Electric poultry netting question

[dreamofwinter]

I think you're right. We'll work on that over the next week or so- it's super easy to adjust the electric fence to fill the rest of that gap, once we get that spot insulated.
By pipe insulation do you mean the pool-noodle looking foam pieces that go over pipes? I know we've got some of that lying around (the previous owners of the house left us all sorts of useful random stuff as well as 8+ cords of seasoned wood! I give thanks daily)

 

[3KillerBs]

I think you're right. We'll work on that over the next week or so- it's super easy to adjust the electric fence to fill the rest of that gap, once we get that spot insulated.
By pipe insulation do you mean the pool-noodle looking foam pieces that go over pipes? I know we've got some of that lying around (the previous owners of the house left us all sorts of useful random stuff as well as 8+ cords of seasoned wood! I give thanks daily)

Yes, that's exactly what I used.

You can see it in this photo:

 

[dreamofwinter]

Yes, that's exactly what I used.

You can see it in this photo:
View attachment 2853461

Awesome, thank you for the tip! I love your coop, by the way - we're planning on building a secondary coop next spring because chicken math, and this one's on my shortlist.

 

[3KillerBs]

Awesome, thank you for the tip! I love your coop, by the way - we're planning on building a secondary coop next spring because chicken math, and this one's on my shortlist.

Thank you. I got so much good advice here when we first built it that it has definitely stood the test of time.

We've built a much larger coop (for 20 chickens), but will be remodeling this as a broody hut or breeding coop -- it needs a new roof and I'll probably take the divider out of the nest.

I'm sure that it could easily be expanded to a 4x6 or a 4x8 if the access door were moved to the side wall opposite the nests.

 

[Momo7]

Thanks for posting back - this will help me if I decide to go that route.

 

[Tankueray]

I thought I ought to report back and show how it all worked out.
Here's the energizer, plugged in inside the garage. I may eventually get a battery for it, but this works great for now (and bonus, no extra cash out the door)
View attachment 2853435
The garage wall conveniently had a hole in it, lined with PVC, left over from the propane or kerosene heater that's no longer used. Both the hot and ground wires fit through just fine. So nice to not have to deal with a partially open window all winter!
View attachment 2853436
Outside, we found an old ground rod that used to be connected to the telephone box. The telephone service to the garage is long gone (this was once a business office, 30-40 years ago) so no problem to remove the phone wires and repurpose it.
View attachment 2853437
We ran the hot lead wire out inside an old garden hose, mainly for protection as we are not ready to deal with burying it. The wire then goes up the wooden post to a cutoff switch. The other side of the cutoff is attached to the wire and alligator clip that came with the fence. We left about 18" of the old plastic poultry fence in order to form a gate and a buffer between the electric fence and the very metal-covered hoop run.
View attachment 2853438
A wide view of the whole setup - coop (hidden behind run), run (tarped against rain and snow), and grassy pasture area.
View attachment 2853439
Bonus shot of a very happy flock after two solid weeks on lockdown in the run.
View attachment 2853440

Man, that garage was just waiting for you to notice it already had everything you needed! If you add a battery, you'll have to charge it somehow, the fence energizers don't usually have a charge function built in. So either a car battery trickle charger at night, or a solar panel and separate charge controller (otherwise the solar panel doesn't know when to stop, batteries do not tolerate that at all.)

And a warning about the hose...I did the same thing with my hot wire and noticed a few days ago that it had burned through the hose and was arcing to the fence. I patched it with some ToughStuff tape, but I guess it's time to pay up for the proper shielded wire. I forgot I had the same thing happen once with one of my laser cutters, there's so much voltage going through that wire that it'll find something metal outside it and eventually poke its way out to touch it (even 8 inches away in the case of my laser). 70,000 volts arcing to the metal body was not something I ever want to see again, thankfully it was extremely well grounded and I was standing on a rubber mat, because I was touching the frame the whole time while looking for the sound.

And also, I used pipe wrap to insulate my watering station pipe this winter, the ducks and chickens thought it was tasty (wrap it in duct tape if they can get to it.)

 

[dreamofwinter]

Oh, good call on the pipe wrap! I got through last winter using a heated duck waterer and some of those black rubber bowls, but I dream of a more automated water system at least for summer.

The "hot" wire leading out to the fence is actually insulated wire meant for burying directly underground. I should have clarified that. We've moved the entire coop/run setup since originally doing this, and the fence gate is much closer to the garage. This may be the summer we bury it all, but on the other hand, the convenience of being able to move the fence gate around (and the hot wire and its post with it) is pretty awesome.

 

[Chris Power]

Do you think there is anything that needs to be improved on electric net poultry? I am a sales rep at a company that manufactures electric chicken netting and I want to hear more from the end users and interact with them to improve our products.

Most of the time, we just make products according to our customers' requirements. Our customers come from large trading companies, who sell the products we produced on Amazon, Ebay or their online shop. They request for the size and we make it. So we lack a lot of feedback from end users, and we'd love to hear some different voices here, and we can make some attempts for that. Thank you all!

 

[3KillerBs]

Do you think there is anything that needs to be improved on electric net poultry? I am a sales rep at a company that manufactures electric chicken netting and I want to hear more from the end users and interact with them to improve our products.

Most of the time, we just make products according to our customers' requirements. Our customers come from large trading companies, who sell the products we produced on Amazon, Ebay or their online shop. They request for the size and we make it. So we lack a lot of feedback from end users, and we'd love to hear some different voices here, and we can make some attempts for that. Thank you all!

The only thing I'm not happy about with my Premier 1 netting is that even the lowest meshes aren't chick-tight.

I mainly wean off heat at 4-5 weeks and they can slip through the mesh easily up to 8-12 weeks depending on the breed.

 

[Tankueray]

Do you think there is anything that needs to be improved on electric net poultry? I am a sales rep at a company that manufactures electric chicken netting and I want to hear more from the end users and interact with them to improve our products.

Most of the time, we just make products according to our customers' requirements. Our customers come from large trading companies, who sell the products we produced on Amazon, Ebay or their online shop. They request for the size and we make it. So we lack a lot of feedback from end users, and we'd love to hear some different voices here, and we can make some attempts for that. Thank you all!

Personally, I would like to see more options in a Pos/Neg fence and with driveable posts. In areas of the US where it is arid or in drought, the Pos/Neg is the only thing that works, but when I just bought some recently, all I could find was step in spikes. I had to order drivable posts separately because the ground is simply too hard to use the step in posts. Currently Premier1 is the only company that offers that combination, but only at 42" tall and max of 100' (and they're out of stock). I ended up ordering it from Kencove in the 48"x165' (120cm x 50m?)(which is the size I wanted) but it had the double spike posts, so I had to make a separate order for those from P1. I considered a Chinese manufactured fence, but I could not find any that were Pos/Neg.

If there were a bag/roll to store it in, I would buy that too.