Duck and Electronet; ducklings and electronet

[Haunted55]

To get the most from your electric fence, you do need the 3 grounding rods. I learned this the hard way with pigs last year. One will give a tingle, two a snap but 3 keeps trouble on both sides of the fence away.

For my ducks and geese, I have just run a 100' welded wire, 6' tall fence. Top will be covered with a plastic poultry fencing [looks just like regular chicken wire but a little thicker] and I am putting up the 5" stand offs for electric fencing. Since I live in the woods, I will be using a 50 mile electric fence charger and 3 ground rods.

As for moving the rods later, my son came up with a slick way to get them out easily. Take a pair of vicegrips and put them onto the rod below the fastener for the ground wire and then put a bottle jack underneath the visegrips and just jack them out of the ground. You might have to move the wire fastner a couple of times but this does save a lot of grief.

 

[Amiga]

As for moving the rods later, my son came up with a slick way to get them out easily. Take a pair of vicegrips and put them onto the rod below the fastener for the ground wire and then put a bottle jack underneath the visegrips and just jack them out of the ground. You might have to move the wire fastner a couple of times but this does save a lot of grief.

Brilliant!

 

[larkflying]

I am going to have to try that with the grounding rods . . . sounds like much easier than my hammer and pull technique.

 

[Haunted55]

Yeah, sometimes he can be and then other times.......lol.

 

[Haunted55]

Trust me it is. My ground here is clay and rock. Darned near impossible to get them out of the ground without the jack.

And it's nice to be able to give back here instead of always asking!

 

[HeatherFeather]

Hi Tahai,
I run flocks of 200 pekins in electronets. I use premier 1 poultry nets for chickens, ducks and turkeys, and have been for several years now...I guess this is our 4th season using it.

Here is what I have found for ducks:

I put them on pasture in a hooped enclosure surrounded by electric net at 2.5 weeks. After 3 or 4 days I let them out to range in the net. I stand with them for the first half hour or so, just to make sure they are all training onto the electric. They NEED to get zapped. Its ok. I would NEVER EVER introduce ANY animal to an electric fence for the first time when it is off. This is a cardinal rule for electric fencing for most people. It serves to teach the animal that touching the fence is ok. That sometimes is doesn't shock, so if it does at one time...its worth it to try again becasue maybe it won't later. They need to get a shock on their first experience with it, and many animals will only ever get that one shock. I do it young with ducks so that they are not fully feathered and they get the zap. It is much harder to train an adult bird onto the net. After that one day...they are pretty much ok. I do close them back into the shelter at night, its pretty easy, I just pour food in their trough and call 'here duck duck duck' they learn in about 3 days to come.

HOWEVER ducks can tell if the fence is off. And when it is off, they like to get tangled in it. So I don't turn it off. I either grab the post at a cold spot, lay it down and walk over it to enter the paddock, or I unclip it, enter, clip it. I also respect my ducks, so I never chase them, or spook them in any way. I am aware that a spooked duck will bolt and get caught; just like a spooked sheep or horse, so we treat all animals this way out of respect for them. Also, when a dog is behind electric, we do not coo or baby talk at him, we ignore him, so that he isn't encouraged to go near the fence to see us, or stressed because the net is between him and the nice person who is talking him up.

We put our nets away for the winter, and use our permanent wire fences then. I have used them in light snow, and no, they don't ground out. Actually if you try to use any electric when there is more than just light snow, the snow insulates the animal's feet and they don't receive a shock. So since we live in an area of heavy snowfall, electric doesn't work in general here during winter. There is an exception, and that is where you run alternating grounded and hot wires....somebody makes a sheep net that's wired that way (so you have to actually drive a ground for the net itself as well) but I've never seen a poultry net like that.

We live in an area of high predator pressure-Ontario's near north. Our farm is 15 AC of pasture in the middle of thousands upon thousands of acres of forest (and roads and lakes and cottages). We have black bears, foxes, wolves, coyotes, fishers, weasels, racoons, neighbor's dogs, our own cats...the list goes on....Our neighbors who do not run electric nets lose animals fairly often-my neighbor loses maybe 50 lambs a year. We use electric nets for chickens, turkeys, ducks, hogs, sheep, goats, and dogs. The only time we have ever had a predator breach is once last year, we lost a market ready turkey, something chewed the hot wires, I suspect fisher. 2 things were happening. 1. We didn't close the turkeys into their house at night at that time (now we do). 2. It was very hot and dry and the fence wasn't getting a full charge. We then closed them in their house and let the dog (LGD) run free in the net outside the turkey house all night; no more losses.

I do not close my chickens in at night, and we leave sheep and goats on pasture at night in nets; though usually with the dog too.

We also move our nets at least once a week, and that freaks out the predators. Plus I move the shade shelters daily. I can move the nets by myself, with my baby in a backpack on my back in about 15minutes. We have the 164 ft lengths. It took me a whole season to learn how to take it down without getting it tangled!!! I also used to find the poultry nets too heavy to carry and now I don't. So if you're not that strong you might appreciate 2 of the shorter lengths.

I never use any extra posts either. The trick is, when making a paddock, start at the gate. Then lay the rest on the ground in the pattern you want to go. You walk backwards and drop the posts on the ground as you go. Then you pitch the non-expandable sides first-so the side that runs along the roadway, or beside the rock, or the edge of the woods, or along the barn....whatever side is 'fixed' in where the fence has to go. Then you pitch the 'expandable' sides...and pull the net outwards as you go. works every time. no extra posts needed.

I hope you have as positive an experience as I do!!