Lead Free Fencing?

Hello. I'm looking to build a fence to keep the woodchuck in his beautiful, large, clover-rich area of our homestead, and out of our tiny winter squash (etc) haven. I found some nifty plans for a tall, loose-topped fence, using "chicken wire." (1" hex fence designed for chicken coops) On the outside of the fence you lay down two feet of the chicken wire and attach it to the vertical part, then cover with dirt. I built this whole thing and then I noticed the warning on the packaging about lead in the wire. So I took the whole thing down and gave the wire to a neighbor with chickens. Is there some alternative material? Is there some lead free wire fencing? How does one find fencing material which is safe? It seems a lot of people use hardware cloth and chicken wire for these kinds of purposes and never mention lead or zinc? Perhaps I should not worry about this. I'm looking for an alternative material or information which leads me to conclude that I should just rebuild the thing with chicken wire.

All Galvanized wire contains zinc and some galvanize solutions contain lead as well. Most people don't worry about it as it should stay on the wire with only adding minute amounts to the soil over the years. If this is still something that you want to avoid stainless steel wire would be solution.

The alternative that I know about though I have not used it is the plastic mesh electric fencing.

This thread might offer you or others some suggestions:

https://permies.com/t/160147/alternatives-buried-hardware-cloth-digging

Marc Dube wrote:All Galvanized wire contains zinc and some galvanize solutions contain lead as well. Most people don't worry about it as it should stay on the wire with only adding minute amounts to the soil over the years. If this is still something that you want to avoid stainless steel wire would be solution.

I'd be happy to be convinced that I need not worry about the lead or zinc in fencing material. Can anyone direct me to studies or facts and figures regarding this?

As a side note...  I've seen lots of things that have zero lead in them that also carry those warnings.  It's easier for them to put a label on everything (that people will ignore) than to just put it on the things that actually have lead in them.  

In this case though, galvanized stuff is as Marc said.  Maybe there's some sort of stainless steel mesh you could get?  I'm not sure if plastic mesh would keep them out?  I've also seen chicken wire that is coated with vinyl.  I'm not sure if they galvanize the wire before putting on the vinyl but that might be an option as well.

Oh, one option would be to get cement remesh wire.  It's a heavy steel wire mesh with a 6" pattern that they put in garage slabs.  If you took two pieces of that stuff and offset them they'd create 3" square holes.  Bury that and maybe it would do the trick?  It isn't coated or galvanized so it will rust but it's much fatter than a coat hanger wire and will probably last a decade or two underground. And it's cheap...

Hubby did a bunch of research after I sent him a link about a lady testing led in pottery glaze from the 80's (which included most of our dishes... they're gone now!).

The trouble is that it's expensive to test for and it's very inconsistent. Your ecosystem and natural soil pH also makes a difference. We've got chain link covered at the bottom in hardware cloth - both galvanized - and chickens live there - and we got lucky as there's been no sign of lead poisoning in the chickens.

If you want to be extra cautious, I'd plant sunflowers along the fence-line - a lead bioaccumulator - dry them, and landfill  them to remove any lead that the wire generates.

I certainly wouldn't bother burying modern chicken wire in my climate - it rusts through in no time and bunnies can chew through it easily.

Galvanized wire and tomato cages, etc, seem to contaminate the soil with high levels of lead in areas of the garden where they are used, according to this woman who lead tests a lot of things. https://tamararubin.com/2018/04/chicken-wire-mesh-hardware-cloth-2201-ppm-lead-cadmium/

It even seems to have elevated lead blood levels for a little boy who loves to garden. They couldn’t find any other lead sources that could be causing it.

Lead in gardening products should be banned, and just generally in all products unless absolutely necessary and proven safe for a particular application. Or at least it should be prominently on the label — “galvanized steel with zinc, LEAD, and CADMIUM coating — not for use in gardens, soil, or anywhere humans or animals will touch.” Note: Cadmium is also an issue in these products.