Barbed Wire

What is barbed wire and what is it used for?

Barbed wire is the classic perimeter material: two galvanized wires twisted together to form a body, with four-point barbs fixed onto it at regular intervals, used to hold a land boundary. Its job is not to build a physical wall but to make crossing difficult and painful, so that people and animals stay off the line. That is why barbed wire is rarely used on its own; most of the time it is run in rows between posts, or added on top of an existing fence.

At our Ostim warehouse we stock barbed wire galvanized, in 100 metre coils and in 1.6 mm / 2.0 mm / 2.5 mm wire diameters. The unit of sale is the coil; we do not cut and sell it by the metre, because the wire loses its tension as soon as a coil is opened.

Technical specifications

All three diameters are made on the same twisting principle; what separates them is the amount of steel in the body. That difference feeds straight through to the weight of the coil, the breaking strength and the service life on site.

1.6 mm, 2.0 mm or 2.5 mm: which diameter does your job need?

Wire diameter is the most critical choice on this product, and it settles two separate things: deterrence and service life.

• 1.6 mm: The most economical option. The body is thin, so it bends by hand and cuts with ordinary pliers. It is enough for dividing up a garden, marking a temporary field boundary, keeping grazing animals out for a season or fencing a short-term site. It can break under serious force and should not be treated as the main barrier against theft.
• 2.0 mm: The balance point most often chosen on site. It will not bend easily by hand and needs a solid pair of cutters. It is the standard choice for fields, vineyards and orchards, land boundaries and top reinforcement on an existing fence. This is the diameter with the most sensible strength-to-cost ratio.
• 2.5 mm: A heavy body, a markedly higher breaking strength and a thicker barb. It is made for livestock operations, fences under pressure from cattle, land boundaries that will stay put for many years and sites where security comes first. The thick steel section also means that even once the zinc is spent there is more metal held in reserve, so the line lasts longer.

The general rule: the higher the crossing pressure and the longer the fence has to stay up, the further up the diameter range you should go. Covering a wide area with thin wire instead of adding rows is usually cheap in the short term and expensive in the long run.

How many coils of barbed wire do you need? A worked example

The sum is simple and rests on two figures: perimeter length and number of rows.

1. Measure the perimeter of the land in metres (the sum of the four sides).
2. Decide how many rows of wire you are going to run.
3. Total metres = perimeter × number of rows
4. Number of coils = total metres ÷ 100, rounded up to the next whole coil.

Example: a field measuring 40 × 60 metres has a perimeter of (40+60) × 2 = 200 metres. If five rows of barbed wire are to be run around it, you need 200 × 5 = 1,000 metres of wire, which comes to 10 coils. Corners, the wire wrapped off at each post and the joints normally call for around 5% for waste, so on this job it is safer to buy 11 coils.

If you are reinforcing an existing panel fence or chain link fence, the sum is easier still: take the length of the run, multiply it by the number of rows going on top and divide by 100. Top reinforcement usually uses three rows.

One row, two rows, how many rows?

"How many rows should I run" has no single answer; it depends on what you are trying to stop:

• 2-3 rows: Boundary marking only, and stopping cattle from crossing. The bottom wire starts roughly 40-50 cm above ground level.
• 5-6 rows: The common land perimeter. The lower rows are run close together (20-25 cm apart) and the upper rows further apart, which makes both crawling under and climbing over harder.
• 8 rows and above: Land under pressure from sheep, goats or wild boar, and sites where security is the priority. At this density it is usually more effective and more economical to run chain link fence along the lower section and put three rows of barbed wire on top.

The most common mistake in row layout is spacing the wires evenly. A crossing is always tried from underneath, so the right approach is to tighten the spacing low down and open it out towards the top. On fence-top work, mounting the wires on L-brackets angled 45 degrees outwards makes climbing markedly harder.

Post selection, post spacing and tensioning

Barbed wire only does its job while it stays tight; a sagging wire loses its bite and moves constantly in the wind, wearing the zinc away at every fixing point. The correct order of work is as follows:

1. Line and post positions: Run a string line along the boundary and mark the post positions at 2.5-3 metre intervals. On windy and sloping ground, 2.5 metres is the safer figure.
2. Setting the posts: A concrete post is buried roughly 40-50 cm deep; for a steel tube post, open a 40×40 cm hole and fill it with concrete.
3. Corner and gate posts: These posts carry the whole of the tensioning load, so they must always be braced. An unbraced corner post will lean inwards soon after the wire is pulled up.
4. Concrete curing time: Do not tension the wire before the posts have set; allow at least 24-48 hours.
5. Tensioning: Fix the coil at one corner, roll it out along the line and pull it up with a wire strainer. The wire must never be dragged along the ground; dragged wire picks up soil and damages the coating.
6. Fixing: Secure the wire at every post with galvanized tying wire or U-staples. Do not tie with bare black wire; a different metal and an uncoated surface speed up rust at the point of contact.

Wear heavy leather gloves and eye protection while you work. The moment a tensioned barbed wire is cut the end whips back, and that is the most common cause of injury on site.

Barbed wire or razor wire?

Both products deter, but they do different jobs. On barbed wire the barbs are separate pieces fitted onto the body; they prick whoever touches the line and push them off it, and they mostly work against animals and accidental crossings. On concertina razor wire, sharp blades punched from galvanized strip are threaded onto a steel core; thanks to the spiral form it grips whoever touches it, and cutting free or backing out is far harder. Against deliberate intrusion, razor wire is the real barrier.

In practice there is a three-step ladder: barbed wire is the most economical and most widely used solution, flat wrap razor wire builds a high obstacle in a narrow space on walls and fence tops, and concertina razor wire is the highest level of security. On boundaries close to housing, where children pass by, choosing barbed wire rather than razor wire is the sounder call both legally and practically.

What determines the price of barbed wire?

Barbed wire has no fixed price list; the figure follows the amount of steel in the coil and the state of the market that week. These are the items that decide it:

• Wire diameter: The biggest single factor. The weight of steel that goes into the same 100 metre coil changes several times over between 1.6 mm and 2.5 mm, and the price follows that weight.
• Zinc coating weight: The heavier the coating, the longer the corrosion life and the higher the cost.
• Barb spacing: The closer the barbs sit, the more wire is consumed per metre.
• The steel market: The price of wire rod as the raw material, together with the exchange rate, feeds into the unit price week by week.
• Quantity: The unit price falls as the coil count rises, and pallet quantities are priced differently.
• Ancillary materials: Posts, tension wire, tying wire, strainers and gates are separate line items. A fence line is never wire alone.
• Shipment: Total weight and distance set the carriage cost; delivery is charged.

All the prices we publish include VAT. For a firm figure, all we need from you is the perimeter length, the number of rows, the wire diameter you want and the province for delivery.

Ordering, shipment and delivery terms

Our core business is selling and shipping product. You place your order by phone or through the contact form; the coils in stock are made ready and sent from our Ostim warehouse to every province in Türkiye by courier or freight carrier. A few coils travel by courier, while quantities that need a pallet go by freight; which route applies depends on the quantity and is stated clearly in the quotation.

If you are in Ankara, site surveys are free of charge: we see the site in person and set the right diameter and row layout from the perimeter length, the ground and the condition of any existing fence. Even so, delivery is charged in every case, and that holds for deliveries inside Ankara as well; the courier or freight cost is worked out on order weight and distance and shown as a separate line in the quotation.

Installation is not one of our standard services. On projects of roughly 1,000 metres and above our teams attend site; on smaller jobs we ship the product and give you technical support by phone at whatever point you get stuck during the work. Send us the dimensions of your project and we will draw up and price a complete material list covering barbed wire, posts, tension wire and tying wire.