Electric fence opinions

[Sahraschweiss]

Soon after I got chickens, bears began to visit. They did fair amount of damage and drove up my stress level until my county fish and game supervisor had a nice long productive visit with me and suggested hot wire.

The most important tip he gave me was baiting the hot wire to force the bears to "engage" the charged wire. The idea is to entice the predator to notice, by smell, the bait, and then to investigate it. That entails smelling or licking it with a wet body part and getting a painful shock. That completes the "engagement" and the predator flees never to return.

Merely erecting hot wire does not provide engagement. Even worse, installing hot wire as a free standing barrier is useless. Most effective is installing the wire against a solid barrier such as the building or a solid fence that must be climbed to breach, as opposed to jumping through the gaps of the wire. To picture what I'm trying to say, think of a five strand barb wire fence and how relatively easy it is to roll your body through the gaps.

I've watched bears approach my hot wire surrounding my gardens and chicken run, engage the peanut butter dabbed on the hot wire, get a nasty shock, and turn tail and run off like their tail was on fire. Actually, it was their nose or tongue that was burning.

Once I had a bobcat that wasn't interested in peanut butter, and I rigged a mackerel "burrito" with chicken wire and wired it to the hot wire, making it part of the circuit. The bobcat encountered the electrified fish and never returned.

How many joules is your setup?

 

[azygous]

0.15j and 10,000v

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

I have my hot wires set up and working now. I went with a GALLAGHER S16 CHARGER which is working very well so far. I used three wires around a small run area mainly to keep stray dogs away. The wires are spaced 6 inches off the ground, 12 inches off the ground and 24 inches off the ground. I haven't seen anything get zapped, other than the chickens learning not to stick their heads through the fence, but we had three stray dogs sniffing around on a couple of occasions just prior to installing the hot wires. We have not seen these dogs since ... maybe they got zapped maybe not, donno.

So far I'm really liking this charger and the way I wired it.

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[cmom]

On the subject of fence chargers, I think I want a solar charger with an external battery. I am not familiar with any of them and all the numbers make my head swim.

Question is, do I need one with an external batt. or will one with an internal batt. do the job and last a good long time. I don't want a wimpy one nor do I need something that will make a grizzly bear speak in tongues after being zapped.

I have a small area to protect and my biggest problem will be during the daytime from stray dogs. The hens will be in a sturdy coop at night.

Any recommendations and/or links would be helpful.

If you have a bear issue I would recommend an AC charger. Maybe solar or a DC charger will work but most of my research has indicated that a quite powerful charger is needed to ward off a bear. I have not had any issues with bears but have had most every other predators. Once they come in contact with my electric wires, once is enough. I think the adult predators teach their young that a bird is not worth getting zapped for. I learned from my cameras that even though my fence charger was showing voltage, I had a short in my wires so part was not hot and a fox was prowling around and I saw it touching the wires and nothing happened so I went out and checked the power at the end of the wires and sure enough my meter showed no power. Luckily there was no intrusion. I found the short and fixed it and then I was back in business. Now I don't rely on the meter on the fence charger any more. It's only telling me what it is putting out. Now every evening when I collect the eggs, I test the wires with a meter at the end of the wires and if it shows power then I know I have power around all of the coops and pens. A bear has thick fur and hides. Some people bait their wires to get the bears to touch the hot wires with their more sensitive parts such as their nose, lips and tongue.

 

[cmom]

I have my hot wires set up and working now. I went with a GALLAGHER S16 CHARGER which is working very well so far. I used three wires around a small run area mainly to keep stray dogs away. The wires are spaced 6 inches off the ground, 12 inches off the ground and 24 inches off the ground. I haven't seen anything get zapped, other than the chickens learning not to stick their heads through the fence, but we had three stray dogs sniffing around on a couple of occasions just prior to installing the hot wires. We have not seen these dogs since ... maybe they got zapped maybe not, donno.

So far I'm really liking this charger and the way I wired it.

​

That charger will probably keep most predators away but not a bear unless it touched the wires with it's nose, lips or tongue. It's only rated at 7000 volts.

 

[cmom]

This is an AC charger but they also make a solar and DC charger.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

That charger will probably keep most predators away but not a bear unless it touched the wires with it's nose, lips or tongue. It's only rated at 7000 volts.

We have no bears down here that I know of .... meanest thing around here are wild hogs.

Stray dogs during the daytime are my main concern ... I'm just right down the road from you in Texas.

 

[McChooky]

Guy across the street put a guardian dog in a fenced lot with his flock of about 30 chickens 3 mo.ago but most of them flew out or got out the bottom of his fence. Now he has less than 10 . If you have a lot of predators and live in a rural area you probably need an electric fence to stop predators . I'm putting 4 strands on the "day" run I'm making.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Guy across the street put a guardian dog in a fenced lot with his flock of about 30 chickens 3 mo.ago but most of them flew out or got out the bottom of his fence. Now he has less than 10 . If you have a lot of predators and live in a rural area you probably need an electric fence to stop predators . I'm putting 4 strands on the "day" run I'm making.

The hot wire does work ......

 

[ladyhand]

As I’m finishing up my coop, I’m thinking more and more about the run. I’ve read on a slope it’s better not to dig because it can hurt erosion problems even more and using an apron may be more effective. If using an apron, would you still put the wire 6 inches up? I’m not worried about predators at night, I feel fairly comfortable with the security they have at night, it’s foxes during the day I’m most concerned with. Does running the wire along their run not hurt the chickens?