Electric Poultry Fence

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Roost Ruler

Roost Ruler

Hatching
7 Years
Dec 29, 2012
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We are looking into pasturing both chickens for meat and eggs and have seen many good things about the electric poultry fence. However, with all the positives I am sure they are some negatives. Does anyone have experience using this and if so would you mind telling me the pros and cons that you have experienced, mostly in reference to predators and their effectiveness. Thanks.
 
We bought a Premier fence last spring and used it all spring/summer for broilers and DP roosters. We think it's great and didn't lose any chickens to predators (raised over 100 chickens using it). We even found a dead weasel right inside the fence at one point during the summer. We didn't even know we had weasels around, but it would have easily killed several of our chickens had the fence not stopped it.

The only negative we've found is that we had to buy several support posts to keep it from sagging. We'd suggest purchasing the fence that has built-in posts closer together.

Here is another suggestion is you have a crazy dog like we do. Make sure it's hooked up to the charge before letting the dog around it. We didn't, and the dog stuck her head right through one of the squares as soon as we set it up. I thought we were going to have to cut up a brand new fence to get her out.
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Centrarchid, most likely we will be charging it with a solar charger. We figured with having to move the fence it would involve a bit of labor, we are hopefully going to be able to set it up so it wont have to be moved everyday.

Simz, thank you for the advice and I'm glad to hear its working out for you. Everything thing we had read through the company sounded to good to be true. Glad to hear you didn't have to cut up you new fence.
 
Simz, it sounds like you are producing around the same number of chickens that we are thinking about doing. How are you pasturing yours? We were thinking about doing 10x10 chicken tractors inside the electric poultry fencing to keep out predators. Is this similar to your method? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
We had problems with coons and dogs in the past. Those problems stopped since we have been using the poultry netting.

The netting does not work well in snow - I'm still trying.
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I keep mobile shelters within the netting - works great for us.

Go ahead.... laugh
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My husband built an awesome hoop/tractor out of cattle panels, 2 X 4's, and chicken wire that we closed them up in each night. It was about 8 X 8 X 6' high and covered in a heavy duty tarp. We also had 2 other simple range shelters in the yard for them to get under. During the day the chickens free ranged throughout the "pasture" that was surrounded by the electric fence. They loved it and were the best tasting chickens we've raised! The only downfall was that the shelter was too heavy for me to move.

For our final fall batch we went back to our garage method (video link in my tagline). If we raise large numbers again then we'll come up with a lighter tractor - but for 1 or 2 smaller batches a year the garage pen works great, even though it costs about $40 more in bedding.
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A note on charging: My husband hooked up a 12 volt car battery to the charger so we don't have to run electricity out to the fence. He just periodically charges the battery. It works great!
 
Thank you all for the replies on the pros and cons. It sounds like its definitely a good product and certainly makes our decision on whether to use it or not a lot easier and how best to utilize this fencing system.
 
I've been using Premier's poultry plus netting since this past spring. It has worked out great for me. The poultry plus netting's stakes are closer together, so you get less sag between the posts. I would recommend getting the 6' fiberglass corner stakes, they really help support the fence. I have 4 100' sections of fence. The charger I have, ( 115VAC, also from Premier) is capable of handling 7 100' sections. I'm getting a strong 7000V reading on my electric fence tester. That's as high as the tester reads, so I believe it's putting out over 7000Vs. I'm thinking about getting a couple more sections and expanding the range. You have to keep the grass clear at the bottom of the fence, (That would definently go for snow too) so you don't ground out and weaken the fence's charge. I had problems with foxes around here, and the occasional stray dog. But now, I can leave here and not have to worry about the chickens being out any more. I seen a dog nose up to the fence one time, he hit the fence, yelped and threw it in reverse, then turned and ran and didn't look back till he was at least 100 some feet away. And he didn't go back down there either.
Jack


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JackE, what are you using to keep the grass down under the fence? Our current plan is to run our sheep/goats through first to get the grass ate down then put our chickens on and hopefully only have to move the fencing once a week. Do you think that would keep the grass low enough so that is doesn't ground out the fencing too much?
 

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