Your experience - how effective is electric netting for free ranging during the day?

[JackE]

Electric netting is very effective at keeping chickens in. Make sure you get poultry netting, as the netting is close enough to keep them from getting through. Recommend 4 feet tall. It does not keep out predators such as coyotes, foxes, hawks, and owls out.

It does keep out foxes. They were the primary reason I bought the fence. They won't come closer than 20' to it. They have had a taste of it, and didn't like it. My fence has been keeping them out for 4yrs.

 

[JackE]

I don't use the electricity. Just the netting keeps them corralled. One new girl flew over the 4 foot fence, but now that all are settled in, they don't fly over.

An uncharged fence will be useless, if you have any serious ground predators around. You might as well keep the chickens in a chicken wire fence.

 

[AuroraJules]

I have found the electric fencing to work very well. Can't completely avoid hawks, and the rooster isn't enough, but I do make sure the chicks are quite large before letting them free range, which takes care of the smaller hawks. We may lose 3 hens a year, which we can live with.

 

[perryspatti]

We do grow our own food. Almost every speck we put in our bodies. Would never use round up or anything like it

 

[faunadocpam]

I'm a veterinarian and I also have concerns with Round Up... which is the reason we put plastic under the fence. It keeps weeds from shorting out the fence and has been great for us, but then our fence is in a semi-permanent location.

 

[Helg]

I'm very aware of round up ready poisoned foodstuffs. That's what the labeling controversy is all about. Unfortunately it takes a real effort to eat safely in this country now. Most of the politicians are in Monsantos pocket. The FDA and EPA no longer protect the consumer. The laws are I enacted to protect the corporations. I seek out Organics at every level of the food chain. More expensive but I consider it good life insurance for my family and planet.

 

[centrarchid]

Stop fretting of over the pesticides. Use a mower to cut grass very short where fencing is located. One of the key advantages for the netting is that is can be moved. My roughly 1 acre paddock requires about 30 minutes per week of weed management to keep fence hot.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

I've been using 400' of Premier 1 PermaNet for 3 years, move it regularly and it has held up to a lot of abuse.

I've heard you can spray Apple Cider Vinegar in place of Round Up. I don't bother we just mow very close to the ground where we place the fencing. We move the fencing enough that it's not really that big a thing.

I initially bought a solar powered charger but we went through a period of drought here and with 48" PermaNet, the charge was very slight once everything was toast, meaning grass and ground. I recommend the Kobe charger, it is wide impedence and will really work a treat on anything. We actually had to water our fence line to keep a charge going with the solar low impedence charger. Wide impedence maintains a consistent charge from beginning to end of fence, will handle dry conditions and a weed load on the fence pretty well. Low impedence charge will weaken over the span of fence, so you want to really pay close attention to what the charger can handle lengthwise.

I would recommend if you are going to go solar, invest in as much strength as you can. Premier 1 has comparison charts to help you decide what you need under your conditions.

We have packs of coyotes and fox around here. Pretty much every evening for the first 2.5 years we had chickens, the coyotes came screaming into our yard to see if they could score a chicken dinner. They still come through periodically but we haven't lost any birds, even when using the low impedence charger. I don't know why they don't jump the fence here but I've never had that problem.

We had some trouble with hawks until we added ducks -- we have one black duck (crows are natural predators of hawks) and I guess that, plus, a new gigantic Buff Sussex rooster has been enough to solve that problem. He's been on the job for a year and not one loss during that time. We didn't have a loss before, but we did have a Buff hen torn up protecting chicks. She saved the chicks but was in pretty bad shape herself. Happily she recovered.

Edited to add, we did lose a couple roosters during the Buff attack, who obviously died trying to protect the flock. I had forgotten about that, but then, I wasn't the one who found them. My kids reminded me about the poor guys.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’ve tried vinegar in other areas for weed and grass control, such as my gravel driveway. It did not work. If you read up on it you need industrial strength vinegar, not what you buy in the grocery store. Even then it needs to go on weeds when they are pretty young. It only kills the parts above ground. For some weeds that will help but grass and some weeds will come right back from the roots. Think how much volume of vinegar you would need for even limited help.

I’ve had my electric netting for about 3-1/2 years. Before I got it I lost a couple of chickens to foxes over a three year period but my problem was people dropping dogs off in the country for the good life. I lost multiple chickens a few times before I got the netting. Since I got the netting the only loss I’ve had was to an owl when I was late locking them up at night as I was out to watch a play. All ground-based predators have been stopped.

Coyotes, dogs, and other things can jump over the netting, but they generally don’t. What normally happens is that the predator checks out the barrier first, usually with its nose. Once it gets bit it leaves the area, never thinking to jump over. Just the netting in place without a charge will be a deterrent to these but new predators are moving in all the time. You need to keep it charged.

Snow is a problem with the netting. A wet snow will ground it out, rendering it useless. It’s still a deterrent to those that have been shocked but new predators are a risk.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

I’ve tried vinegar in other areas for weed and grass control, such as my gravel driveway. It did not work. If you read up on it you need industrial strength vinegar, not what you buy in the grocery store. Even then it needs to go on weeds when they are pretty young. It only kills the parts above ground. For some weeds that will help but grass and some weeds will come right back from the roots. Think how much volume of vinegar you would need for even limited help.

Snow is a problem with the netting. A wet snow will ground it out, rendering it useless. It’s still a deterrent to those that have been shocked but new predators are a risk.

We've had so little snow this past winter, forgot all about it.