Soft Canadian Barb

We don’t have much good to say about this wire

It’s true, we don’t have much good to say about this choice of wire. Low-tensile or “soft” Canadian barb has been the standard wire on Prairie farms and ranches for over 100 years.

In our view, this is a strange choice. Canadian barb stretches easily – and permanently. It doesn’t rebound and so it won’t return to its original length. Instead, it loosens and sags, resulting in a weak and poorly performing fence. If you try to tension it properly during installation, it will stretch or even break. Consequently, it requires far more secondary bracing along the line of the fence. In addition, Canadian barbs galvanized coating have been reduced to commercial grade (.15 oz/ft2 or 45g/m2 minimum) Its lower grade of galvanizing reacts badly with treated posts. All medium and high-tensile wire that we use has class 3 galvanizing (.80 oz/ft2 or 244g/m2 minimum).

Soft barb’s sole virtue, in our mind, is that it’s easy to work with and suited to traditional installation techniques. Traditionalists often still prefer soft Canadian barb. And government jobs that specify Class-B fencing require it (along with all of the otherwise redundant intermediate braces).