Questions about electric fences

[dl]

Can you guys tell me about electric fences?

I was looking up information online. I think I need something solar powered, but the less expensive ones say "limited livestock use"... what does that mean? There are is one fence section that I really don't want Mason to go through and he has gone through it in the past.

Does the fence have to make a circle?

I keep seeing "weed free fences"... Is that if you want the whole fence to be electric, or if you just want a wire along the top, can there be weeds on the fence part?

[ride4fun]

If the weeds are not touching the electric wire it doesn't matter. The fence does not have to make a circle, you just have to have a good ground rod --metal into soil wet enough to have some conductivity.

The limited livestock is *probably* because cows have thicker skin so a mild zap may not deter them.

With smarty Mason you may need to take care to have the longer insulators or be able to put them high enough on the posts over the regular fence that he cant push the hot wire into a plain wire and ground it too easily*. Some horses figure out to do that and to time it between the pulses with a solar charger.

*this is the same thing as weeds. If the hot wire touches something conductive it won't be hot past that point, and if its touching something really conductive like a regular wire or metal gate the current goes there instead of the horses' hide holding it against the metal.

We have a solar charger we are not using if you want to try it -- it is not terribly strong. Generally horses, like people, dislike the sensation of the shock and will stay off hot wires even when the zap is not painfully strong - but there are some exceptions to this.

[Trailpal]

Be sure to train him to the electric fence in a smaller area. One recommendation is to put some up in an arena or enclosed area, then put some hay just outside. He will be tempted to reach for the hay while standing near the fence and get zapped. This teaches him to avoid the hot wire.

I didn't know about this, and made a large grazing area for my young breeding herd (a 2yo stallion and two 3yo fillies). The young stallion figured out that he could run the fence and break it while getting only a minor sting (if that) before the fence broke. I could not keep him in any kind of fencing like that afterward, though if I used hotwire on regular fence he would not lean on it.

Also, always keep the fence hot! Most will learn when it is off and will just walk through it.

[Vicki]

We have not had good luck with solar chargers. For our stubborn pony it just did not produce enough zap. Before we had power to the barn, we hooked up a battery powered charger. Using 4 D cells was not enough. We had to hook it up to a lawnmower battery to get enough punch. The battery was $34, lasted much longer than the D cells, and was easy to recharge.

It solved our problem of having a stubborn mini step through the fence

[Idaho Linda]

I love electric rope. You can put it up, take it down, restring it somewhere else, tie it together and use and reuse it for years. It makes for great temporary fencing in the spring when Mason does not need access to the whole pasture.

How long is this fence section that you don't want Mason going through? Is it a case where the fence needs repair? If so, it might be easier to drive some metal posts next to the wood ones and tie the wood ones (with the fence attached) to the metal posts.

Borrowing a solar charger is a great place to start. You will need to ground any charger really well, especially if the ground is dry. For regular chargers.now, they recommend three ground rods, all connected together with wire an inch or so under the ground.

[dl]

Mason has been trained to an electric fence (because donna is an AMAZING horse mom!), so it's possible that a smaller shock might have an effect on him as a reminder.

Yes, the fence is not in great shape. But none of these fences can hold him if he decides he doesn't want to be held. Right now, if you told me that he is getting himself fat on purpose just so he could go where he wants to, I might consider believing you!

[Trailpal]

From my experience taking care of 4 percherons plus knowing random other drafts in boarding places, the drafts seem to delight in pushing (hey, that's what we bred them to do). So no fences were safe unless we hotwired them. They just like to push on things it seems.

[Idaho Linda]

Some friends who had Fjords said the same think--these horses were bred to push and pull.

[Marci]

Yeah when we had cows they thought the electric fence was great for a good scratching.
Buy fence testers. When we put our first fence in when I was a newly wed (its also when we found out all about Poison Oak)We didn't have any testers. My hubby touched it to see if it worked. It didn't Then his dog came up and put his cold wet nose in his cupped hand and he was grounded, took 20 minutes before the dog would get anywhere near him. About the time I quit laughing. We were both wearing flip flops-really thick rubber ones. LOL
But really it worked well. You want the type of fence charger that has a ground pole, and sink it deep. In a dry area you might need to "water" it from time to time. And in the tape and twine type of fencing there is little wires that are what the shock is carried thru, if it breaks or something you have to be sure those are touching in the fixed area. I usually find them and twist them together.

[donna]

A great fence tester is a metal T post with a plastic electric cover on the top. You can lean it across the fence and hear the zap or see a small spark. Mason respects electric but he will test it. Kind of fun to watch him get really close to it. He can hear the click click click.

[Marci]

And when it does break or its not been working and the horses have gone thru it, the best feeling is to hear the snap an watch the horse jump because he once more thought he could go thru it. LOL Evil laugh....

[rhapsody]

My horses are going to get reintroduced soon to electric fencing. We've been wanting to expand their pasture but accelerated those plans when we came home Sunday to a busted down section of fencing. I panicked because I couldn't see the horses but further investigation found them in the run-in enjoying some shade. Whew!

So we parked the tractor across the busted fence, ran to Home Depot and bought some posts. We had some fencing material we had bought from friends a couple years ago (still in it's original packaging) and only lacked the posts (and time, but we had to make time Sunday).

We didn't get the fence done - only 4 of 30 posts sunk (auger wasn't working; had to use post-hole diggers . . . ugh) but we did a makeshift repair on the busted section and will get back to work on the expanded fenceline this week. We are putting this fenceline outside the fenceline of the section that broke. When it's up, we'll pull down that fencing (posts are rotting or rotten and won't last much longer) and their pasture will then be larger by about 40 ft x 135 ft.

The electric fencing we are putting up is the mesh/web. I think it's either 1" or 2" wide. My preference is horse wire fencing topped by hot wire but the budget said "not yet."

The charger we got with the fencing material is an A/C charger but I'd like to have a backup in the event of a power outage. The car battery idea is intriguing!

[Trailpal]

Sorry to read that you have to do emergency fencing!

In Nebraska, I used a car (or tractor) battery on my fence charger. I ended up getting two batteries because at some point I'd have to take it into the shed and put a trickle charger on it to recharge. And of course, you need to run the battery down pretty well otherwise eventually, it won't charge. A charge would last several weeks. I had an old push-mower deck - I took off the engine then I had a pushable platform to easily move the battery from the fence to the shed, put on the re-charged battery and then took that out to the fence. I kept a muck bucket over the battery to keep the weather off it. Kinda red-neck but hey, it's recycling!

[Marci]

I like the idea of the bucket over the battery. I used one with a battery for a while since I didn't have electric to the horse barn it worked but its so much easier with electric in the barn.
I've been interested
in the solor ones but dang they are spendy, wonder if it would be less to buy a solar charger and hook it to the battery and it to the fence charger. LOL