Springfield Farm Fence: Farm Fence Installation in Springfield, MO
Springfield Farm Fence is a farm fence contractor licensed and insured in Missouri, building pasture, cross, and boundary fence across Greene County and the Ozarks country around it. We install field and woven wire fence, high-tensile and electric fence, barbed wire fence, board and rail fence, welded pipe fence and corrals, and farm gates and entrances. We also clear the fence line and haul the old fence off first. The people who call us run beef cattle, horses, goats, and a few head on a small place in Greene, Christian, Webster, Polk, and Dallas counties.
Around Springfield the auger finds limestone before it finds four feet of dirt. We drill the rock with a rock bit and a hydraulic hammer, so a corner post here goes to full depth instead of stopping where the bedrock starts. Then the ends get built: an H-brace of two posts, a horizontal rail near the top, and a brace wire wrapped twice on the diagonal and twisted tight. The rail pushes back, the diagonal wire pulls down, and the pair turns wire tension into downward load on the posts. We hang Red Brand or Bekaert Gaucho wire in Class 3 galvanized coating, stretch Stay-Tuff fixed knot rolls for woven wire, and set CCA ground-contact treated posts. Driven T-posts carry wire. They cannot carry a corner.
Call for a Free Estimate- Licensed and insured in MO
- Rock drilling for Ozark limestone ground
- H-braced corners, ends, and gate openings
- Class 3 galvanized wire pulled to a set tension
- Greene, Christian, Webster, Polk, and Dallas counties
Farm Fence Installation
Wire is the cheap part of a fence. The structure that holds the wire back is the fence. Every strand pulls toward the end of the run, and one assembly at each end absorbs all of it. Leave that assembly out and the corner tips inward, the strands slacken behind it, and a new fence looks tired by its first summer.
We stake the run, drill and set the brace assemblies at corners, ends, gate openings, and every hard change of direction, then space line posts twelve to sixteen feet apart and tighten that up where the ground rolls. Wire comes to tension on a ratchet strainer against a finished end. The depth rule we work to is simple: a post should stand in the ground as deep as the top wire stands above it. More on farm fence installation.
Field and Woven Wire Fence
Field fence covers more Ozarks pasture than anything else, and the knot is what separates one roll from the next. A fixed knot ties every crossing with its own wrapped wire, so the mesh holds its shape when a cow leans on it and stays square on a sidehill. A hinge joint gives under the hit and springs back. On the hills south and east of Springfield that difference shows up fast.
We roll Stay-Tuff and Red Brand off a jack, stretch it against a braced end, tie it off, and add a barbed top strand where cattle reach. Mesh spacing answers to the animal: graduated squares tight at the bottom for goats and sheep, wider openings for cattle, small mesh for horses so a hoof stays out. Agricultural fence is not one product. It is a spec you pick for what walks the pasture. More on field and woven wire fence.
High-Tensile and Electric Fence
Twelve and a half gauge high tensile smooth wire holds well past a thousand pounds before it gives up any length. That buys you a straight line over a long run with fewer posts, and it puts a serious load on the two ends. High tensile wire on a weak corner is a fence waiting to fold.
We hang the strands on in-line strainers with tension springs, so anybody can read the load from the truck window. Gallagher and Speedrite energizers get sized to the length of fence, and we drive enough ground rods for the charge to bite in dry Ozarks chert. Wire draws up in a January cold snap and lets out in August, and a strainer takes that slack back in year three without pulling a mile of fence apart. More on high-tensile and electric fence.
Barbed Wire Fence
Barbed wire belongs on cattle and nowhere else. Goats slip through it and horses tear a leg open on it. A five strand run stands about four and a half feet with the bottom wire around a foot off the ground, and the spacing closes up toward the bottom because a calf works low first. Missouri calls a lawful fence four feet of tight wire or boards on firmly set posts, and cattle fence should sit above that floor, not on it.
We run Red Brand two point and four point barbed wire, or Bekaert Gaucho high tensile barbed where the owner wants a lighter roll at the same strength. Splices get proper wraps. Each strand gets stretched against a wood corner drilled into rock. Driven steel T-posts hold the line between assemblies, which is honest work for a T-post and the only work it is good at. More on barbed wire fence.
Board and Rail Fence
Horses need a fence they can see from a distance at a run. That is why board fence still sells around here, on the horse places and the small acreages ringing town. We build three board and four board in rough sawn oak or treated pine, posts on eight foot centers so every board ends on a post, drilled deep and packed tight so the top line stays straight.
Boards mount on the pasture face of the post, where a shove loads the fastener sideways instead of pulling it out. Lower bays get woven wire mesh behind them when foals or minis share the paddock. Paint or stain sheds water out of the joints and buys years. Vinyl ranch rail suits an owner who never wants to hold a brush again. More on board and rail fence.
Pipe Fence and Corrals
A working pen holds an animal that has decided it would rather be somewhere else. Wood splits under that and wire bags out of shape. Welded pipe and continuous rail absorb it year after year, which is why the pens outlast two rebuilds of the pasture fence surrounding them.
We weld pipe fence and continuous rail, drill steel posts into the limestone and set them in concrete, and lay a corral out around the way cattle actually move: a crowding tub, an alley, and gates hung where a person on foot needs them. Priefert and Powder River panels, chutes, and headgates go in when a bolted system beats a welded one. Concrete under steel is right. Concrete around treated wood is what rots the post at the collar. More on pipe fence and corrals.
Old Fence Removal and Line Clearing
Getting to the line is the first bill on most of these jobs and the smallest one to argue with. Cedar takes an Ozarks fence row in a decade, blackberry and locust fill in behind it, and old woven wire disappears into the base of a tree. Nobody builds a straight fence through that.
We cut brush and trees off the run, pull wire and rotted posts, roll the scrap, and haul every foot of it away so none of it ends up in a hay bale or a tractor tire. Then the line gets surveyed and staked before the drill touches ground. Stringing new wire over an unclear line saves a day now and costs the next crew a week. More on old fence removal and line clearing.
Farm Gates and Entrances
Gates go before fences do, every time. A gate hangs on one post and works that post like a lever, twice a day, in both directions, for years. When the gate starts scraping the dirt, nothing happened to the gate. The hinge post gave.
We set hinge posts deeper than any post in the run, brace them back into the fence line, and switch to steel pipe in concrete on the wide openings. Tarter and Priefert tube gates go up in widths that match the equipment coming through, with a walk gate where people cross on foot. We build entrances with headers and pour cattle guard footings on ground that will carry a loaded hay truck. More on farm gates and entrances.
Why Fences Fail Around Springfield
- The corner was never braced. A tight wire on an unbraced corner pulls that corner over faster than a loose one does. Corners, ends, gate openings, and hard turns each get a full H-brace, and a tall multi-strand run gets a double. The whole method sits on the farm fence installation page.
- The hole stopped at the rock. This is the local one. An auger hits limestone at a foot or two, the post gets set in what depth the ground gave up, and the fence leans within a few years. We drill through the rock and set to depth. That single step is most of the difference between a fence here and a fence that lasts here.
- Posts got floated in concrete instead of tamped. Backfill tamped in lifts packs the soil back to the density the drill took out and leaves the post resettable. Concrete around wood holds water at the ground line. Nowhere shows it like a gate hinge post.
- The wire was a price, not a spec. Class 3 galvanized carries far more zinc than Class 1, and soft wire stretches once and stays stretched. Gauge and coating get covered on barbed wire and high-tensile fence.
- The fence ran level and the ground did not. Ozarks pasture rises and falls in short steps. Wire has to stay down through the draws on tie-down posts, with floodgates where a run crosses a spring branch. A calf finds the gap under a straight fence over a dip inside a week. Terrain drives the whole woven wire layout.
- Nobody asked what was going in the field. Cattle shove, horses go over, goats look for daylight at the bottom. We ask before we quote, because the answer moves the wire, the height, and the post spacing. Horse owners usually land on board and rail, and handling facilities land on welded pipe.
Ozark Rock: What the Ground Does to a Post Here
Springfield sits on the Springfield Plateau, the western shoulder of the Ozark Highlands. Under the grass lies cherty limestone, and the soil over it is thin. Push a tractor auger into a pasture south of town and it can stall at a foot. On the more broken ground it stalls sooner. Everything about setting a fence here follows from that one fact.
A crew without rock equipment has two choices when the bit stops. Set the post short, or move the hole. Both cost the owner the fence. A brace post wants three and a half to four feet of ground and it does not care that the first two are shale and chert. We drill with rock teeth and a hydraulic hammer, break the rock, and take the hole to depth. Where the rock is solid and shallow, a steel post in a drilled socket does the job a wood post cannot.
Limestone country is also karst country. Sinkholes, caves, and springs run through this plateau, and a fence line will cross a swallow hole or a wet weather branch sooner or later. We walk that before pricing it. Tie-down posts hold wire against the ground through the low spots, floodgates hang where water runs, and a line gets moved a few feet rather than staked across a hole that will open wider.
The rest of the ground is rolling. Fence follows terrain here instead of running level, which means more posts per hundred feet on the pitches and a knot that holds the mesh square on a sidehill. Flat pasture forgives a hinge joint. A Greene County hillside does not.
Cattle Country, and What Changed
Missouri keeps more beef cows than almost any state in the country, and southwest Missouri is the heart of it. Polk County ground north of Springfield carries cattle as heavily as anywhere in the state. Most of it is cow-calf: pairs on grass, hay ground behind them, and a working pen somewhere near the barn.
Two generations ago this was dairy country. Greene County ran hundreds of dairy farms in the seventies, and today you can count what is left on two hands. The cows changed. The pasture did not. A lot of what we get called to replace is fence built for milk cows walking a lane twice a day, now holding a bull and a set of pairs it was never speced for.
The other half of our work is smaller. Horse places and a few head on ten or forty acres ring this town in every direction, and those owners want a fence that looks right from the house and holds an animal that is worth real money. Board and rail, woven wire with a hot top strand, and good gates. Same braces, same drilling, less footage.
Who Fences What in Missouri
Missouri's general fence law puts the fence on the livestock owner. If you keep cattle, keeping them home is your job, and your neighbor who runs no stock is not on the hook for half your fence. Where both neighbors run livestock along a boundary, each keeps up his share of it.
A lawful fence under that law is plain: posts and wire or boards at least four feet high, posts set firmly and no more than twelve feet apart, and the wire spaced and fastened well enough to turn cattle and horses. The state sets no minimum post depth at all, which is why the working rules matter more than the statute out here. Line posts two and a half to three feet, corners three and a half to four.
A handful of Missouri counties voted themselves onto the older local option rules, where two adjoining owners split a boundary fence whether or not either runs stock. None of the counties we work in did that, so the general law is what applies here. Before you settle a boundary line with a neighbor, check with your county and, if money is involved, your own attorney. A fence crew is not either one.
How the Job Runs
Walk It With You
We pace the run, count the corners and gate openings, find the draws, the springs, and the sinkholes, and stake the line. Boundary fence gets a survey line instead of an opinion. Footage and price go in writing first.
Clear the Line
Cedar, brush, and volunteer locust come off the run. Old wire gets rolled and loaded, rotted posts come out, and the scrap leaves with us. A clear line is what lets everything after it go straight.
Drill and Set the Ends
Rock bit and hammer where the limestone starts. Corner and brace posts run six to eight inches across and go three and a half to four feet down. Backfill goes in lifts and gets tamped hard. Then the rail and the twisted brace wire.
Line Posts and Wire
Spacing follows the fence type: twelve to sixteen feet for woven and barbed, eight to twelve for driven T-posts, eight feet on center for board. The wire rolls out, follows the ground over the rises, and ties off on finished ends.
Tension, Gates, Walk-Through
Every strand comes to tension on a strainer, springs go on the high tensile runs, gates hang on braced hinge posts, and we walk the whole fence with you before the trailer leaves.
What Farm Fence Costs Around Springfield
Fence prices by the linear foot, and the type sets the band. Inside that band the movers are the corner count, how grown up the line is, how much rock the drill has to break, and how far a truck can get from the road. Every job gets a free written estimate before anything gets dug.
| Fence Type | Typical Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Five-strand barbed wire | $4 - $8 per foot | Cattle only, wood corners drilled to depth, T-posts between them |
| High-tensile and electric wire | $3 - $7 per foot | Fewer posts over a mile, heavier ends, energizer billed on its own |
| Field and woven wire | $7 - $14 per foot | Fixed knot costs more, and it keeps the mesh square on a hillside |
| Board and rail, three or four board | $16 - $32 per foot | Rough sawn oak or treated pine, then paint or stain |
| Welded pipe and corrals | $20 - $45 per foot | Steel on concrete footings, working pens quoted off the layout |
| Line clearing and old fence removal | $2 - $6 per foot | A cedar thicket with buried wire in it runs well above open grass |
| Farm gates, supplied and hung | $500 - $1,800 each | Opening width, hinge post depth, and the brace behind it |
A cross fence splitting one pasture in two lands in the low thousands. Fencing the boundary of a whole place runs well into five figures, because length is length and every corner is a built assembly. Corners cost more than straight run, so a square forty prices better per foot than a forty with six jogs in the line.
What moves the price:
- Footage, and the number of corners and gate openings inside it
- How much rock sits under the line and how shallow it starts
- Clearing: open grass, heavy brush, cedar, or a fence row grown into trees
- Wire spec, gauge and coating class, and the knot on woven wire
- Post choice: treated pine, steel, or a drilled socket in rock
- Access for the truck, the drill, and the wire trailer
Posts, Wire, and Braces
Where a Post Actually Rots
A wood post rots at the ground line, not at the bottom. Air and water meet there and that is where the decay works. Pull a twenty year old post and it is often solid at both ends and pencil thin at the collar. CCA ground-contact treated southern pine stands in this soil for decades. Steel does not rot at all, and in shallow rock it is frequently the better answer.
Gauge and Coating
Twelve and a half gauge high tensile wire holds past a thousand pounds before it yields. Soft wire yields early and never comes back. Coating decides how long the fence lives: Class 3 galvanized carries roughly three times the zinc of Class 1, which on the same fence line is the gap between decades and a few hard years.
The H-Brace as a Load Path
Two posts, a horizontal rail near the top of both, and a brace wire wrapped twice on the diagonal and twisted with a stick until it rings. The rail carries compression and the wire carries tension. Between them they redirect the pull of every strand into downward force on the posts. Take the brace out and that same pull becomes a lean.
Tamped Backfill, Not a Concrete Collar
We backfill in layers and tamp each layer hard. That rebuilds the soil column around the post so it grips the full depth of the hole, and it leaves the post something a crew can pull and reset later. Concrete poured around treated wood traps water at the collar and rots it from the middle out. Concrete goes under steel pipe.
Tension You Can See
Tension is a number, not a feel. A ratchet strainer pulls smooth wire to a set load and a spring on the line reports that load at a glance. Cold draws wire up, heat lets it out, so a fence that read right in December reads loose in July. The strainer is how you take the slack out later without rebuilding anything.
Fencing Greene County and the Ozarks Around It
We build farm fence across Greene, Christian, Webster, Polk, and Dallas counties. Ground changes as you go: rock close to the surface across the plateau, deeper soil in the valleys, and cattle on nearly all of it. We set the fence to suit whatever the drill finds.
Ready to Price a Fence?
Call (417) 555-0195 for a free estimate. Have a rough footage in mind, tell us what you are keeping in, and say whether the line is open grass or grown up in cedar. Mention if it is a boundary with a neighbor. You will get a straight answer on the fence type that fits the animal and the ground, a price per foot, and an honest read on whether the existing fence can be rebraced and retensioned instead of replaced. We quote through the winter and build once the ground is workable.