My first importation of 2 foot 6 inch netting served its purpose for a year or more, when I found the jackals as troublesome as over. The addition of a single barbed wire assisted for a time: but after some years of experience and comparing notes. I found that nothing short of a 3-foot netting and four barbed wires would be effective. I have given the above particulars of my experience as a warning to the inexperienced, that half measures are simply a waste of money and that badly erected fences, although effective for a time, will end in disappointment and failure.
Mr. Hoole has 18 miles of the fence just described, while a neighboring stockman has 45 miles built. The cost, including labor, when built of the host material—sneezewood posts and kangaroo netting—was estimated at £106 per mile—about $500. This fence was designed for ostriches, cattle, springboks, and sheep: a fence intended for sheep alone could be built for less. Materials and labor are both much more expensive than in the United States. A fence similar to that described by Mr. Hoole could be built in most parts of the West for about $200 to $250 per mile.
A writer in the Nor' West Farmer states that when he first began sheep raising in Manitoba a 2-strand barbed wire fence was a complete barrier to the coyotes, but that in less than two years they became used to it and would go under or between the wires without hesitation. More strands were added without effect, until a woven wire fence was adopted, which proved satisfactory.
In South Africa three types of fence have been in use for protection against jackals, and each has advocates among the farmers. The cheapest is built of strands of barbed wire placed close together and stayed at intervals by light strips of wood fastened to the wires by staples. In the second form the staying is done by light, smooth wire woven in by machinery, involving more labor in the building. The third type is that recommended by Mr. Hoole. It is more expensive, but seems always to have stood the test of experience. The others have not always been satisfactory, but their advocates claim that the fault has been in construction and not in design. The jackals have entered the inclosures through openings at the ground.
Mr. J. H. Clarke, of Laytonville, Mendocino County. Cal., has for several years succeeded in fencing coyotes from his sheep range. In a letter to the Chief of the Biological Survey, dated March 1, 1905, he describes the fence and relates his experience:
The fence, inclosing nearly 4,000 acres, consists of redwood pickets 6 feet long driven into the ground 1 foot and leaving spaces or cracks not over 4 inches wide; posts 8 feet long and driven 2 feet, projecting 1 foot above the pickets; two barbed wires stapled to the posts 5 inches above the pickets and the same distance apart. These should be on the outside of the posts. The pickets are driven evenly by using a slat as a guide at the bottom and a line at the top. One barbed wire is placed at the bottom on the outside to prevent digging. The pickets are fastened to a No. 9 cable wire with a No. 13 wrapping wire. The posts are set 12 feet apart, or less, according to the surface—at top and bottom of each rise or indentation.
Where gulches or small streams are crossed boxes and gates are put in. Where larger streams are encountered a dam is first put in and the gate so swung as to rest on or against the dam head in the dry season.
The cost of construction varied from $320 to $400 per mile. Galvanized wire was used, and of the barbed the thickest-set four-pointed wire obtainable. If four-point wire could be had, with sharp points set not over 2 inches apart, the top wire might be dispensed with.
While this fence was begun in 1897, it was net finished until three years ago. It was partly experimental at first, and at the end of the second year only that portion of the range used for lambing was inclosed with a coyote-proof fence. We do not know that a coyote has ever scaled or jumped it. A very large coyote that got in through an accidentally 'propped' floodgate, though chased by dogs all day, could not be made to jump out, even when cornered. Considering the steep, wild, and broken nature of the country, with several 'slides' in the fence that could not be avoided when building, and which move and displace the fence during hard storms, it is net surprising that a few coyotes have gotten in. Fortunately, partition fences have aided in the capture of those before much damage was done. Two obstacles are encountered in keeping up this fence—trespassers, who cut or break a picket to get through, and slides.
Coyotes are very persistent, and when they see young lambs on the opposite side will follow the fence for miles, trying to find a hole. * * * None have gotten in this season.