Jake Burns remembers growing up surrounded by all things fencing and farming – he soaked it all up. At 15, he left school and began working for a local contractor in Matamata. Jake’s dad, Bryce Burns, was a fencing contractor too. Bryce carried on farming but had hung up the wire strainers by the time Jake took up the tools 12 years ago.

Fence work quickly took the teenager across the Waikato, down to Taranaki, over to Gisborne on the East Coast, and South to the Mackenzie Basin, then through the rest of the Mainland. He gained first-hand experience of the variety of terrain, environments, and fencing styles New Zealand has to offer.

“Gisborne is challenging land. Steep rough rugged country in the back blocks. At the time I started there, everything was done by hand because you couldn’t get a lot of machinery up into the hills. It was spade and hammer stuff. Physical work.”

“Now, in Te Anau, the ground is hard. We use rock spikes and rock drills to blast through bedrock. Some people use explosives as well. It is definitely some of the hardest ground that I have fenced in. Steep in places, but mostly rolling hill country down to flat land. It took me some time learning how to fence in this ground coming from the Waikato. Up North, it is soft ground and beautiful soil. Down here, it is hard rocky ground, totally different.”

Over the last decade, Jake has found what techniques work for him and developed his own style.

“When I started fencing, I knew the basics. Then, as I moved around the country, I saw that many fencing contractors had their own ways of doing things. It was a great way to learn a lot of different fencing skills and techniques as well as what fence or wire work might suit one environment more than another. I love that variety.”

“Another great aspect of fence contracting is that we are a curious bunch. It’s not unusual to have a bit of a yarn and share ideas about different fencing systems or the best tools we’ve used across various projects.”

Jake and his partner Chelsea George are now in the Te Anau Basin, having relocated near the end of 2021 while still in the sting of Covid restrictions. Access to the great outdoors, hunting, and the good nature of Southland people were big parts of what drew them in. Jake started JB Fencing in August 2021. “As a business, I focus on rural fencing and stockyards. I don’t expect to be the biggest fencing contractor in the region, but I want my reputation as a fencer to be built on the quality of my work, efficiency, and reliability.”

Greg, Jake’s very first employer, encouraged him to go out on his own.

“Greg is a very successful fencer himself. His confidence in my abilities helped me take the leap. I can call him up for advice which has been invaluable. Reaching out and getting to know local farmers and fencing contractors has also been really key to managing these early days of the business. Presently, I’m subcontracting as part of a crew on a big predator fencing project with waratahs and six-foot netting.”

As part of the new business set up, Jake purchased a Stockade ST400i cordless power stapler.

“It is probably my favourite tool – I rate them. I’d have used the ST400i a lot during several contracts around the country. I love the speed and reliability. By the time I can staple off two posts with a hammer, using the ST400i I would have already done four and it doesn’t bash up insulators like a hammer will. It will shoot straight. It’s simple and there’s no mucking around.”

“Also, it’s so easy to use, when you have new staff, you can send them away with the ST400i and you know that the tool will do the job correctly.”

Still, moving into a new business was not without trepidation. Jake had moved to a new region, bought large ticket items including a tractor and post driver, and began building up a client base from zero.

“The reward of starting my own business by far outweighs the risk. For me, it’s the reward of meeting new people, being my own boss and forging my own path, and I’m always still learning. There’s flexibility of working on your own or as part of a crew. I love doing a good job, seeing the finished product, and seeing people happy with my work. My hope is to build the business and take on staff — and I’d like to get some big station project work.”

“Fencing is a good business to be in….”

To learn more about our Stockade products, please visit www.stockade.com.

In 2021 Andy Tindal and Lucia Chiclana purchased C. A. Fencing and registered their new business as Otago Fencing Services Ltd. They quickly brought on four new crew allowing them to take on large scale work like the current high-country job at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds, a facility used for automotive testing of some of the world’s highest performing vehicles.

When Stockade caught up with Andy it was a brisk clear morning in the South. He was heading to work in the Cardrona Valley where he reckons it is generally six degrees colder compared with nearby Wanaka and the wind can be fierce.

“We are right up at the top of the mountain working at about 1500 metres above sea level. I am looking up at Mt Aspiring so that’s a pretty nice way to start the day. It’s chilly – but stunning views this morning”.

Lots of work…

The Otago Fencing Services crew spend a good two or three months every year up at the Proving Grounds. They’ve already clipped on seven kilometres of triple barbed wire perimeter fencing this year. Then there’s a lot of snow fencing, deer fence and repairs and maintenance.

Andy is no stranger to working at altitude. Mountains have played a big part in his life. He spent years as a guide and running the Aoraki Mt Cook Search and Rescue team. When he and Lucia started a family, they reconsidered their adrenaline pumping life as mountain guides.

Lucia says they were looking for a balance between work and fun and family. Fencing had a lot of potential and the great outdoors.

“The opportunity for fencing came and Andy was really keen…so we jumped in and made it happen”.

For Andy and Lucia, buying an established business hasn’t been the smoothest transition they’d hoped for but proving themselves on large-scale and staged projects gives a lot more certainty and promise for the business. The large-scale jobs also offer plenty of variety for the crew who tend to work together as one fencing gang. And Andy is keeping his eye out for new staff.

Andy is also no stranger to the fence line. He worked shepherding and fencing across the Otago and McKenzie Country high country a decade or so ago. He says the high hill country and alpine fencing has its own considerations.

At the Proving Ground, above ground it’s the wind and snow.

“The wind is super strong. When it starts to carry wet snow that can put a huge weight on your posts and wire and push things over. Really solid posts are key. And you’ve got to take your time with getting your post placements right and fixing the timber on to make sure to lock it in tight.”

Andy is using 2.7m x1.40 or 1.60 posts as intermediates and on occasion up to 3.5–4m strainer posts in soft terrain. Underground is a really mixed bag.

“Generally, really tight ground. Most of the time, around the roads, drilling post holes can be slow. You can’t use a rock spike often because the surface is so hard on your equipment. Away from tracked areas it is often very soft.”

Never Miss A Bit

Services are another consideration. Andy says there are “a heap of services” running beneath the snow and before starting any job on the Proving Ground, a ground radar is used to scan for any pipes, services, gas— or anything. Then, gas and power are turned off while the crew completes each section on the mountain.

Then there’s a super fine dust that gets into the equipment and everything else.

“Drills and everything up here can die really fast.”

Andy says the Stockade ST400i stapler has gone great the whole way through.

“Never missed a beat. An asset!”

ST400i time…

The Stockade power stapler came on board at Otago Fencing Services not long after Andy and Lucia had started running their fencing business and arrived to help them pick up speed on jobs, especially with a small crew.

Andy’s favourite thing is the simplicity of the tool.

Next year, the crew will be looking at seven kilometres of deer fencing on the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds. Up at the high-performance testing ground, Andy expects the ST400i to fly through the deer fencing – and says his crew won’t be so fatigued at the end of the day.

To learn more about our Stockade products, please visit www.stockade.com.

Lachaidh Shannon puts in a few kilometres of fencing every year. Agricultural and predator exclusion fences stretch across some of New Zealand’s most spectacular coastline. Banks Peninsula is mountains, hilly country, harbour, cliffs, sea, and bush as far as the eye can see.

Most often the high school student from Akaroa Area School is working his weekends and holidays alongside local fencing contractor Tom Evans of TD Evans Contracting.

“I love the places you get to go and the machinery you get to use, the evolution of what’s going on, the travel and the work ethic” he says.

Lachaidh might be only 14 years old, but he says his fascination with fencing started a long time ago — way back as a youngster “playing around with standards and string on the lawn”. It wasn’t until Tom did some internal electric fencing around wetlands on the family’s beef and dairy farm a couple of years ago that he reckons he “got right into fencing”.

Tom was impressed with Lachaidh too. “Lachaidh asked a lot of questions and was genuinely interested in how everything worked from all the functions of a post driver through to the general basics of a fence.”

Soon after, Lachaidh began working with Tom every school holidays. Then work ramped up. Two summers ago, just before Christmas, floods ripped through in the Eastern Bays of Banks Peninsula. It was devastating. In some areas fences were completely destroyed from slips and flooding. Tom’s crew had to get a lot done as quickly as possible.

“Lachaidh really stepped up and worked hard helping us get people’s farms back in some sort of working order,” says Tom.

Since then, the young fencer is regularly up and on the line by 9:30 on the weekends, finishing at 4pm or 5pm.

Tom has been reinforcing the important basics of fence work with him.

“Like doing things safely, tie downs and efficient systems and ways of doing things that save time from laying gear out to wiring up and battening. The latest thing he has learned is how to do is a box stay assembly that is mortised on both ends which is pretty impressive for his age.”

“He has also grown a healthy obsession for spending his earnings on top quality fencing tools and now has a very impressive collection. Which is great. Good tools help to make fencing enjoyable.”

Lachaidh recalls the big five-week job repairing the flood damage.

“I spent five days doing battens with Tom with one of his ST315i stapler battening tools and really enjoyed it. So, I bought my own. It’s not very heavy and you can get through a good amount of battening in good time without getting tired, or sore arms. I just love it. When I first started using it, I was surprised there was no kick back. It was straight in, no multiple hits. One hit and you are done.

“Amazing machines. The post gun is really nice for netting and the batten gun is good quality.”

Tom has seen Lachaidh develop in skill and confidence over the last two years.

“Lachaidh’s passion for fencing and eagerness to learn as much as he can sets him apart. To be a good fencer long term you really have to love it. The good and the bad. Everything else can be learned if you have that. We desperately need more young people keen to make a career of fencing.”

In the next few years, Lachaidh hopes to be fencing full time, digger driving and doing agricultural and cropping work around New Zealand. He’s already branching out to build his own fencing client base.

To learn more about our Stockade products, please visit www.stockade.com.