Keeping the wild dogs at bay

Running primarily a fine wool Merino operation of 14,500 sheep, Mr Glasson returned to the family farm five years ago and since being back has seen wild dogs on the rise.

Mr Glasson began looking into fencing in November 2016 when nothing else seemed to keep the dogs at bay.

“Over the last five years we've started to see increasing numbers of wild dogs where we've actually lost 498 weathers in just over a year and a half,” he said.

“It’s huge numbers and we just weren’t able to sustain that.

“When we were looking for a way to stop the dogs, fencing came out to be the best solution and we said if we are doing one fence why not make it to exclude all animals which we really don’t want on the place.”

Since then, Mr Glasson has put up 32km of Clipex exclusion fencing.

“We purchased our first lot of Clipex fencing in that December which we then installed a small 2km trial – just to make sure we were happy with it and how it looked,” he said. 

“We were very happy with how it turned out so we went out and bought another 30km of it.”

Mr Glasson invested in a 1.8m high fence with 2mm Blackmax barb on top and 1.8mm Maxlife barb below, using Clipex’s tuffknot wire with an apron running along the ground.

“Since erecting the fence, paddocks in which we were lambing in, we instantly saw an increase.

“Fenced sheep saw about 21 - 23% better lambing rates to ewes of similar age, which were scanned at the same time, but in paddocks which weren’t fenced with Clipex.

“So we saw an instant result that was far better just through putting up the fence in the first year.”

And that’s not the only results Mr Glasson has seen from the fence.

“We’ve only lost six sheep compared to 498 sheep in a year and a half, which is an absolutely massive result,” Mr Glasson said.