Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Wire Gates?

Barb wire gates, they hold cattle when tight. Being able to open. and shut them can be troublesome. There must be several patents to pull, and latch the gates, I have rigged a pipe "cheater" cam to help.

Any thoughts on the gates?

Hate the damned things! Work of the devil! (Right up there with square balers.)

Well John, the gates are a way of live "down on the farm". The idea is to make the gates as cattle tight as possible, and still let a weak old man get in, and out.

The gates in my counary were rigged with horse hames..the metal bar with brass knob that was on each side of the collar...never see them any more they probably all got stolen..they worked slick and in the days when the tractor took over the harnesses all got repurposed...

Rain, I have seen those, many years ago. I bend a kink in 3/4, or so pipe/tubing to do the same thing.

I have one barbed wire gate. I hate the darn things.

Had several at the west Texas ranch.

Going to the back end of the ranch there were 8 gates. 3 were regular gates, and the rest were wire gates.

PITA...

Always invite someone to ride with you... To open the damn things.

Wives will catch on to that real quick.

We mark most wire gates so dummies can see then easily in the dark.

Reminds me of the joke....

Man drove his pick-up to the gate and stopped, looked over at his hired help and said, " Hop out and open the gate".

Man replied, " I'm the helper and if you need some help opening the gate, I'll be right there".

They are everywhere on BLM land around here. Haven't got my dog trained up to open them for me yet, but he is still young...

Old hubcaps make good wire gate markers

We have tried those steel loop and lever things that fasten to the top of the line post and you put the loop over the post and pull the lever down. They will smack you pretty good if you get in the way if the gate is pulled real tight. Another couple of gates have a chain and stick lever like yours to lever the closure wire open. Most are just the stretch it a bit and lift off the closure loop. I carry my fence stretcher these days for some of those.

Old chunk of rope works in a pinch.

As a matter of fact, I use old lariats as gate fasteners. You can get them quite snug with a rope.

My only wire gate has one of those steel loop and lever things. My main gate has a cattle guard, It's way better.

Open and shut 4-5 a day here one way.

Open and shut 4-5 a day here one way.

3-4 steel panel(gates).


It's a cow farm.

I always thought barb wire gate operation is a way to tell a Westerner from an Easterner?

Wherever one goes out here, it seems one is opening a wire gate.

The gate to my "backyard". It's in worse shape now, pic was taken about 2 years ago. The center stick is broken now. I keep thinking I'll fix it for rancher Dick before he puts his cows out there in the spring, but once I get home it's out of sight, out of mind. Dirt two track county rd runs right next to our place.



Geno

Fence stays, I could not find an image.

The twisted wire spreaders to space barb wire. They look like a good idea on the wire gates, and they work, until the gate is opened a few times.

They're not holding up too well on that gate in my pic Richard. I think a few more branches would be best in this case.

Geno