The Bearproofing test and Project - Plansand parts picture posted

Greetings.. And welcome to The Bear Sting thread!!

A few nights ago we lost a turkey to a bear. I came onto back yard chickens hoping to find some good solid technical information and reviews about electrical fencing and bear deterents. I found lots of "sorry for your losses" and "install a hot wire" and of course lots of anicoms.. But I didn't find much technical data or reviews of products on the market.

Rather than complain, I plan to write a nice long post w/ all of the information about what I am doing to make my area bear proof!!

I will be updating this post over the next few weeks as the plan comes together.

The Overall Scheme -

Prep - 11/7/14 - Head to tractor supply and buy material
Phase 1 - 11/8/14 - Install a test section of fence, and bait it with Peanut butter, apples, turkey carcasses, ext
11/8-11/10 Let the game camer capture all wildlife and their reaction to the electric fence.

Phase 2 - Evaluate photos, and figure out if we are ready to install through the whole yard. Currently the yard is "protected" (and by the "protected", I mean obviously it is NOT protected since a bear just hops over it and steals 30lb turkeys!)

Phase 3 - 11/11-11/14 - Install whole yard with electric wire. We will use poly wire and poly posts, and install approx 6" OUTSIDE of the existing field fence.

Material List -
We will be using material from Tractor Supply and Lowes

Here is a picture of the "test section" that we will be installing on Saturday and leave baited through the weekend.


To summarize.. We will be plugging the controller into 110V outlet, connecting to the houses ground with an alligator clip, running poly wire out to the four posts. We will run three strande (8", 20", 32") around an 8'x8' area. Then we will bait the area, set up the camera and wait out the weekend.

Products and specs

Alligator clips - Conduct Tite alligator clip - TSC - 3.49
Ground - EXISTING HOME GROUND
Controller - Zareba 5 Mile LI Fence charger - TSC - 49.99
Wire - Zareba Polywire 400 Meter 6 strand - TSC - 31.99
Poles - Step In poly Fence post - 48" - TSC - 2.49

Pictures of the test plot will be coming tomorrow.. Please feel free to subscribe to this post to watch the drama unfold!

Update 11/7/14
I picked up the supplies. TSC did not have the alligator clips, so I stopped in at lowes and picked up clips and some insullated 12 gauge wire to use as leads from the power source out to the fence.. I also upgraded to the 10 mile controller. A little more money, but a bigger jolt!

Here are the electrical parts.


I connected the alligator clips to short leads for testing. I plugged it in, and tested by touching the alligator clips to the whole roll of wire. It was arcing, just like it should.. I have a volt tester there in the picture, but unfortunately, it no longer works. It is a little early in the project for human testing, but I will brave the jolt later on when we get some of the test set up.

Updated to include pictures of the parts.. Updated to the OP.

UPDATE - We are running ahead of schedule. I ducked out of work a little early and headed back home to get my "bear trap" set up.

First we set the ground rod. Originally I was going to tie it into the homes ground, but Zaebra's instructions specifically recommend AGAINST doing that.. I had a T Post laying around, and drove it about 3' into the ground, to act as a temporary ground.

Next I wired up the ground with a lead and alligator clip (pictured above).

I wired up another longer lead and ran it from the HOT to the nearest corner post.

We placed the controller inside a 5 gallon bucket, just to keep it dry. Obviously in our perm setup this will be mounted and weather tite. That is the ground rode you see tied in with the alligator clip.


We set the corner posts. We tried two different posts, and we preferred the white post, with the steel bottoms. They were 2.49 at TSC, the ones we got for 1.99 were all fiberglass and where not nearly as good.

After the poles were set up, we ran the PolyBraid around each pole. This part was amazingly simple.


We hooked up the alligator clip, and plugged it in..

So simple!!

As mentioned earlier, my electric tester is dead.. So I had to test it with the ole' finger test.. IT WORKS! it has a nice little punch to it.



The camera is set up on a ladder and we think we are getting a good shot of the most likely path of approach.. It looks like it has already caught one strange creature moving around.



The area is now baited with corn, peanut butter, and birdseed.. Tomorrow we will add a turkey carcass.

Game camera pics in the morning... Is anyone getting any entertainment out of this post? I hope so!

As a beekeeper I am somewhat familiar with bear problems. The best set up recommended by many uses cattle panels for the fencing. Using panels and fiberglass sucker rods you can make a quickly assembled and somewhat portable fencing system. Here's an article discussing the fence I'm talking about.

http://www.kencove.com/fence/76_Bear+Fence_resource.php

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Yes, absolutely! Bears, electric fences, baiting and a game cam! What's not to like? I can't wait to see what happens!

UPDATE - 11/8/14

There was ZERO activity in my "sting" operation last night.

None of the bait was disturbed. And no pictures were taken from the game camera..

There is a large overhead light that keeps this area pretty well lit. I have seen the bear in this vicinity before, so I didn't figure the light would bother him. Tonight, I will turn the light off and see if we can get a bear visit.

On a related note.. The bear has not re-attacked the turkeys. So two turkeys will be in the fridge by noon!

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Oh well, sooner or later I'm betting something will show up.

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And you wondered why they wouldn't cooperate with your investigation!

You can have all the "technical" information in the world, and it won't do you a bit of good unless it's PRACTICAL.

I have going on seven years heavy-duty experience with bears lusting after my chickens. A lot of this involves close observation and close interaction of and with bears.

I can boil it down to one thing: a hot wire, no matter the volts or how many strands, is going to do anything to deter bears unless the wires are up against an impassable surface. This means a bear will jump over or between strands of hot wire, not even feeling the charge through his thick fur. But if you install the hot wire at nose level against a solid surface, and at the top of a fence, the bear will first test the wire with his nose or tongue, thus the purpose of the peanut butter, because they need to "research" where they intend to be going.

I've watched a bear jump gracefully between the two strands of hot wire I run around the far perimeter to keep cattle away from my buildings, and not even touch it. But I've seen a bear encounter the peanut butter on a wire that's against the garden fencing and get a jolt and run off.

I haven't had any penetration of my run or coops or gardens by bears since I've employed the hot wire close against these enclosures.

I've read that hanging piece of bacon on the wire itself is a good 'training' technique.

Great thread, I love a good experiment...wishing you the best of luck and technique discovery!

I agree with the solid barrier behind the electric wire. Now I am getting my popcorn.