Forgot to mention one other important feature. So imagine you have set this up using the stand off insulators, and they are about 5 inches or so above the ground. Any varmint that tried to dig his way in is almost certainly going to hit that hot wire and be sent packing. So this can replace the apron or any need to bury wires, etc. An ideal way to protect tractors?
Hmmm.......so about dusk I go to the barn, with intent of locking the girls up on the way back, come out of the barn and am met with a new friend........one I've never seen before, but there she is just the same. No clue who she belongs go. Dumped, lost or wandered off from somewhere? She acted like someone desperately looking for a friend, so may have been on her own for a day or so.
Yes, that close to the birds, who lucky for them and the dog, had already gone to roost, so never caught her notice. Shoot her? (I didn't)
Was walking past this the other day and realized it might help for someone wanting to surround their coop / run with a protective barrier of hot wires.......these for structures made from wooden posts or wooden framing.
How many you need depends on how tight you are able to stretch your poly tape or wire. The tighter you can make it, the larger the span can be between insulators. But I would think no more than 8 to 12 feet between posts should be OK. The problem will be what happens at the corners. How will you support the run through a 90 degree turn at each corner? You might be able to use two of these right on the corners with a 45 degree bend at the corner and may get away with it.
These are simply nailed on or use a deck screw. They create a standoff position of about 5 or 6 inches, which does two things. It assures the fence is far enough removed from the wire fence behind it that there should be no chance of it shorting out between. It also creates about the right sized gap that a coon or other climbing predator (not a weasel) is going to try to squeeze between the hot wire and run wire they are climbing and get themselves zapped in the process. Most assuredly so if you tie your fence chargers ground system to the run wire.
NOT so much if you place this over a wooden sided coop, wooden fence, etc. Wood is not a good conductor. With a wood fence behind it, a predator could be on the wood fence, touch the hot wire and not feel much of anything. For the same reason a hawk can sit on a high voltage powerline and not get shocked. He is not grounded.
If you suspected a climbing weasel, you could also run a 2nd wire on a short stub insulator, moving it only an inch or so off the run wire behind it, creating a tighter, appropriate sized gap for a weasel to negotiate. The problem with short insulators for larger predators like coons being they could just step over it.
As for how many runs? I'd go 3 to start.......first one 4 to 6 inches off the deck......2nd a foot or so above that.......and the 3rd......about eye level to big dog....or maybe 30 to 36 inches off the deck. With any luck, he will sniff it or perhaps lift a paw to try to scratch at it or maybe climb it. Ouch.
The equivalent to rapid rise yeast to get this cooking faster is to drape a piece of raw bacon or uncooked chicken skin over a couple of the wires to encourage them to sniff or lick it. Normally I would frown on such tactics and call it devious and/or cheating, but with marauding dogs, who cares?
Hmmmmm.......just had a visit from yet another strange dog. It was in my front yard and then on my front porch. This time a good sized white furry fellow.....looked like it could have been on the small end of a LGD. Went to snap a photo and it took off for the horizon the moment I opened the door.....(so no photo). Checked on the birds, and while they were out and about and running around and looking concerned......they were all still there and very much alive.
Black dog shown in post 83 is still running loose in the neighborhood. Saw her wondering around again this morning at the neighbors......along with someones Australian Shepard. But they didn't come over to see us. Still can't get close enough to that one to check her collar for the phone number.
BTW, with all this new dog action in the neighborhood, for the first time ever, I have placed some bacon strips over the top wire. Held in place with a clothes pin. Been up a week and it is still there. And no dogs anywhere near it!
Spoke too soon on the large white dog. Shortly after making that post, I went out to the garden to freshen some of my raised beds with a digging fork. Had been there no more than 5 minutes when I heard a loud screaming yelp......turned to see the white dog in full retreat.....belly low to the ground and moving fast.......and straight away from the electric fence. It was still going full speed when it disappeared around the corner of the neighbor's house. Dog had not left......was lurking no more than 120 feet from where I was standing...well me and all the birds who were running around under my feet eating the worms and grubs I was exposing with my digging.....except we had no clue there was a dog anywhere near us. It had found one of the bacon strips. Ouch.
So the deal with this dog is I still have no clue who it belongs to, can't seem to get close enough to catch it......and the only weapon I had if needed to fend it off was my digging fork. Without that fence, I may have had trouble. With it, no worries....fence dealt with it and did so harshly. All I needed to do was to go back to digging.
As an aside, I have no idea how many japanese beetle grubs a RIR can eat, but it's more than 50. They will eat another 20 or 30 after they have had their fill of earthworms.
PS: If you wonder what a shock like that to the tongue might feel like, take a 9 volt battery......they type with + and - terminals on top and touch it to your tongue. Then take that X1,000. Something like that.
My birds have decimated several very large patches of my back lawn. Each about 10 x 20 or larger. Thankfully the damage is confined to the back yard. Grubs are plentiful this season. Hubby not too pleased. But, he agrees with me about not poisoning the soil, and I've pointed out that if the chooks weren't tearing up the grass to get at the grubs, the crows and skunks would be. Unfortunately, a neighbor's solution to the grub problem is to shoot all the crows. At least my chooks are turning the grubs into eggs.
At least my chooks are turning the grubs into eggs.
