Shocking development

[Dailypix]

Here is a picture of my little coop. The sleeping / laying area is about 8 x 10 and the attached run 10 x 12. It is new this year. Since I lost the entire flock last year to a weasel I started from scratch. I have a nest camera and was alarmed to see a family of racoons coming around every night trying the door and climbing onto the roof. There is a beehive up there and we also had problems with bears and our bees so I put in an electric fence charger with wires all around. It took a persistant week of them trying to break in every night but the shocks seemed to work and for the last 10 days or so the racoons seem to have given up.

 

[sourland]

That's a really nice set up.

 

[cmom]

Nice... I have electric wires around my coops and pens. The predators know they are there and don't test them, if they do they don't test them again. Works for me. Good luck...

 

[Rldad1]

How strong is your electric fence? If it took several hits for the Raccoons to get the message, it is too low. Bring up the power so it lights them up and they won't mess with it.

 

[LateBirdFarms]

If you have a bear problem, I'd definitely kick that fence up a notch before they come looking for an easy chicken dinner instead of honey!

 

[Dailypix]

The electric charger just has two settinggs, on and off.

 

[Howard E]

OP, can you share more pics and details about your electric setup? Which fence charger? (and you are correct.....fence chargers only have on and off......to get a brighter light, you use a higher watt light bulb......to get more shock, you use a more powerful fence charger).

Also, can you show how and where you put the hot wires? When animal encounters hot wires, how is animal being grounded?

 

[Dailypix]

Thanks for the replies and questions. To be fair there were at least 4 and probably 5 raccoons in the family. Looking back at the web cam I’d guess they all took a hit over the course of two weeks. They did not come back for a week. Two showed up the other day. One watched while the other touched the wire, got zapped and both left. Last night one showed up, circled the coop, sniffed at the wire and left without getting close enough to receive a shock. It’s a ”30 mile“ fence charger running on a solar battery. (We are well off the grid here) I put live wires about 8” off the ground, around again half way up and again near the roof. It is well grounded. The hardware wire is grounded so if they manage to climb up they will get shocked if they touch the live wire and hardware wire.
i used the system previously for the bees. It deterred the bears who learned to associate the clicking sound the charger makes. I am pretty sure the raccoons are learning the same.

 

[Dailypix]

I tried to attach two short video clips but the site does not accept MP4 video. I am attaching a still shot. The day shot shows the coop. The yellow insulators shows the live wire placement. The ground is the earth and also the hardware run wire is well grounded. I am not too worried about the house part it is very strong. There is a chicken guard door that opens at sunrise to allow the chickens into the run in the morning and closes at night. When I am there I open the run and they have free range all day. They retire on their own in the evening.

 

[Howard E]

Thanks......lots of inexperienced folks hoping to duplicate your success will be trying to study your setup so they can learn from it. The old adage remains true, a picture is worth 1,000 words and video is even more better. Every bit helps!

And your version of these shocking events pretty much mirrors my experience. The come.....they eventually find the wire, get shocked, decide no chicken is worth that and move on. And some smart animals are able to associate the click, click, click of the fencer and know when it's on and when it's not. And some fence chargers are louder than others. One of my fencers (the Parmak) can be heard across the yard. The Gallagher can barely be heard standing next to it.