Tying fence sections together can be, and in this instance was, a time consuming task. Inspired by the presence of a case of upholstery hog rings for pneumatic guns my brother was trying to sell at his garage sale, I contemplated their possible use for joining two sections of wire, and for attaching the wire to other things. The rings didn't sell, so my brother donated them to the farm. All that was needed then was crimpers. I tried water pump pliers. They worked, but required a great deal of pressure to do the job. I believe this may be because the indentations in the jaws were set too far back for the task at hand. As such, I dug through the tool box and found an old set of cheap pliers and used my Dremel tool to grind groves into them. The grooves ran parallel with the side jaw surfaces and were made with a 3/4" diameter wheel, which was about 1/8" thick. I was [reasonably] careful to not blow through the sides of the pliers grip area. The end result was that the cups made in both sides of pliers grip area hold the hog rings easily and securely. A photo of the modified pliers is attached below. A picture of the hog rings is also attached. They are about 3/4" inch long and about 3/8" inch deep.
My buddy had professional crimpers, but the modified pliers worked better. Ironically, the cheap crimpers I remember seeing might work well too. At any rate, the modified pliers made crimping the rings a breeze. So much so that, once my teenager was "coaxed" into using the pliers my way (this brings to mind stories of mules and 2x4's), he was able to tie up fence sections in minutes. Before, using tie wire, the same project took hours.
As an aside, I would note that the pen was built around a patch of Jerusalem artichokes. As such, the chickens have their own little jungle. Some chickens we acquired from a junkyard (others have mere junkyard dogs, we's got junkyard chikuns). They are less than sociable and remain invisible [in their jungle] for the most part. Looking at the tall plants, you only know they are there by the movement of the upper sections of the plants. Gazing out over this spectacle immediately brings to mind certain scenes of Jurassic Park, in which all you saw was the tall grass moving, before the dinosaur struck and took out a character.
