If you have just taken over a piece of bare land you should have been told where the boundary pegs and official fences are, and where the water supply is.  You’ll be able to see open drains if they are not totally over grown, but underground drains may pose a problem finding them.

The number of paddocks you decide you want will depend on the classes of stock you want to keep and mob sizes you want to run.

Defining the area

Get an aerial photo of your block from the local District Council office and run off some copies to draw on.  The later maps and for an extra charge are coloured.  On this map you can draw new paddocks and calculate their areas.  If the paddocks are square or rectangular, calculate area from length x width. 

If the paddocks are irregular then divide them into triangles and total up the areas. The area of a triangle is half the perpendicular height x the base.  This can be very tedious and not totally accurate.  These days it is well worth the cost of getting the farm surveyed and the paddocks laid out using GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) and there are plenty of service providers available.  Each point on the map is accurate to less than half a metre.

Boundary fences

This must be an eight–wire, fully-battened fence of top quality material.

If it needs to be renewed then you will have to negotiate this with your neighbours.  Have a detailed check of an existing fence and fix up any problems like leaning and broken posts, loose wires, missing battens, and battens that may have slipped out of their correct position.  Knock in any staples that have worked out and replace any missing ones.  If you live by the sea and the fence wires have been affected by salt, then check how far the rust has eaten into the wire around the staples and where knots have been tied.

Internal race

This is essential and should be the first thing to plan. It may seem a waste of land but it saves so much time when moving stock.  It can be grazed just like a paddock although it will not grow as much grass with the constant traffic on it, and it will become pugged in wet weather.  Make it at least 4 metres wide, or a metre wider than your contractor’s widest machine.  Add an extra hot wire to the race fence and use more intermediate posts that for other internal fences.

New internal fences

Electric fencing is the only cost-effective option for new internal fencing.  Number 2 round posts or No.2 quarter rounds will do the job. The distance between the posts can vary greatly.  Ten metres is a good distance to start with but some dairy farmers put their posts 2x or 3x that distance.  It depends a lot on how the stock respect the fence.

Two hot wires will do for cattle with the bottom wire about 600mm from the ground and the top wire about 900mm above the bottom one.  For sheep you’ll need three or four hot wires.  Put the bottom wire about 250mm from the ground, then the next one 250mm above that, and the remaining ones at equal distances apart.  A cattle fence will do for horses. Thick white wire is produced to increase visibility for horses.

Number of paddocks needed

Decide how many paddocks you want – the more you have the more internal fencing you’ll need, and the more cost and upkeep you’ll have.  Number of paddocks will depend on the classes of stock you want to keep and the mob sizes you want to run.

Paddock sizes and shapes

Make all paddocks either square or rectangular.  It’s much easier to strip graze them with a temporary electric fence.  Avoid paddock fences that have bends in them or sharp corners as they need more stays to support the strainer posts which adds to the cost.  Similarly forget the idea of building fences radiating out from the central farm buildings or a water source.  Forget all about acres and stick to metrics (hectares). Make the standard paddock size 1 hectare or an easy fraction of it e.g. 0.75, 0.5, 0.3, 0.25.  Metrics makes this easy.  One hectare is 10,000 square metres.   If the paddocks are square, then divide the area by the square root to get the length of each side.