Electronet for turkeys?

[moenmitz]

My 5 rambunctious 3.5 mo Standard Bronze, White Midget & Black Spanish turkeys are getting TOO adventuresome. Despite clipping their wings, they think nothing of roosting on, and subsequently hopping over, a 5 foot fence. Yesterday I saw them at the very edge of our 12 acres, which is heavily wooded and coyote country, not to mention, just one more fence away from a housing development full of million dollar houses who I think would not care for turkey poop on their porch! I can't afford to build large, covered pens-not of the size I would be happy with to give them adequate roaming room anyway. I thought about electronet, but I saw there was a big disclaimer on the ad that said "Do not use to fence turkeys" Anybody know WHY? Does it hurt them? Not work well? Any other suggestions? Can the electronet hurt the chickens, or my cats? I am not worried about keeping predators out, the cats and dog do that, but I want to keep all of the birds on MY land...and if it works well enough, keeping them off MY porch wouldn't be so bad either!

 

[blue90292]

from my understanding and some reading, turkeys need to be started early learning about the fence or else they just try and run through it. when started young, they will learn about the fence and will learn to respect the fence as a barrier.

 

[monarc23]

my mom sells netting like this...people buy it for thier chickens then call back crying because they escaped the netting, or were shocked to death when they got tangled up in it.


My mom uses large sized electric netting (not sure if its the same exact kind you are talking about buti know it comes in different sizes of spacing...anywho..her and I double wrapped it up and down theinside of a "goat fence" enclosure to make a chicken part in the fence...it's not electrified, and they can and have escaped through it, however they just end up in the goat fence (which has no goats in it now lol).

As for clipping their wings are ya sure you clipped them right? I know turkeys can jump pretty high but 5 foot for a heavy turkey with no flapping power sounds a lil odd. Least to me it does. Sounds like they may need more flight feathers clipped???

That netting does just what netting does...captures things...and if it's electrified think about how traumatizing that'd be..we had a goat that got tangled up in the same netting...eletrified...when we found her..she was over heated and was so traumatized she couldnt even cry anymore she'd just open her mouth and hang out her tounge showing you she WAS screaming but couldnt scream it was horrible...she loked like someone hog tied her to the fence...nope she did it herself...i dont ilke the fencing....

it's meant to keep rabbits out of gardens....at one fencing show when i was younger my mom asked me to bring two of my rabbits to the fence show and she promised me the fence wouldnt be electrified...they put my RABBITS IN the netting fence, to show that the rabbits couldnt get out...well for 1...the doe did get out..but not before being shocked so bad she died the next day.

here is the netting for our chickens:

my mom did sucessfully use this netting however, to keep dogs in in a temp play area before a real fence was put up, one shock to the nose and they stayed away...

 

[walkswithdog]

Hmm. That's not Premier netting, not sure I'd use any with spacing like that except for horses.

I've been helping a friend move his nets and use them. He got the smallest spacing he could find for chickens and goats. He hasn't had any tangles or escapes. It was his net that sold me on getting some. And he's had even better luck keeping out small varmints over all. We have weasels and they aren't fond of tiny electric spaces evidently.

I'll be using it for turkeys but plan on starting small poults getting used to it early.

Most of my trouble is wandering dogs and the rare coyote.

 

[moenmitz]

Oh YIKES, that is a scary story! I am just at a loss as to what to do then. They are only 3.5 months, so they aren't all that heavy yet, and they have pretty good flying capabilities when they want to, for short distances of course-they roost on top of my husbands pickup at night-the cap on the back end is 6' 4" and they have no trouble getting up there at all. He is very annoyed with having to hose off the poop piles every morning! The feathers are clipped very short, though I did only one side as I had read that was the way to go, to throw them off balance. Apparently there is differring opinions on this though, so maybe I will have to try to clipping both sides. They have such a blast patrolling the place, and MOST of the time are very close to the house, I hate to put them in a small covered pen. But if I cant find a way to keep them from roaming too far, might have to I guess. Any ideas from ANYONE would be appreciated.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
yeah there deffinatly are differeing oppinons on the cliping...i tried with my pigeons (wheni had pigeons) clipping only one wing, because i read that's all that was really necc. well.....

that same one wing clipped pigeon flew over a football field length to my neighbors house and got right up on its' 2 story roof fine....then it flew right back to our house and landed on the roof where i was then able to catch it witha net and clipped its other wing..prob solved lol!!! we even clip our chickens wings (both sides) because even though chickens are for the most part too heavy to fly far, they can get "air" pretty well and get out of fences easily so we keep em clipped just to avoid any problems.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
i personally will never use wire netting of any kind for any animals, esp horses.

good luck wiht you guys with it though...i just dont trust any of it one bit.

 

[walkswithdog]

In the end I want a full HT fence with smooth and woven but given the state of our acreage, we first have to clear with goats. So we are going to have them clear inside the easily set nets until we can get the HT up.

One section at a time we hope to reclaim the valley from the kudzu, primrose (nassy multifora) and 20 ft high blackberries from 20+ years of neglect.

Electric net offers the benefit of going where ever I want it.

But I know some people would prefer not to.

Having worked animal control long enough... bad stories exist about animals hanging up on almost any kind of fence you can name. Animals will get into trouble, general rule of thumb. No matter where you put them. No matter how careful you are. Spit happens.

Everyone has to do what's right for them.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
yep whatever works for your situation!

However, I know all too well about any type of fence causing problems for animals...my mom works at a fence selling company...they are emailed pictures, and owners call to explain the fence they *had* that *killed* their horse etc. I've heard em all. Another reason i stay away from netting/barbedwire, and some other type of fencing my mom knows the name of that horses are able to bend and get stuck in.

I dont have any horses now when we did we just had them in 2 strands of wire, one hot one not...worked well and was great for moving them around from one plot of land to another.

Thier paddock was enclosed cattle fencing, worked well except before we put a hot strand of wire up on it they would put all thier weight into it to eat grass on the other side...a hot wire strand ended that though lol.

Then we just had our minis in goat fencing, works really well is theres vertually no way they can stick a hoof through it (unless it's kicked/broken). Had a goat billy get his horn stuck in it once though..he got out and pretty much distroyed the fencein that area lol.