Electric fence in small backyard

[mendocinosunris]

You're welcome!

I'm kinda thinking about the electric netting again, thanks to JackE's comment... Maybe I'll save up my lunch money for a while

 

[featherz]

You're welcome!

I'm kinda thinking about the electric netting again, thanks to JackE's comment... Maybe I'll save up my lunch money for a while

I just bought one roll of the premier netting. We'll have it by the weekend and set it up for one of our coops. We already have chargers in each coop, so it hopefully will be easy. I am curious to see how much wing clipping I am going to have to do.

 

[EricaD]

I use the Premier netting in our setup and it's great! We let the dogs and cats test it out and they got a zap they'll never forget, lol. I have no worries about a 4-legged predator getting in as long as the charger is running. I have 200 feet of netting and a 2 joule battery charger - setup was a breeze (I did it by myself) and I've already rearranged the fence twice and it's easy as can be to move.

The chickens, as babies, simply wandered in and out through the netting, but once they got around 9 weeks old they felt the zap and they all respect the fence now. I've only ever had them fly over when they're severely spooked, which just happened once due to the lawn mower. Note to self, mow the lawn BEFORE letting the chickens out, lol.

The only downside I can see is that there's no aerial protection. We've got hawks and eagles, and early on lost a chick to a hawk while free ranging, and the hawk has come back every day since, looking to score a meal.

We put in some posts with bird netting over half the run, and I strung fishing line back and forth between the posts on the other half as a temporary measure until the chickens are full size (we don't need to walk around in there this season, and have no plans to move the fence, but we can always re-string as needed - it's cheap and fast to do.) Plus we designed the run to be long and narrow (hopefully making it harder for the hawks to maneuver and land inside the run without hitting some obstacle or another) and have lots of hiding places throughout. We're building a moveable scarecrow this weekend too, and I've hung holographic ribbons all over. Hopefully that does the trick so that our flock can have the closest thing we can give them to free ranging, while keeping them fairly safe (at some point they'll need to use their instincts too). Our rooster is still young, but he'll help too!

Here are some pics of our setup. We love it!

 

[featherz]

I use the Premier netting in our setup and it's great! We let the dogs and cats test it out and they got a zap they'll never forget, lol. I have no worries about a 4-legged predator getting in as long as the charger is running. I have 200 feet of netting and a 2 joule battery charger - setup was a breeze (I did it by myself) and I've already rearranged the fence twice and it's easy as can be to move.

The chickens, as babies, simply wandered in and out through the netting, but once they got around 9 weeks old they felt the zap and they all respect the fence now. I've only ever had them fly over when they're severely spooked, which just happened once due to the lawn mower. Note to self, mow the lawn BEFORE letting the chickens out, lol.

No problems with baby chicks getting zapped? I'll have babies in both coops soon and I was thinking I'd have to pen up mama and babies when the fence is on. I figure getting through is no big deal, they can hop back in, but not if they get zapped dead All the other chickens in the coop are 9+ weeks up to adult.

 

[instar8]

I did electric net, not premier...Kencove? I think. i had raccoons go over it, and a hawk grabbed one of my 12 wk olds...i saved her, but almost wished i hadn't; the hawk had pulled chunks of meat off her head. But she survived, and went on to be a good layer...i named her 'Phantom', cuz one side of her head looked normal, the other you could see skull bone, and her tongue working .the net worked good for dogs though!

 

[EricaD]

I did electric net, not premier...Kencove? I think. i had raccoons go over it, and a hawk grabbed one of my 12 wk olds...i saved her, but almost wished i hadn't; the hawk had pulled chunks of meat off her head. But she survived, and went on to be a good layer...i named her 'Phantom', cuz one side of her head looked normal, the other you could see skull bone, and her tongue working .the net worked good for dogs though!

How strong was your charger and how frequent were the blasts (lol, not the technical term)? Our 110 pound American Bulldog and our 80+ pound Rottie mix both nearly jumped out of their skins. And our 7 year old was reduced to tears when she accidentally hit it. Our charger has several settings and we keep it on a fast setting, so that it's zapping at fast intervals. But we turn it off at night because our coop is a fortress and I'm not worried about anything getting in. So the netting is for daytime predation only.

And the netting won't stop aerial predators at all, hence the need for other cover.

 

[EricaD]

No problems with baby chicks getting zapped? I'll have babies in both coops soon and I was thinking I'd have to pen up mama and babies when the fence is on. I figure getting through is no big deal, they can hop back in, but not if they get zapped dead All the other chickens in the coop are 9+ weeks up to adult.

When we first set it up, we left the charger off and just observed them. When I saw them going in and out, we abandoned the fencing until they were bigger out of fear that they'd get tangled up. At around 8-9 weeks old they could still squeeze in and out but they got zapped and let out a yelp, and it only took each chicken getting zapped once for them to stay clear of the fence. Now, at 10-11 weeks old, they're too fat to fit, even if they wanted to try

As for hens raising babies, not sure how the electric netting will work with the little ones. Ours were 8-9 weeks old before we turned it on.

We do have a little EE runt in with the group. She's a couple weeks younger, and she's sooooo tiny still. She's the size of a 4 week old, but she's fully feathered. A real odd chick. But she's never once gone through the fence since we turned it on. Either she got zapped, or she's observed the others getting zapped.