Most of our fences are smooth wire on wood posts. Over time, fence wire stretches, and if the electrified wires aren’t energized, it doesn’t take long for animals to learn they can squeeze through the sagging fence.
So what do we do? We tighten the fence wire. Our fences are usually tightened with inline strainers. The strainers or tensioners on our fences are of two types: one has a square nut on the side, and the other is round. A crescent wrench works great on the strainer with the square nut, but we use long-handled pliers for the round version.
Something important to remember is that wire stretches when it is warm and shrinks when it is cold. If we tighten the sagging wires too much in the summer, we could damage the fence when it shrinks in the winter. We’ve seen instances where wire that is too tight has actually pulled fence corners out of the ground! The moral of this is to check fence tension when the weather cools off and loosen the strainers if the wires are too tight.
