chicken zapper!!!

the chickens usually don't get zapped, since their thick feathers prevent contact with the fence. I'm sure every now and then one will get zapped but it shouldn't hurt them. An electric fence won't kill a very small dog, so it won't kill a chicken. Read up on here about electric fences and you'll find a lot of ppl on here who have wondered the same thing. Good luck, and what breed of dog do you have?

 

Quote:if the chicken gets zapped it doesnt matter, we have electric wire around the bottom of our pen and every time they get zapped they just kinda bock a little then it is over with!

 

Quote:umm not true... my chickens get zapped every time they touch the wire.

 

Intermiten pulses are the best to use around birds, constant current can kill young birds if they ground themselves on it. We had a strip of hot wire on the top of the fence and if a bird landed on it and it's tail hit the metal fencing they were cooked. We'd find smoking little birds along the fence...horrible. Ever since we've used the intermiten type.

 

We have an intermittent pulse and I watched a 2 month old get zapped while picking up spilled feed from beneath the quail pen. She squaked and ran away, but I saw her back under the quail pens later that day. I guess it wasn't "that" bad. LOL

I would definately suggest the intermittent pulse, those pullets and turkeys would touch the wire for several minutes, eating the spilled feed, but only one pullet and a turkey got zapped.

I have a friend who believes they had one die on the horse electric fence, but I think their dog played to rough with it and it just happened to end up on the bottom strand. That or their fence was not intermittent and the pullet went to step on the wire, got zapped and her feet contracted and closed on the wire, leaving her to be continually zapped.
-Kim

 

When I was a teenager I stayed for a summer at a farm that had horses, chickens and turkeys. The turkey coop was at the top of the hill separated from the house and the delicious lawn by the horse pasture.

Every morning we would go up to the turkey coop to let them out so that they could range. These were young turkeys - not chicks - but not fully grown.

As the turkeys grew I started finding the largest turkeys laying on the ground and twitching. Lopsided, paralyzed or dead. We didn't know what was going on!

So one morning instead of opening the coop and then going directly to the horse barn, I sat and watched. The turkeys raced down the hill towards the lawn... The tallest turkey ran right with them until SMACK! His neck hit the lower wire of the horse fence and he was ZAPPED! He fell to the ground, twitching.

So... Maybe chickens are protected by their insulating feathers... But turkeys... and TURKENS might be in trouble...

 

I don't think you can get fence chargers that don't pulse anymore. Too much of a safety hazard for much the reason mentioned above. If a person grabs the wire the electricity will force the muscles to contract and keep them from letting go. All the chargers sold at the feedstores around here pulse.

I've talked to lots of people now who use only electric fencing or netting to keep their chickens in. So long as they aren't in too small of space where running from one wire leads to smashing into another it should be fine.