[109matt]

Hello everyone !

we have just bought a house in the lovely Staffordshire moorlands with 7 acres of land all of which was a little unloved and overgrown. I bought myself a little Fergie and a topper that has done a great job of getting the grass down to a better level (although the Fergie is now in hiding after my wife and daughter fitted it with eyelashes......) i have a lot of work to do sorting fencing and drainage out as some of the fields are very boggy and covered in reeds.

I have already had found lots of great advice on this great forum but I'm sure I'm going to need lots more ! we wold love to have some animals at some point but I need to sort the drainage and fencing first ! all we have on the land at the moment is free range children as my wife and I are foster carers.  but it seems that I need to sort a lot of paperwork to get registered and move animals etc. but its very confusing as to what i need so that will be a job for another day lol !

im going to be needing some advice on the fencing as i have never done any and i have tried to get 3 different fencing people into do the work for me but none have turned up to quote or have quoted and been given the work just to never arrive to do it. so its going to be me sorting it !

anyways nice to meet you all

[Possum]

Hello and welcome to TAS   It sounds like you have got your priorities right by clearing the land and sorting out the fencing. Have you contacted  your local smallholders association?
 
 http://www.staffsmallholders.info


They might be able to put you in touch with a reliable fencer. Have you got any plans for keeping the grass down once spring arrives?

[Bionic]

Hello and welcome

If you are only slightly confused you may well be ahead of most of us :-)

[Rosemary]

  from Carnoustie.

[Penninehillbilly]

Hi from W. Yor ks hire.
Welcome to a brilliant and helpful site.   
Animal paperwork isn't too bad once you've done things a couple of times.
I found contractors didn't like giving quotes,  estimates maybe, they have to think about price per metre, how much they can do with tractor, where to put strainers and how many etc.
If your land is boggy they may not want to be getting tractors stuck?
Chap we had was too busy with his lambing to turn up when he said he would, law unto themselves 

[SallyintNorth]

Good fencers are always busy - and usually worth the wait

Don't be in too much of a rush to drain too much, give yourselves time to learn about your land.  Some moorland is ecologically important and fascinating.  Even if you don't find it so, rushes (they'll be rushes not reeds) have their uses.  Wet land is wetter and muddier and erodes faster without them.  Clumps provide brilliant shelter for lambs on spring, and for sheep to get shade and/or relief from midges and flies in summer, and so on.  Topping the rushes is good, grubbing them out may not always be for the best.

Look at what the farmers around you do.  If they have reshy fields too, chances are that's the best way to keep them.  If they've all drained and have good level grazing, well then you may well be right to do that on your land.  Chat to them, too - they'll have seen all ways of managing the land around tried.

Oh, and we'll be needing pictures of that Fergie

[Penninehillbilly]

Good fencers are always busy - and usually worth the wait

Don't be in too much of a rush to drain too much, give yourselves time to learn about your land.  Some moorland is ecologically important and fascinating.  Even if you don't find it so, rushes (they'll be rushes not reeds) have their uses.  Wet land is wetter and muddier and erodes faster without them.  Clumps provide brilliant shelter for lambs on spring, and for sheep to get shade and/or relief from midges and flies in summer, and so on.  Topping the rushes is good, grubbing them out may not always be for the best.

Look at what the farmers around you do.  If they have reshy fields too, chances are that's the best way to keep them.  If they've all drained and have good level grazing, well then you may well be right to do that on your land.  Chat to them, too - they'll have seen all ways of managing the land around tried.

Agreed Sally, we control some of ours, but leave areas for wildlife, great cover for pheasants etc. as well as lambs.

Oh, and we'll be needing pictures of that Fergie

COMPLETE WITH EYELASHES 

[Penninehillbilly]

Reeds or Rushes?
Common to be confused, rushes are a common sight in damp fields, usually 'soft rush', where the flower head is a few inches down the stem. Reeds are much taller, i think more grass like.

[SallyintNorth]

Reeds or Rushes?
Common to be confused, rushes are a common sight in damp fields, usually 'soft rush', where the flower head is a few inches down the stem. Reeds are much taller, i think more grass like.

And some types of reeds are used for thatching.  Not so rushes (aka reshes, theaves, seaves.)

[pharnorth]

I have a great fence man. But no where near you I am afraid. Most fit it around regular farm work and you have to ask them well ahead. A rush job is anything under 6 months. Like I'll call mine May to tell him what I am thinking off for the following winter.  As others say tends to be a verbal estimate and a paper firm quote a day or so before he arrives.

[big soft moose]

If you aren't confused you are misinformed

Fencing wise , how little is your fergie , can you buy or hire a post banger to go on the back of it ?  That would make fencing a lot easier.  Incidentally I'm currently a team leader for the national trust and when hiring fencing contractors I usually work off £6/metre unless the site is challenging, or if we want chestnut posts (in which case its more like £7.50/metre)

This is assuming you want strained stock net and two strands of barb

[109matt]

Hello all !! and thanks for all the replies!

I have hopefully attached a photo of the Fergie complete with the lashes that she's still sporting !

I have also treated myself to a Fergie 50b digger its been fantastic at moving all the stone that the previous owner of the property has left in piles everywhere ! 

still no joy with any fencing people so I'm going to have a go myself, I have been looking at the post hole borers for the back of the Fergie combined with tapping them in with the front bucket on the digger ?

regarding draining, I have cleared out a couple of the ditches that I can get to with the digger where the ground is not too soft and I have had a good chat with the old chap next door he says the in the 40 years he has been here he has never seen water sitting on our fields until the chap that was here before started messing with the ditches and digging ponds and the like so I think I have something to chase down to set me in the right direction, i have a subsoiler for the Fergie as well so going to try and get that put to work as soon as the ground is hard enough to take it

hope you all had a great Christmas and wishing you all the very best for 2017 !

[big soft moose]

I wouldn't try and bash them in with a digger bucket they are almost certain to go in crooked.  If you haven't got a post banger to go on the tractor and can't hire one, i'd be inclined to use a borer to start them off and finish them the old fashioned way with a drivall  (strainers will probably need to be dug in anyway).

have any of your vehicles got a winch - that can take a lot of pain out of straining fencing, although you do need one of those multi attachment bars so you don't stretch it out of shape.

[Penninehillbilly]

Hi Matt,probably stating the obvious but before you start using the subsoiler check no old field drains near the surface?
We've notice drains at the top of the field aren't as deep down as at the bottom, presume soil slowly moves down to slope ?

[angie]

All the best in your new adventure in life
The conservation volunteers book on fencing is extremely good.(look on Amazon). They also do hand books on wet land,dry stone walling Tec
All the best for the new year