7 ms·

The article shows an interesting collection of different types of barbed wire with a name on each one. The article claims that different types of barbed wire al

by kens 2y ago

The article shows an interesting collection of different types of barbed wire with a name on each one. The article claims that different types of barbed wire allowed ranchers to tell at a glance if the land and animals belonged to them. Unfortunately, that theory is completely made up and wrong. The names on the barbed wire are the manufacturers not the ranchers. Different manufacturers produced different styles of wires due to patents and functionality reasons. For instance, the first wire in the article is labeled "Kelly loose barb". That corresponds to the Michael Kelly patent [1]. The next name is Scutt, describing the improved barbed wire invented by H. B. Scutt [2]. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US283614A https://patents.google.com/patent/US283614A [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US195239A https://patents.google.com/patent/US195239A

Animats 2y ago
Yes. The history of barbed wire is well known, and this article misses it. For cattle operations, barbed wire is somewhat obsolete, anyway. There's a wire mesh called "King Ranch fencing".[1] No barbs, but strong enough to contain cattle. With fewer scrape marks, the leather is more valuable. No risk of animals caught in barbed wire. Less sagging wire. "We don't fix fence, we build fence" - King Ranch slogan. [1] https://redbrandstore.com/products/king-ranch-field-fence-660-949-12-9 https://redbrandstore.com/products/king-ranch-field-fence-66...
- doodlebugging 2y ago
  Wow! I have two 330' rolls of a similar Red Brand field fence I bought about 20 years ago, 660' total of it like the roll in the listing. I paid $75 for each 330' roll. I think mine is the Monarch Field Fence roll with the graduated spacing beginning with 3" at the bottom. The same rolls sell for more than $300 each today according to that site. Time to build a cheap fence with my old wire.
  - mindslight 2y ago
    Welcome to the effects of two decades of ZIRP with a Trumpflation cherry on top. Farm stuff, or really anything that isn't plastic consumer crap, has shot through the roof. Steel has practically become a precious metal. Imagine if all that monetary creation had at least been spent on infrastructure, rather than being mostly squandered on the Manhattan welfare program.
    - sbierwagen 2y ago
      >Trumpflation The CARES Act passed the Senate unanimously. If Trump caused inflation due to profligate spending, he did so with plenty of help from Democrats. He couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to, that's far past the veto proof majority.
      - mindslight 2y ago
        Sure, everyone got their loot on. But each of its parts came from somewhere, and the dynamic of dumping so much money towards PPP "loans" feels right in line with the past decades of Republican upper class welfare. To me it was those PPP "loans" that kicked off the price inflation for manufactured capital goods (if you didn't have something to take section 179 accelerated depreciation on, then your forgiven PPP loan would have been taxable income). Being fiscally conservative in a way that gets no play in the mainstream political discourse, and given how much the current narrative is hanging the now-apparent price inflation on the current administration (including how the incompetent Democratic party is just going along with it!), I'd say it's worth coining a term that points to when that monetary inflation actually occurred. Despite what those benefiting from all of the monetary creation would have you believe, these effects have causes! Apart from CARES there was also interest rates. I had been cautiously optimistic that Trump was actually going to buck the trend there and continue pulling up from ZIRP (hence the hate from the MSM). But nope, as soon as that line started to go down, it was printing press time. Rates are not under the control of the President directly, but there is obviously significant influence. There's also the issue of anti-leadership paralyzing society (thus the economy) much more than it had to be. A little positive leadership would have given Trump a shoe-in second term from the war/crisis time boost, but the dude only knew how to continue with the spiteful divisive poor-me whinging from the campaign. (Related to this subject, I'll give positive credit for the steel tariffs as something that needed to be done. It was yet another spike in prices, but that was really only revealing what ZIRP had already hollowed out)
  - Animats 2y ago
    If it's too expensive, you can get counterfeit Red Brand fence from China.[1] [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Tensile-Wire-Galvanized-Cattle-Fence_1601114925156.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Tensile-Wire-Gal...
    - doodlebugging 2y ago
      Interesting that it has the Red Brand logo on a roll that doesn't use Red Brand's knotting. They do offer the same wire knot styles but the photo clearly shows a different style on that roll. I prefer to buy US made wire products but with that said how would I know whether my supplier bought counterfeit rolls sold with domestic branding? The fact that they use a Red Brand photo front and center and then the other photos of their palletized rolls don't have any examples of rolls with the red top wire suggests they just "borrowed" the photo for the brand recognition it brings. I can see how the price difference makes the Chinese knock-off very attractive for someone who is fencing a large area. I think as long as the strand gauges and wire strengths are similar I see no reason why the Chinese wire rolls would be an unattractive option. A fence serves to deter traffic (foot traffic from people or animal traffic on trails) from one plot to another and there are many different types of fencing materials that are effective. Here at home I have several types of fencing including chain link, barbed wire, field fence, cattle panels and polyethylene deer fence. It depends on the objective. On my own property I have one stretch of field fence (like the rolls in your post) that is decades old and in need of replacement. The cedar posts are old and loose, staples have fallen out and the fence material is largely vegetation-supported today. Once I remove all the birdshit hackberries, elm, privet, and cedar that has grown up over the decades, the wire will lay itself down and take a well-earned break. I bought my rolls of wire to replace that stretch a long time ago and just haven't found the time to do it, yet. I'll get there one day.
- aaron695 2y ago
  That looks like normal dog fence and you barbwire the top for cattle. It costs a lot so after spending that money it's normal [1] to put barbed wire on top. The 'dog' refers to the smaller spacing at the bottom. [1] By normal that's what I've seen. Can't confirm it's more than 50%. You might not do it for internal fencing. - Picture of a bespoke cow with barb and dog fence - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ratters1968/16377626013 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ratters1968/16377626013 We don't barbwire ours because we have (miniature) goats.
- em-bee 2y ago
  in austria, the farms where i lived used electric wires with a weak current that you can feel but doesn't hurt. (i got buzzed at least once as a 7 year old trying to cross a fence). but i suppose on those huge ranches, getting electricity out there is probably not very practical.
masfuerte 2y ago
I understood that the labels were brand names, but I thought the article was saying that the ranchers deliberately used different brands of barb wire because it made it easy to distinguish their holdings. I don't know if they did.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Ranchers go to the local store and buy whatever barb wire is in stock. Whatever the owner of the store buys is what they get. There may be more than one store, the store may order from different manufactures, and the store may have more than one type in stock (with different marketing trying to convince you one is better than the other) - but in the end it is all what the store has in stock. I'm going to count the local Sears catalog (and others) as a local store for this discussion. The important key is farmers don't consult with others to be intentionally different. (farmers will consult with each other but that is only to see what works for someone else to copy it - if a farmer has barbed wire that doesn't work they will replace it and tell the neighbors). They all have the same set of choices to work with. Farmers also have no reason to care if their fence is different. They know where their land is (and often are leasing land that someone else built the fence). Barbed wire isn't something that a dishonest farmer would steel - it gets harder to work with after it has been put up once so a fresh roll is better.

by kens 2y ago

Animats 2y ago

Yes. The history of barbed wire is well known, and this article misses it. For cattle operations, barbed wire is somewhat obsolete, anyway. There's a wire mesh called "King Ranch fencing".[1] No barbs, but strong enough to contain cattle. With fewer scrape marks, the leather is more valuable. No risk of animals caught in barbed wire. Less sagging wire. "We don't fix fence, we build fence" - King Ranch slogan. [1] https://redbrandstore.com/products/king-ranch-field-fence-660-949-12-9 https://redbrandstore.com/products/king-ranch-field-fence-66...

doodlebugging 2y ago
Wow! I have two 330' rolls of a similar Red Brand field fence I bought about 20 years ago, 660' total of it like the roll in the listing. I paid $75 for each 330' roll. I think mine is the Monarch Field Fence roll with the graduated spacing beginning with 3" at the bottom. The same rolls sell for more than $300 each today according to that site. Time to build a cheap fence with my old wire.
- mindslight 2y ago
  Welcome to the effects of two decades of ZIRP with a Trumpflation cherry on top. Farm stuff, or really anything that isn't plastic consumer crap, has shot through the roof. Steel has practically become a precious metal. Imagine if all that monetary creation had at least been spent on infrastructure, rather than being mostly squandered on the Manhattan welfare program.
  - sbierwagen 2y ago
    >Trumpflation The CARES Act passed the Senate unanimously. If Trump caused inflation due to profligate spending, he did so with plenty of help from Democrats. He couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to, that's far past the veto proof majority.
    - mindslight 2y ago
      Sure, everyone got their loot on. But each of its parts came from somewhere, and the dynamic of dumping so much money towards PPP "loans" feels right in line with the past decades of Republican upper class welfare. To me it was those PPP "loans" that kicked off the price inflation for manufactured capital goods (if you didn't have something to take section 179 accelerated depreciation on, then your forgiven PPP loan would have been taxable income). Being fiscally conservative in a way that gets no play in the mainstream political discourse, and given how much the current narrative is hanging the now-apparent price inflation on the current administration (including how the incompetent Democratic party is just going along with it!), I'd say it's worth coining a term that points to when that monetary inflation actually occurred. Despite what those benefiting from all of the monetary creation would have you believe, these effects have causes! Apart from CARES there was also interest rates. I had been cautiously optimistic that Trump was actually going to buck the trend there and continue pulling up from ZIRP (hence the hate from the MSM). But nope, as soon as that line started to go down, it was printing press time. Rates are not under the control of the President directly, but there is obviously significant influence. There's also the issue of anti-leadership paralyzing society (thus the economy) much more than it had to be. A little positive leadership would have given Trump a shoe-in second term from the war/crisis time boost, but the dude only knew how to continue with the spiteful divisive poor-me whinging from the campaign. (Related to this subject, I'll give positive credit for the steel tariffs as something that needed to be done. It was yet another spike in prices, but that was really only revealing what ZIRP had already hollowed out)
- Animats 2y ago
  If it's too expensive, you can get counterfeit Red Brand fence from China.[1] [1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Tensile-Wire-Galvanized-Cattle-Fence_1601114925156.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Tensile-Wire-Gal...
  - doodlebugging 2y ago
    Interesting that it has the Red Brand logo on a roll that doesn't use Red Brand's knotting. They do offer the same wire knot styles but the photo clearly shows a different style on that roll. I prefer to buy US made wire products but with that said how would I know whether my supplier bought counterfeit rolls sold with domestic branding? The fact that they use a Red Brand photo front and center and then the other photos of their palletized rolls don't have any examples of rolls with the red top wire suggests they just "borrowed" the photo for the brand recognition it brings. I can see how the price difference makes the Chinese knock-off very attractive for someone who is fencing a large area. I think as long as the strand gauges and wire strengths are similar I see no reason why the Chinese wire rolls would be an unattractive option. A fence serves to deter traffic (foot traffic from people or animal traffic on trails) from one plot to another and there are many different types of fencing materials that are effective. Here at home I have several types of fencing including chain link, barbed wire, field fence, cattle panels and polyethylene deer fence. It depends on the objective. On my own property I have one stretch of field fence (like the rolls in your post) that is decades old and in need of replacement. The cedar posts are old and loose, staples have fallen out and the fence material is largely vegetation-supported today. Once I remove all the birdshit hackberries, elm, privet, and cedar that has grown up over the decades, the wire will lay itself down and take a well-earned break. I bought my rolls of wire to replace that stretch a long time ago and just haven't found the time to do it, yet. I'll get there one day.
aaron695 2y ago
That looks like normal dog fence and you barbwire the top for cattle. It costs a lot so after spending that money it's normal [1] to put barbed wire on top. The 'dog' refers to the smaller spacing at the bottom. [1] By normal that's what I've seen. Can't confirm it's more than 50%. You might not do it for internal fencing. - Picture of a bespoke cow with barb and dog fence - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ratters1968/16377626013 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ratters1968/16377626013 We don't barbwire ours because we have (miniature) goats.
em-bee 2y ago
in austria, the farms where i lived used electric wires with a weak current that you can feel but doesn't hurt. (i got buzzed at least once as a 7 year old trying to cross a fence). but i suppose on those huge ranches, getting electricity out there is probably not very practical.

masfuerte 2y ago

I understood that the labels were brand names, but I thought the article was saying that the ranchers deliberately used different brands of barb wire because it made it easy to distinguish their holdings. I don't know if they did.

bluGill 2y ago
Ranchers go to the local store and buy whatever barb wire is in stock. Whatever the owner of the store buys is what they get. There may be more than one store, the store may order from different manufactures, and the store may have more than one type in stock (with different marketing trying to convince you one is better than the other) - but in the end it is all what the store has in stock. I'm going to count the local Sears catalog (and others) as a local store for this discussion. The important key is farmers don't consult with others to be intentionally different. (farmers will consult with each other but that is only to see what works for someone else to copy it - if a farmer has barbed wire that doesn't work they will replace it and tell the neighbors). They all have the same set of choices to work with. Farmers also have no reason to care if their fence is different. They know where their land is (and often are leasing land that someone else built the fence). Barbed wire isn't something that a dishonest farmer would steel - it gets harder to work with after it has been put up once so a fresh roll is better.