Chickens charge through electric netting

[plasma800]

My chickens will charge and successfully pass right through a premier 1 fence.

When one does it, the rest follow.

They cluck like mad while doing it, but they do it.

I was hoping the electric netting would contain them, but I’ve learned it just will not.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Do they do that when being pressed?

My Penedesencas would stay inside a 3 foot fence till they felt anyone was getting too close to them, they would go over a 10 foot fence to escape.

 

[plasma800]

I only tried it once, and it was the first time we had ever let them out of their coop.

To say, as chicks they stayed in a brooder, then moved to their coop for several days, then let into the 100’ fence area. They were smaller at that time, so I don’t know if this is just a “pullet” thing or not.

It would be so convenient to the let the netting be my only fence, and I’m trying to discover from experienced owners what reality is.

 

[Tired old Rooster]

Feathers will insulate them quite well from electricity.

 

[Charlie Wooster]

Which Premier 1 fence do you have?.. the poultry net fence does not have holes big enough to fit a full size grown chicken, maybe a smaller breed/younger chicken.. But the goat/pig/general purpose fence has much bigger holes at ground level, there are many sizes of electric net each serve a different purpose/animal..

 

[aart]

Plus all that up der^^^ it's not really meant to keep chickens in but to keep ground predators out.

 

[plasma800]

Maybe now that they’ve grown out to a bigger size I could try again. My coop is right near a lot of underbrush and trying to get a bird out of that is a real PIA. Not just because it’s thick, but it’s thorny too.

So I haven’t been willing to try it again. Now I have a small wire fence loosely placed inside my premier 1 fence but it really cuts down on their roaming space. They’ve reduced their small run to nothing but plain dirt, and I can only imagine that must be a little boring.

 

[plasma800]

Also my fence was sagging some. So the larger holes were nearer to the ground. I’ve since bought some fiberglass rods to help hold up some of the sags. And I’d probably like to add another 50 or 100 feet of netting to my whole setup one day

 

[Ridgerunner]

Until my full sized fowl chicks are about 7 to 8 weeks old they can easily go through my Premiee1 electric chicken netting. From reading your posts it sounds like the chicks were still too small for the netting to contain them. If yours are bantam I have no idea how long they will be able to go through.

For a critter to get shocked it has to complete the electric current between the hot wire and the ground. With the Premiere1 electric netting all horizontal wires except the bottom wire are hot wires. Your soil is the ground. Feathers do insulate the chickens but the feet and portions of the head are not insulated. When my adult chickens are standing on the ground and peck at green stuff growing in the netting they get shocked. The squawk, jump back 2 or 3 feet, and go back to eating. When my young chicks go through the netting they jump up to a hole big enough for them to get through. Since they jumped up they are not touching the soil so the current is never completed and they do not get shocked.