Woven Wire / Field Fence Calculator

Twelve feet on center is the standard for cattle on level ground. Go to 8–10 ft for sheep and goats, tighter still over dips and rises, and only stretch to 16–20 ft if you are running high-tensile wire with stays between posts.

Field fence follows the same rule as woven wire: 12 ft between line posts, with wood posts at every corner, gate and 660 ft of straight run to re-anchor tension.

High tensile wire holds tension across much longer spans — 20 to 30 ft between posts with fiberglass or plastic stays every 8 to 10 ft. The braces do the work, so build them heavy.

Twelve feet for woven wire and 12 to 16 ft for barbed wire with cattle. Cattle push and lean, so closer is always safer near water, feed and gates where they congregate.

Divide your total run by the roll length — 330 ft is the common farm roll, 100 ft the hardware-store roll. A quarter mile of fence is 1,320 ft, or exactly four 330 ft rolls.

At 12 ft spacing a 330 ft roll takes about 28 T-posts. At 8 ft spacing it takes 42. Add the wood corner and brace posts separately — those are never T-posts.

Materials run roughly $2.00 to $3.50 per foot for standard field fence with T-posts, and $4 to $7 per foot installed by a contractor. Corner braces, gates and rough terrain push the installed number higher.

Yes, and at every gate opening and every end. A single H-brace made from two wood posts and a horizontal rail, wrapped with a twitched wire, is what holds all the tension in the run.

They are the same product in everyday use. Woven wire describes the construction, and field fence is the common name for the graduated-mesh version sold for livestock.

Pull until the tension curves in the horizontal wires flatten to about half their original bend. Fully straight crimps means you have over-stretched it and the fence has no give left for a leaning animal or a fallen branch.

Cattle 47 to 49 inches, horses 54 to 60 inches with no-climb mesh, sheep and goats 39 to 47 inches with a small 4x4 inch mesh, and deer exclusion 8 ft. Match mesh size to the animal, not just height.