Wattle Fencing

Through the years, we have used three different kinds of primary fences. The first one was way back before I even had goats, but was gearing up to get them. I had lots of small trees and saplings that needed to be removed from the area where we planned to put the pasture. That, and the fact that I was younger, had lots of energy, enthusiasm, and maybe am a little insane gave me the oomph to build a wattle fence. A wattle fence, for those that don’t know, is built by weaving small trees and saplings to make a wall.

I built the wattle fence almost exclusively by myself, using a bow saw and a pair of Fiscar limb loppers. The walls were about 3 1/2 feet high, and I left trees intermittently standing in a large circle for the upright posts...those were my warp. I had to use a couple real fence posts, but mostly my ‘posts’ were living trees. For the weft, I used saplings that I cut down at ground level. It was a learn-as-you-go process. At first, it seemed that I should weave the whole circle from the ground up, putting one layer at ground level the whole length of the fence, then one on top of that, alternating which side of the upright trees I went on for the weaving effect, and so on. Due to the ground being uneven in places, the varying lengths and thicknesses of saplings, and the varying length between upright trees, I had to amend that idea pretty quickly and make it work as I went. I ended up building in it sections, so as I cut the saplings I could match the appropriate lengths and thicknesses to what I needed for certain sections. In the weaving of the saplings, I did alternate which sides of the trees/posts they went on, but not every layer. It depended on the thickness of the saplings. I would cut a sapling, and strip off all the small branches, leaving the sapling as long as I could. Sometimes if a couple of the branches were mostly parallel with the trunk, I would leave them and weave them in. I admit, toward the end of the project, my hands and elbows were incredibly sore, and when my husband offered to cut a bunch of saplings for me using his chainsaw, this purist was grateful! I left an opening in the fence for a gate, which we built from fence wire and boards

It took a lot of work, but the wattle fence worked pretty well and kept the goats in and other animals out…plus it looked really neat. It was quite strong, but the wood was not treated and only lasted a year or two. Then…we went on to field fencing and beyond, but that is a post for tomorrow!