Exclusion Fencing: The Clipping Guide
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An exclusion fence lives or dies at the bottom 300mm. That's where the clips matter most, and it's why an exclusion job burns through three or four times the rings a normal stock fence does. Apron clipped to mesh at 300mm spacing is 3,334 clips on its own, every kilometre, before you've clipped a single roll join or plain wire.
If you're pricing an exclusion run and you've allowed for one box of clips per kilometre, go back and do the sum again.
What you're actually building
Exclusion fencing means a fence built to keep something out rather than keep something in. In practice that's wild dogs, feral pigs, kangaroos and in some districts deer and goats as well.
The published guidance is fairly consistent on the shape of it.
- Height. A well built 1.8m fence stops most macropods when the mesh is properly tensioned and there's no gap at the base. Some specifications go to 1.9m minimum with a top barb.
- Mesh. Tall fixed knot grades like 17/190/15 are the usual choice for full exclusion, because the knot doesn't slip and the mesh holds its spacing under tension.
- The bottom. Either an apron laid flat on the ground and pegged, or mesh turned down and buried. Aprons of 300mm to 600mm are common in Australia.
- Posts. Spacing varies with country and design, and some exclusion specs allow line posts out to 10m because the mesh carries itself.
None of that works if animals can get under. Dogs and pigs don't jump, they dig and they push. Every bit of your clipping effort on an exclusion fence should be weighted towards the ground.
Where every clip goes
The whole job, top to bottom.
Top plain wire or barb to the mesh. Keeps the top edge from being folded down and stops anything getting a purchase over the top. One clip every 500mm to a metre.
Mesh to line posts. If you're on tall fixed knot, you're most likely stapling on timber or using post clips on steel rather than ringing every wire. There's more on why in clipping fixed knot fence.
Roll joins. Overlap two stays and clip every line wire through the overlap. On a 17 wire mesh with 100m rolls that's 17 clips at every join, ten joins a kilometre. Small number, big consequence if you skip it.
Bottom plain wire to the mesh. This is your first line of defence at ground level. 500mm spacing at most.
Apron to mesh. The big one. Whether the apron is a separate run of mesh turned out at 90 degrees or a fold of the main mesh, it gets clipped along the full length. 300mm spacing is the tight version, 500mm the looser one.
Gates, grids and strainer assemblies. Wherever the mesh meets something that isn't mesh, it gets clipped or tied off properly, because these are the spots where the fence gets tested first.
Clip counts for a real exclusion kilometre
| Element | Spacing | Clips per km |
|---|---|---|
| Apron to mesh | 300mm | 3,334 |
| Apron to mesh | 500mm | 2,000 |
| Bottom plain wire | 500mm | 2,000 |
| Top plain wire | 500mm | 2,000 |
| Top plain wire | 1m | 1,000 |
| Roll joins, 17 wires, 100m rolls | per join | 170 |
Add the tight apron, a bottom wire and a top wire at 500mm, plus joins, and you're at roughly 7,500 clips a kilometre. A 10,000 box does about 1.3 kilometres of that.
If the design drops the apron to 500mm spacing and puts the top wire at a metre, you're closer to 5,200 a kilometre, so a box does nearly two kilometres. The design decisions you make on paper change your clip order by thousands, which is exactly why guessing doesn't work.
Put your own spacings into the clip calculator and it'll do the arithmetic. The longer version of the working is in how many clips per kilometre of fence.
Then add 10 per cent. Every job drops clips.
Coating matters more here than anywhere
An exclusion fence is a thirty year asset and a big chunk of the cost is in the apron, which sits on wet ground, gets covered in dirt and leaf litter, and never properly dries out.
That's a corrosion environment, and a galvanised ring on a Galfan or heavily galvanised mesh will fail long before the mesh does. When the clips go, the apron lifts, and the fence stops being an exclusion fence while still looking like one from the ute.
The call we'd make is to match the clip coating to the mesh at minimum, and go up a grade on anything sitting on the ground or anywhere near the coast. Stainless costs more per box, and against a five figure per kilometre fence it barely registers. There's a full comparison in stainless vs galvanised fencing clips.
State programs worth checking before you start
Exclusion fencing has attracted government support for years, and a lot of the cluster fencing you see out west was built with it. Rules and funding rounds change constantly, so treat this as a prompt to go and check rather than a description of what's open today.
Queensland. The Feral Pest Initiative has put more than $29.7 million into cluster fencing since 2015 and helped build over 9,400km of predator fencing. The exclusion fencing grants have run at up to $5,000 per eligible kilometre, capped at 50km, with a minimum 50 per cent co-contribution from the applicant. Rounds open and close, so check the current position with QRIDA before you budget around it.
New South Wales. Local Land Services has delivered the Fencing Biosecure Production Zones and Pest Knockout Grant Program, a $3.7 million program covering exclusion fencing and pest control. Projects in western NSW are putting up around 376km of exclusion fencing and enclosing more than 330,000 hectares. Separately, the NSW Border Wild Dog Fence Extension is closing a 32km gap between the NSW and South Australian fences.
Talk to your Local Land Services office or the Queensland equivalent before you finalise a quote. Programs usually want the application in before work starts, and retrospective funding is rare.
Doing the clipping without losing a week
The apron is the part that hurts. You're bent over, on the ground, working along a kilometre of fence putting in a ring every 300mm. Hand pliers will do it. Your forearms will let you know about it by mid afternoon, and by then you're slower than you were at eight in the morning, which is a cost that never shows up in the quote.
A cordless gun suits this work because there's no hose. On exclusion country you're often a long way from anything, and a pneumatic setup means a compressor, something to run it, and a hose you're forever repositioning it with. The comparison is laid out properly in battery clip gun vs air compressor.
The Outback ClipGun kit is $1,799 and comes with one 4.0Ah battery, a 240V charger, a belt clip and a carry bag. The belt clip sounds like a throwaway feature until you're on an apron and putting the gun down every few metres. It's 2.75kg without the battery and holds 120 rings.
On an exclusion job where you're doing thousands of clips a day, a spare battery on charge in the ute is the difference between working through and standing around. Clips are separate, and it takes standard C24 rings rather than a proprietary size. The full range sits on the fencing clip guns collection.
FAQ
How high does an exclusion fence need to be?
Published guidance generally puts a well built 1.8m fence as enough to stop most kangaroos when the mesh is tight and there's no gap at the base, with some specifications calling for 1.9m minimum plus a top barb. Your local requirements and any funding program conditions come first.
Do I need an apron?
If you're excluding pigs or dogs, yes. They dig and push rather than jump. An apron of 300mm to 600mm laid flat and pegged, or mesh turned down and buried, is what stops them. It's also the single biggest consumer of clips on the job.
How many clips per kilometre of exclusion fence?
Around 7,500 with a tight 300mm apron plus top and bottom plain wires at 500mm. Nearer 5,200 with looser spacings. A 10,000 box covers somewhere between 1.3 and 2 kilometres depending on your design.
What clip do I use on an exclusion fence?
C24 rings, 16 gauge, 1.8mm wire, 24mm crown. The decision that matters is the coating, not the size. Go up a grade on anything touching the ground.
Can I get funding for exclusion fencing?
Both Queensland and NSW have run exclusion fencing programs, and Queensland's cluster fencing grants have gone to $5,000 a kilometre with a 50 per cent co-contribution. Rounds open and close, so check the current position with QRIDA or your Local Land Services office before you commit.
What mesh suits exclusion work?
Tall fixed knot grades such as 17/190/15 are the usual choice, because the knot holds its spacing under tension. Hinged joint is used on lighter exclusion work and on the bottom sections of some designs, but it moves more.