Chicken Protection Question

[TCollier]

I have had problems with Coyotes and coons and I am to the point I am going to run a serious electric fence around about 1.5 acres for my chickens to run in without worrying about coyote or coons getting in. I would like your opinions on my plan.

Here is my plan. I am going to fence in 1.5 acres and run hot wires every 6 inches from the ground up too 5 feet high. The charger I am going to use is built for 20 miles and without a load it produces 9400 volts. Under load it should produce around 6000 volts. Also it is a pulsing charger not constant.

I have shot 2 coyotes and a coon in the last week going after some of my hens and I have lost 3 hens and 2 Guineas in the last 2 weeks. This should help but I know it is not the 100% protection that we all look for. But I do feel it is better than a regular fence that could be climbed by coons.

 

[Ole rooster]

If you can afford it anything is worth a try. The fence with hot wire on 6 inch centers should keep anything out. Except a jumping deer and we all know they ain't killers.

 

[TCollier]

I have never seen any deer in this area they tend to stay back in the back of my property near the food plot and the woods. My property is broken up into 3 sections sort of. 2 acres are front and back yard. Then a 2 acre pasture and this is where I am planning on doing the fence at the front of this 2 acres where my current coops and sheds are and electric is run out to the sheds and coops already. Then I have another 2 acres that are wooded and rough. The rough and wooded area is where I find the carcasses where the coyotes take them too to eat them.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

That's a LOT of wire, and probably much more than you really need.

You can easily do a 5 ft fence with fewer wires by staggering the spacing, making them further apart as you near the top.

Also make every OTHER wire hot, and it will hurt them far more than trying to power too many wires

The charger I am going to use is built for 20 miles

That's not all that strong, since they rate the miles on ONE WIRE

I use a 200 mile charger to fence 5 acres and it just does get 6000 volts to the farthest corner
even though I use aluminum wire

http://www.jefferspet.com/zareba-a200li-wasp/p/FG-J3/

http://goatconnection.com/articles/publish/article_95.shtml

PREDATOR FENCES
Several fence designs have effectively protected sheep from predation. Producers report that even temporary electric fences have discouraged predation.

A simple design which proved effective on one Solano County ranch consisted of three hot wires mounted on plastic off-set brackets attached to the posts of the existing woven wire/barbed wire fence. The hot wires were installed at heights of 4, 22, and 42 inches.

More elaborate designs are often needed for predator control. A high-tensile fence design that has effectively prevented dog and coyote predation consists of nine wires mounted at heights of 5, 11, 17, 23, 30, 37, 44, 52 and 60 inches. Every other wire is hot (including both top and bottom wires). Wood posts are spaced 75 to 100 feet apart with fiberglass stays installed at 20 foot intervals.

http://www.ibiblio.org/farming-connection/grazing/features/fencemis.htm​

 

[Chickeygirl]

@Bear Foot Farm - THANK you for the links. We are planning to install electric fencing - to keep the horses IN, and other stuff out. This was SO helpful - I'm still gonna get that donkey tho!

I'm curious - on sheep - I did read what was on the links - but wool sheep? They are affected by the charged fencing?

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

I did read what was on the links - but wool sheep? They are affected by the charged fencing?

The trick with wool sheep is to introduce them to the fence at an early age.

Confine them in a fairly small area and let them touch it a few times with their noses, and they will tend to stay away from it from then on.

If they ever learn to slide under it, you will never keep them in.
Sheep aren't good jumpers, and can normally be contained in a 3 ft fence.
The only reason to make them taller is to keep out predators.

For horses, use something highly visible for the top wire since their forward vision is poor.
One or two wires will contain most horses with no oproblem​

 

[Debbi]

Quote:
The trick with wool sheep is to introduce them to the fence at an early age.

Confine them in a fairly small area and let them touch it a few times with their noses, and they will tend to stay away from it from then on.

If they ever learn to slide under it, you will never keep them in.
Sheep aren't good jumpers, and can normally be contained in a 3 ft fence.
The only reason to make them taller is to keep out predators.

For horses, use something highly visible for the top wire since their forward vision is poor.
One or two wires will contain most horses with no oproblem

X2, except some breeds of sheep can jump a 4' fence with no problem. I am talking Suffolks and Corriedales, both of which I raised in earlier years. Heavy wool will insulate them from the shock, but if you hang some treats, like carrots above the hot wires, they will go nose in first, and then learn to stay clear of the fence! Training them as lambs is even better!

 

[Cowgirl71]

One BIG thing about using electric fencing is you have to keep it from grounding out. You have to make sure no grass or weeds grow up and touch the bottom wire, make sure no branches fall on the wires, etc. It will likely require weed-wacking every week during part of the year.

We've used electric fencing quite a lot the last couple years. We've used three strands of electric to make a second fence to keep bulls apart. We also used it once when one of our best cows insisted on going under the creek fence and gorging herself in the belly deep lush hayfield grass. She'd do it nearly every day, drove us nuts. We almost sold her. My Dad finally took a 50 mile fence charger and used it on one wire that stretched across the creek (about 20 feet). The cow, standing with all four hooves in the creek water, touched her face to the hot wire while trying to go under fence again. Wish I'd been there to see it.

She didn't try it again for more than a year.

We've also used electric for goats. Like Bear Foot Farm wrote, once they figured out they could slide under it it didn't work. So currently we use field fencing with barbed wire on the top and bottom, or in the winter when the grass isn't growing we use a combination of three strands of electric wire and seven strands barbed wire. It's been keeping them in! (keeping them fenced in is probably the biggest issue with goats)

 

[Chickeygirl]

Thank you. The lambs I have, are almost grown up, so teaching them to respect it may be a bit harder - but doable. And yes, I will be getting polytape for the horses - very visible, and really nice stuff. My sheep are Gulf coast native - so wooly all over but for legs, face, and tummies.

 

[Shireshome]

Quote:
Gosh that is such a large area to fence off, how many chickens do you have? I can tell you I have some friends that run around 500 chickens in electric chicken netting and I can't remember the exact size of the area they use. But they rotate their chickens from section to section, you can see some pictures of their set up here. http://www.fruitfulhillfarm.com Whatever the size is it works great for 500 chickens so I think if you adopt something similar it would be better then the setup you mentioned. Pluse if you have any livestock guard dogs you can run them around the outside to further protect them from unwanted predators. Just my two cents worth.