Goat Fencing

Pedal Tulips said:

Lessons learned. We have a netting electric fence. It worked great until one day we forgot to turn it on and one of our goats horns became stuck. I had to cut her loose and she lost her baby that night. A few months later we tried again. This time we had 2 7 week old goat kids inside and they spooked and ran right into the fence, one got stuck and I had to cut her out. =). I am not too happy with my fence right now. First I have to figure out how to repair it and try try again.

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I am so sorry about your losses.

You have learned the hard lesson, that you CANNOT turn an electric fence off for an "unsupervised" period of time. We only turn ours off for repairs, and then it immediately gets turned back on. We have mesh sized so that our Boer kids cannot slip thru, and do not turn our kids loose at any age until we have "introduced" them to the fence. Once they fear it, they will not get near it at all. We also keep it tight, and don't allow weeds to grow up in it, so it is more visible.

I have had goats get their horns stuck in 2x4 woven wire fence, 4x4 woven wire fence, cattle panels, small hole haynets, and even pipe panels. It happens. Don't beat yourself up about it, we cannot bubble wrap our livestock to prevent accidents.

Look on Premier 1 Supplies website, they have "gadgets" to repair the fencing. My Powerfields and Premier 1 fencing both came with "repair kits" but I do not know if other brands also come with kits. Premier 1 sells their repair kits for $2, and there are also Litz clips $7 and safety links $15. Scroll about halfway down the page: https://www.premier1supplies.com/c/fencing/fence-connectors-and-accessories