Weird title, but I have heavy pressure from both deer and coyotes. The deer eat most anything they can graze on and the coyotes wiped out my little Sugar Baby watermelon crop last year...what they didn't maul in the garden they hauled outside the fence about 20-30 feet and devoured (some ignorant, no-good, lazy bum left the gap open and the electric fence turned off! If I find out who that was.... ).

I'm seriously thinking of extending the posts by adding some roughly 3' long lightweight pipes to the top of them. I had thought about lashing the pipes to the posts with nylon cord but then I thought about zip-ties. I've used some white zip-ties to mount a rain gauge with and they seem to last about a year out in the sun. I'm thinking about trying some black ones to see if they do any better. Anybody tried the black ones in the sun? Results? Do they last for more than a season? The ones I have tried I think came from Harbor Freight so it might be that they're just an inferior plastic.

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ed

I don't think the black is any more durable. Problem is that they get brittle when exposed to UV light (sunlight) As a rigid fastener they last for a while maybe two years, but any flexing after a year they break.

That's kind of what I've experienced. I think I'll go with the nylon twine or maybe even some electric fence wire. I ended up with an old roll on a very rusty spool some years back...talk about a *very* handy roll of wire!

Look for zip-ties marked as "UV Resistant": they are usually the most expensive, so hardware stores always have them in stock.

Thanks, I'll keep my eyes open for them.