a woven fence does. Skimp there and the corners walk.
Will an electric fence hold cattle and horses in the same pasture?
Yes, with different wire spacing. Cattle need a hot wire at nose height, roughly the middle of the chest, since they test a fence with the muzzle first. Horses need the top wire high enough that they will not lean over it and a visible top strand, usually poly tape or a coated wire, because a horse at speed does not see plain wire. We space the run for whichever animal is harder to hold.