Fencing, Festing, and a whole lot of know-how

Cracking weather made for three excellent Best Practice Days in April. Spread around the eastern side of the North Island, the days provided attendees with an opportunity to see fencing best practice techniques in action – and watch some fencing industry legends at work.

Tikokino 8 April 2025

Well-known competition fencers Shane and Tony Bouskill put on a great event at their Tikokino property in the Hawke’s Bay. The Bouskill team talked a captivated audience through best practice for various aspects of rural fencing and answered any questions that curious onlookers had. They can’t have given too much info away, as they still took out the win at the NZ Fencing Competitions’ Cambridge event.

A huge thanks to Joelene for the spectacular food. It’s going to be hard to beat at any future events!

Whakatane 10 April 2025

This Best Practice Day was held in possibly one of the coolest converted shearing sheds we’ve ever seen – complete with a bar and super comfy couches! Outstanding views of Whakaari (White Island) and Whale Island, our thanks to Shaun Davies from Davies Fencing in Te Puke for organising this location. Accredited Fencing Contractor Neil Robertson from Fensin in the mighty Waikato, demonstrated rail installation in the shade of the orchard. The discussions around overlapping 45-degree cuts at the ends of rails versus straight ends were certainly interesting and showed the differences in techniques, with none of them being inherently ‘wrong’. The afternoon saw the team move to the nearby hillside, with spectacular views across the coast, to hear about best practice wire fence installation. Big thanks to Ben Fisher for arranging the venison for the BBQ.

Cambridge 11 April 2025

Normally, we only hold two Best Practice Days in a week. However, an NZFC competition in Cambridge provided us with the chance to run a combined BPD/competition day. It’s an interesting concept with lots to see, but it can also be quite noisy – especially at the start of the competitions with 8 borers running!

Our programme started a little later than planned because of this, but it still provided all the goods expected of a Best Practice Day. Long-time fencer and fount of all fencing knowledge, Wayne Newdick, talked through the intricacies
of augers, different setups, and how crucial it is to have the correct setup to make the job easier. Good bugger Greg Burton demonstrated recessing timber into posts and various timber joins. Bryan Henry demonstrated horse rail. It was great to see students and teachers from local schools there to learn more about the world of fencing – and fencing as a career. Thanks to Thomsons ITM for supplying the excellent BBQ for attendees and competitors alike. The sausages from Wholey Cow were excellent! (IYKYK).

As always, the feedback from these events is invaluable and provides us with areas in which to improve. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come and provide feedback.

Written by Jaime Bigwood & Phil Cornelius