I rely on the fence I do have raised steers since I was 12 and use a coating the electric wire is away from towers and otherther thing besides I have the luck with ours my dad knows cows so do I but sawing down the horns shouldn't hurt them and yes animal rights still the land owner can sew the person that had their land and fence wreck if its the farmer then its his mess to clean up depends what state we live in Im 48 since 12 had to do all this stuff still do.

 Update on the steers:  They broke part of the lattice behind the apricot tree & munched it as well.  Tomorrow I am digging out the cherry, apple & apricot tree. None of them have fruit left on them now, so I am going to attempt to move them away from the fence & out of the reach of the little beasties.  I figure if it kills the tre, so be it - - better me than the steers.   I will let you know if they survive the transplanting.

zohnerfarms:

little beasties

Steers are little?

Hope that solves the issue... Too bad they figured out what good food is on your expense.

Luvd_Lioness:

Steers are little?

zohnerfarms:

I will let you know if they survive the transplanting.

It took me an hour to dig the new hole 6 feet from the fence, then 2 and half hours to dig out just the apricot tree. I started with it, because I thought it had the best chance to survive the transplant.  The trunk caliper was narrower than that on the apple or cherry.  The first day it looked like the tree might make it. I had pruned it & removed about 1/3 of the branches.  It has now been 4 days, & it looks totally dead.  I am giving it a couple of weeks to see if any leaves resprout.  If the apricot tree does not survive, then I will just spray the other two to kill them & cut them off at the base.  I was hoping to save the trees, but it will really be a lot less work to just plant replacement trees.  

Check around to see if you can find who makes those stockade fences, vinyl or wood.  Is there a factory outlet or salvage store nearby?

Would a solar fence charger work?  How'bout that old mountain solution, shotgun shells loaded with rock salt, in their faces?

You can't butcher the darned things, but do you happen to know some bad boys with freezers who can do it while you're out of town? 

Last resort is the pellet gun, poisoned or otherwise, aimed squarely and accurately up the anus. 

littlepitcher:

Check around to see if you can find who makes those stockade fences, vinyl or wood.

We are too close to both water & electric lines to use an electric fence. I have to be more than 50 feet from either for the ground post.

We decided it was less expensive to replace the trees, so I tried moving one of them to see if it would survive. It appears that it did not, so next spring we will just replant. The cost will be under $80, & I can't put up new fence for that.

 Update on the fruit trees & the steers.The apricot tree I moved has not resprouted any leaves, but the nursery is out of the variety of tree I like, so it will stay plantedin the new spot until spring when it either leafs out or is replaced with a new one. I bought a replacement Montmorency pie cherry tree & a replacement Golden Delicious apple tree at the nursery today, for 20% off, so my cost to replace the trees was $56. It was a blessing to have them on sale.  I cut down the cherry tree that had been eaten, salvaging as much of the wood as I could - after all, it wasn't a very big tree yet, but fruit wood is hardwood & useful for smoking meat or just a good smell in the wood stove. Didn't have enough steam to get the hole dug & the apple tree in the ground today, because I was doing wash, picking dill, picking up cucumbers & making pickles.

zohnerfarms:

Didn't have enough steam to get the hole dug & the apple tree in the ground today,

Well, the new apple tree is in the ground, but all the leaves have wilted.  I don't know if it is dead or just in shock - we had some high temps for a couple of days. At least the tree is guaranteed, so if it doesn't leaf out come spring, I can have it replaced.

Good luck with the apple tree. My daughter got one for me last year for Mother's Day. It did fine last year but this year, all of the top died. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like the grafted part died and the stock is still alive. I don't know where she got it or if it was guaranteed, but I'm sure the receipt is long gone. I can't decide whether to start another one this fall or wait until spring.