Electric fence?

[Whitehouse Quail]

Hello, if I were to set up an electric fence with a energizer made specially for chickens, would I be able to get by with making it a single row stacked, with about a foot imbetween, except at the ground? Thanks for any help. http://whiteconfections.webs.com/Fence.png is an example

 

[canada-goose]

Um, I don't know. The electric fence we use is from Premier Fencing Supply but yours looks a little like horse style fencing. I'd use something a little more secure, personally.

 

[patandchickens]

I'm not certain what you have in mind by "an energizer made specially for chickens"... there really isn't any such thing. Your choices for energizer type are basically either: constant-current (i.e. not pulsed -- this is unnecessarily dangerous to people and animals and I don't recommend it), weedburner type pulsed-current units, and modern 'normal' low-impedence units. (YOu can argue about details, as far as wehther there are some things ont he market that don't quite fit the latter category exactly, but for our purposes here the difference doesn't matter)

I would strongly recommend a normal low-impedence pulsed unit, which is most of what's on the market anyhow. (Weed-burner sounds nice in theory but in many climates is a significant fire risk for part of the year.) Can be plug-in or battery operated, whichever you prefer.

A foot between wires is kind of iffy IMO -- chickens will for sure pop through it sometimes, and some predators may too. (Remember that electric fencing for chickens is much more to keep predators OUT than to keep chickens, who can fly over the fence anytime they choose unless they are CornishX broilers, in). Also, unless you have very stoutly set corner posts and fairly closely spaced line posts, you may have trouble keeping the wires that exactly straight. Putting a spring or other tensioning device in line with each of the wires will help, but only if your corner posts are good, which in most soils will mean well-set wood rather than t-posts.

Honestly, there are probably better ways of accomplishing the same thing (like woven wire fencing with a couple lines of electric offset on the outside to discourage predators). If the area is too large to be able to afford that much woven wire fencing, it is probably also too large to be able to maintain your many-parallel-close-spaced-wires fence with adequate tension and precision to keep things from popping through it and eating the chickens.

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Whitehouse Quail]

'made specially for chickens' is a FlockShock. I meant that the voltage was right. Thanks for your help, though. I'm thinking six inches, with a high enough fence that makes it hard to fly over, but not impossible. (Hopefully they are happy enough with me that they won't fly the coop!)

 

[TexasVet]

I have a Flock Shock fence charger. I ran one wire about 6 inches off the ground, then a second wire along the top.

Although it's supposed to be safe for chickens, that doesn't mean the little ones. I've lost several chicks that were big enough to squeeze through the chain link fence and get to the wire. Big chickens will squawk and run, but the little ones freeze and are electrocuted.

To cut down on chick and Me zaps, I plugged the charger into a photoelectric cell. Now it turns on at dusk and off at dawn.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com

PS: Keep a fence tester out near your coop so you can check the fence every night. All it takes is small branch touching the wire to ground it out.

 

[patandchickens]

There's nothing at all special about the "FlockShock" charger, it's just a marketing angle. What voltage you get out of it, or out of any other charger, depends WILDLY on what length of fence and what fence material you're running (also on your soil conditions).

So really you can buy ANY normal charger and get results just as good. And conversely you can get bad results from a FlockShock just as easily as from anything else, if your fence is sized wrong for the charger or your ground is real dry.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[They Call Me Pete]

I installed one on the outside of my fence for the predators. I was cleaned out (15) in one night. I have a solar powered unit with first wire 6" off ground then other 6" from that. The final wire is at the top of fence (4 ft) just in case the coons get past the other two. Nice little low impedance unit. Will do up to 3 miles and is putting out around 4k volts right now.

 

[briznian]

Here is an idea about fencing heights.