Electric Fence (Different question than the recent thread)

[Chook-A-Holic]

I'm not really hung on any particular brand so to speak, as long as it does what I want it to do and it is safe.

 

[parkersmom120106]

Ok..so my brother is going to switch the chargers. I believe the zareba is a pulsating charger. It has the UL logo on it. The Fi-Shock does not. It's a 2 mile charger. I have 2000 feet of wire back there (100x150 pen, 4 strands). I'm not terribly concerned about predators here. The people across the street said there was a fox, but she said she saw one dead on the road nearby and hasn't seen it since. It should be enough power for the goats since they are just 40lb mini goats. Will the pulsating charger be safe if the chickens roost on it? I know it probably won't be able to hold them in, but I'm hoping that they will stay in the area near their coop. All my neighbors have chickens that wander their yards, and they very rarely leave the property. It's going to be a little bit before I have any chickens out there since 10 of my RIR chicks are only a week old and the other 3 are only about 4-6 weeks. I'm going to keep them in their grow out coop til they are full grown. The little frizzles will live in the 4x8 grow out coop permanently.

 

[patandchickens]

Those continuous-charge fencers are a MENACE, especially the stronger ones. I do believe they may have a legitimate purpose in keeping some *very very escape-minded* dogs confined, but other than that, there is really no reason to put up with the significant extra hazard.

If a pulsing charger isn't working for you, I'm sorry, but it's not the charger's fault, it's because it is the wrong size charger and/or installed/maintained incorrectly. Chook-a-holic's comments are correct. The question is, what voltage was the fence carrying when you tested it with a DIGITAL (i.e. accurate) tester? If it was testing at 3-5,000 v then it WOULD impress all but the most hardened-criminal dog. Most likely however you did not have it set up to carry that much charge, in which case of *course* it did not work, but the solution is simply to correct the installation problems

I am not really addressing this to you particularly so much as to anyone else who is considering installing electric fencing.

The bottom line is, install and maintain it correctly so you have sufficient charge on the whole fence (and train the animals to it so they don't just run through it the first time!), and it works real well. Neglect any of those things, and it sucks

(e.t.a. - I honestly don't know whether continuous chargers are supposed to be run at lower voltages, but I can tell you that 600-1,000v on a proper pulsed charger will not deter ANYTHING that actually wants to go thru the fence. You need like 2,000-3,000 to reliably contain cattle or horses, more for dogs and predator exclusion. USE AN ACCURATE I.E. DIGITAL FENCE TESTER -- those cheap 'five neon lights' jobbies are terribly terribly inaccurate)

To the o.p., on the question of killing squirrels and small birds, even pulsing chargers CAN do that if the animal is sufficiently small (esp if it is wet at the time) and it contacts the live wire AND a metal fencepost at the same time. This is uncommon but does happen, if you use metal T-posts. I would not particularly worry about it with chickens, though, as they do not like to try to fly up to perch on something as thin and weebly as a wire that they can't see well. It is not *impossible* for electric fences to kill chickens (main cause: chicken gets stuck in fence and thus zapped repeatedly, or person was using one of those continuous-current chargers) but it is quite rare.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[parkersmom120106]

Thanks Pat..that's good to know. After hearing about the dangers of the continious chargers we will be switching to the pulsating. I'm just afraid I may have to pony up for a larger one. I don't think the 2 mile small one is going to deliver enough shock..we'll try though. We are using one of the cheapie fence testers so I may have to see about a digital. When it was reading 1000v it was plenty to make our mini goats react. The hollared and got away from the fence fast. I think they each hit it twice and now won't go near it. We don't even have it plugged in most of the time. I need to train my baby goats to it though and one of them just walked right through it like it wasn't even there. Trial and error. Good to know that I don't have to worry about the chickens with it. Thanks.

 

[tri-5-ron]

Can anyone give me some opinions on this solar charger?
Thanks

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=47454

 

[Chook-A-Holic]

Looking at the specs, the manual, and it being a no-name charger, I wouldn't plunk down $60.00 for it. I think you will be dollars ahead to put the money on a more widely known name brand charger that you know you can depend on. Just my opinion...

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Obviously I cannot know for CERTAIN having never used it, but IMHO having used a lot of chargers over the years that looks like a TOTAL piece of cr*p and I would not spend one thin dime on it.

Put your $60 towards a GOOD QUALITY (reputable mfr) plug-in or battery-operated charger and you will be $60 ahead of if you bought that thing and discover it is useless.

Solar chargers btw almost never make financial or practical sense.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat