Electric Fence

I love to let my bird out and free range by themselves without a fence(expensive and messy), but more recently I have seen predators coming around. I was just thinking would putting a strand or two a few inches off the ground around a large area keep them out and the chickens in? Could it hurt the chickens? It is electric wire that I use for my horses, I have been shocked by it before and it wasn't that bad. Any opinions are greatly appreciated!

My neighbor uses electric fencing to keep deer out of her garden.

I've seen large crows get fried when they walk along the edge and touch the wire.

Maybe they weren't dead, but simply stunned. I'm not about to tresspass to check on the welfare of a crow. Usually, when I see an animal react to electrical wire and lay down without getting back up after a few hours, I consider them dead.

Proper spacing away from hens should be all that is needed to protect them.

I'm going to follow this thread, as I've been interested in adding it to my run. I've been thinking about this electric Poultry netting I've been seeing lately. I've heard good things about it.

My birds Free range while I'm at home during the week. But we like to go camping on the weekends and I'm thinking that the birds will stay in the coop and run while we are away. Just want to make it Ft. Knox for those times.

I wasn't really thinking about electric net so much as a few strands of electric wire. I have seen electric netting, but I was thinking about enclosing a large area(with only an electric wire) and the netting would get pretty expensive for what I want.

I just googled it. Yikes. $200 for 150 feet. egads.

Why does everything good cost so much?! ..LOL.

Yeah. It does get pricey and i would need probably 750 feet!

I highly doubt the electric fence would harm your birds, feathers don't coduct the electricity well anyways so they wouldn't get shocked too bad unless they got it in the comb or some other bare spot and from what I have read they learn quickly to avoid the fence. I would think it would work but I would maybe go with 3 or 4 strands with the bottom 2 fairly close and the top 2 slightly more spaced. If you just have 2 and they are quite low it would be easy for fox or coyote or dog to just jump over.

I just go by physical evidence, my own experiences and those of others that a live wire will kill at least small birds:

http://www.myspace.com/jims_lightho...hbors-electric-fence-is-killing-birds/1215234

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-296236.html

Chickens are curious creatures. Sometimes they have to explore by taking a taste and pecking at that tasty looking wire.

"The answer is yes, your electric fence can easily kill a chicken. The voltage is for large animals, so any smaller animal can be killed or seriously harmed by an electric fence. Karen"
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/356919/electric-fence-and-chickens

And then there's this one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/322782/warning-electric-fence-death

".....We had a rain storm move through and it was a lil chilly. It was too dark to see clearly across the pen. I walked around and was talking to the bird. "Why are you still out side dummy?" THEN, I was close enough to see! Apparently the chook had reached through the fencing on the gate to try to eat something. When she did her neck touched the electric wire!!! I guess it had enough power to fry her lil bird brain!!! She was laying with her head resting on the wire! I emmediatly reached down in a panic and grabbed her head...... OUCH!!! still hot!!...."

The newer type fence chargers which have been out for some years now are a pulsing charge rather than a constant flow of electricity, this gives whatever animal that hits it a chance to get away, though if the bird somehow got tangled or couldn't leave the fence for some reason I could see it killing them. Electric fence is high voltage low amperage, volts don't kill, they knock you on your *****, it is the amps that kill, obviously it takes less amps to kill a small animal than a large animal but the amps put out by a fencer are in the miliamps. Also the old fencers where very strong, the "Weed Cutters" could actually buzz off grass and stuff that touched it, those probably would be quite dangerous. I also would be leary of small chicks around the wire, adults should be fine with the right charger. I have done a lot of reading on the subject and have read far more people report no problems than report dead birds, I doubt they would be marketing things such as "electric poultry netting" if it was going to consistently be killing peoples birds, that would be quite counter productive.

Here is an article explaining fencing: http://keeping-chickens.me.uk/getting-started/electric-fencing-chickens