How to Install Barbed Wire Fence
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Learn how to install barbed wire fence, who invented barbed wire fencing, and how to make DIY barbed wire fence posts.
by Don Lewis
Who invented barbed wire? In the late 19th century, Sheriff Joseph Glidden of DeKalb County, Illinois, patented a laughably simple invention that changed the course of the world. He took a strand of soft iron wire and attached, at regular intervals, perpendicular short pieces of the same wire, creating barbs.
His “barbed” wire changed the face of the west and assisted immeasurably in making the United States the breadbasket of the world. It also made Sheriff Glidden one of the wealthiest men in America.
But barbed wire fences are only useful if they’re correctly designed and installed. A well-crafted barbed wire fence is a safe and effective deterrent to livestock migration and assists in field crop protection. But a poorly installed barbed wire fence is a danger to livestock, wildlife, and agriculture.
Fortunately, designing and installing a good barbed wire fence is relatively easy, assuming you recognize a few key requirements. A good fence needs:
- Strong braces capable of resisting the tension created by the stretched wires at gates, corners, and between long stretches of fences.
- Evenly spaced support posts (often called pickets) between the braces to support the fence wires.
- The appropriate number and correct spacing of individual wires, depending on the purpose of the fence.
- The correct tension on those wires.
Layout
Because the pickets between braces aren’t designed to effectively resist the lateral pressures of tensioned wire, it’s very important that they be installed in straight lines between the braces. The easiest way to do this is to create your braces first.
DIY Barbed Wire Braces
Appropriately installed braces are essential to resist the powerful forces created by a tensioned-wire fence. There are a variety of brace designs and variations of those designs based upon material used (wood, metal, concrete, stone), but the most common designs are the “H” brace or the “N” brace. Brace posts (both at corners and in-line along a fence) must be strong and correctly set into the ground at least as deep as the above-ground portion of the post, since their job is to maintain tension.
Opinions vary about the best distance between additional in-line braces based on the number of wires under tension and the purpose of the fence. Flat ground will allow for longer distances between braces (up to 500 feet). But for uneven terrain, you’ll need additional in-line braces.
Always build your corner braces first because you’ll use them to lay out the line needed for your pickets and in-line braces. The simplest method is to use a string line from one corner post to another.
Once you’ve got a line laid out, start adding in-line braces and pickets as needed. For most wire fences, the recommended picket spacing is 8 to 12 feet. The most common pickets are metal T-posts, but in some places wooden posts are used. They’re meant to hold up the fencing and resist lateral stresses, like pressure from livestock. They don’t provide tensional strength.
For T-posts, always face the nubs into the area in which you wish to keep your livestock, because the T-post is designed to be especially resistant to bending when pressure is applied to the nubbed face, and because the strands of barbed wire will more easily remain in place when run by the nubbed side.
Barbed Wire Fencing Tools
When you’re finally ready to start hanging wire, you’ll need the following tools:
- Eye protection
- Puncture-resistant work gloves
- A good hammer, preferably one with a textured strike surface
- Fence staples (U-nails)
- Several pairs of pliers, including adjustable pliers, vise-grips, and a pair of bolt cutters
- A wire stretcher/splicer
How to Install Barbed Wire Fence Safely
Begin at an in-line brace. For barbed wire, start at the top of the center post so it doesn’t snag the other strands as you tension them into place. Mark the strand spacing on the center pole of the brace. Form a loop around the brace pole at the location of the top mark and wrap the wire to itself after at least several turns around the post.
At this point, you can use a couple of fence staples to hold the loop in place, but never count on fence staples alone to hold a tensioned wire strand in place. Be sure to loop that wire, too.
Next, unroll the wire (carefully) until you come to the next brace point or corner brace. Run out enough wire to go beyond the farthest brace pole and still have enough left (after tensioning) to loop around it and twist it off as you did at the starting point.
Tension the wire by hand first before you trap the wire in the puller or splicer jaws. Then, using the wire puller or splicer, begin to tension the wire. How much tension? Well, it’s unlikely that you’ll over-tension a double strand of barbed wire using a hand-operated ratchet puller or splicer alone, so go until it gets to be too much trouble. Note that even a ratchet-tensioned wire over distance will have a curve created by the weight of the wire in the center. That’s okay. One way to further flatten that curve after the initial tensioning is to walk to the center of the curve and raise the wire with a stick. You’ll then be able to get a few more ratchet clicks. That’s good enough.
A warning against trying to tension the wire by pulling it with a tractor or ATV: A small tractor or even an ATV can tension a strand of barbed wire beyond its breaking point (particularly if that strand has any hidden nicks or flaws), resulting in injury as the snapped barbed wire ricochets toward you.
Wrap the excess wire around the far brace pole and twist it off as you did at the first post. Put in a few fence staples and release the ratchet. You’ll lose a small amount of the tension when you do, but that’s fine.
Repeat, placing the top barbed wire for each section of fence between braces, until you come to the end. This way you’re balancing the pressure evenly on your center braces. Do the next strand down and repeat the sequence until you’re done.
Now that you have the strands hung and tensioned between the corner posts and the in-line braces, it’s time to fasten the wires to the pickets. You can buy pre-made wire hangers designed for T-posts or just use galvanized wire to wrap the barbed wire to the picket while maintaining your spacing.
A correctly installed barbed wire fence can add value to your property and security and safety to your herd. The view of those straight fence lines and tight braces can also do wonders for your satisfaction with your country home.
Don Lewis lives on a small homestead in North Idaho. He’s a husband, father, writer, and all-around handyman. He has practiced and written about rural subjects for over 20 years. He has experience in animal husbandry, carpentry, construction, science, and theology. He and his wife have been married since 1990 and have two homeschooled daughters, both now adults.
Originally published in the January/February 2025 issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.
