goat fence issue: goats on the loose

blueberrygirl

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We have about an acre enclosed with solar electric fencing. We researched & did everything "right" according to several extension publications. We have steel t posts every 20 feet, 8 wires (bottom 3 are 6" apart & electrified, wires get increasingly far apart & every other is ground), & have a 30 mile solar energizer. This worked just fine with a smaller energizer for our first 4 goats that were about 6 months old when we got them. Their kids, however, & 5 new goats (3 months old when we got them) aren't even phased by this fence. We touched their noses to it many times. They just slip between the wires & get them all stretched out. We've had to tighten & tighten & some have been broken & spliced because of it. So we upped the energizer to the 30 mile. They still constantly get out. They are nearly a year old now & all have kids on the way. I know we are in for chaos. We also got a second warning from animal control because there's one that likes to eat the neighbor's trees & garden. We don't know what else to do since there's no way we can afford to put up goat panels. Oh & we did try adding orange snow fence but they just busted through that as well. HELP please! !!!
 

norseofcourse

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Once they are in the habit of getting through that fence, there's not much you can do besides put up fence they can't get through. Electric fence is a mental barrier - if that doesn't keep them in, you need a physical barrier, like woven wire.

Four goats in one acre was probably fine at first - but now it sounds like you have at least 10 or so goats in the same area? In general, the more animals in a pasture, and the smaller the pasture, the better the fence needs to be. How much grazing is there in your pasture? If there isn't much, even if you're feeding plenty of hay, they'll have a huge incentive to get out and eat what they can find.

If you truly can't afford to put woven wire fence up, you still have a couple options:

Fence in a small area inside your pasture, and keep the goats that escape there. Then as you can, fence in larger areas for them and eventually the whole pasture.

Sell a few goats for fence money.

I understand it's not easy, but it's better than animal control fining you, or telling you to get rid of the goats, or a neighbor poisoning or shooting one....

Good luck.
 

blueberrygirl

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Have you ever heard of training them by putting peanut butter on the wire? They lick it & get an extra big shock.... sounds mean but like you said better than the alternative. How about adding more posts so they can't squeeze through as easily? I thought once they bigger they'd have a tough time & would stop. No theres nothing to graze right now but they do have plenty of hay.
 

Sweetened

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Our goats thrashed our electric. The first time it was up one got tangled in the wire, being electrocuted the entire time. She ended up on the OTHER side and taught everyone if you just lose a few brain cells and deal with the pain you can do whatever you want. Good luck with this, i hope you figure something out.
 

norseofcourse

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Have you ever heard of training them by putting peanut butter on the wire? They lick it & get an extra big shock.... sounds mean but like you said better than the alternative. How about adding more posts so they can't squeeze through as easily? I thought once they bigger they'd have a tough time & would stop. No theres nothing to graze right now but they do have plenty of hay.

I've heard of the 'peanut butter on the wire' for deer. The problem with that and things like extra wires and posts, is your goats are already in the habit of going through the fence. When my lambs started escaping, I thought the same thing - when they were bigger, they'd stop. They didn't. I added extra wires, spaced closer together - they still got out. I finally confined them to just their pasture, and put silt fence all around it - more of a visual barrier than a physical one, but it worked - and was only intended to be temporary, since most of the ones escaping were scheduled to be processed. I am hoping the silt fence has also 'broken the habit' for the one or two I'm keeping that were also getting out. If not, I'll be right back where you are, needing a physical barrier.

We have about an acre enclosed with solar electric fencing. We researched & did everything "right" according to several extension publications.

One of the first lessons when keeping livestock - none of our animals have ever read any of that stuff :)
 

blueberrygirl

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First thing I'm gonna do tomorrow is go out & teach those gals to read!

And what is a silt fence?
 

Southern by choice

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Having the t-post 20ft apart can also be part of the problem because the longer the stretch between posts the easier it is to go through as there is more leeway in the wires. At that distance you can only get it so tight.Try putting t-post at every 8-10 ft with tight wire or even alternate with the tape style.
We do ours pretty close together at the bottom and increase going up but our wire is still only 8 inches at the widest gap toward the top.

Have you checked the fence with a fence tester?
 

babsbag

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Have you checked the fence with a fence tester?

My thought exactly.

I have woven wire with a hot wire at goat knee height and they get no where near that fence. I can now run one hot wire across a pasture and the goats stay away. Not all chargers are created equal or made for the same animal. I have a 1 joule charger, I believe that it is the lowest one rated for use with goats.

You need to find out how many "ouchs" that fence is putting out.
 

secuono

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8 wires (bottom 3 are 6" apart & electrified, wires get increasingly far apart & every other is ground),

So it's air grounded and not actually grounded to the soil? If so, you can touch that 'hot' wire and it will do nothing. With the way you have it set up, you have to touch BOTH the hot and ground wires to get the shock. And that's too little too late for goats.

Ground should go into the soil by several 4-8ft long grounding rods. Maybe you meant to say cold wires?

When I had goats, they would walk through hot wire in the pouring rain, ground soaked, goats soaked to the bone, 8 strands, all hot, all 4in apart. Goats don't care, full 9k volts and it meant nothing to them. They were a massive pain so I rehomed them asap.

I use woven fence for perimeter fencing and most people say for any animal, you need a real, solid fence for the perimeter and you can mess with other fencing types for the internal fencing. Why? Because you need to keep your animals on your land and hot wire just loves to fail. You end up with all of them outside in the street or neighbors yard.

"Miles" means nothing, you need to know the volts or joules it puts out. You can extend the strength of any small mile energizer by adding connected grounds along the fence.
 

babsbag

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@secuono WOW. that is certainly not the experience I have with my goats. Granted, we have a woven wire fence too, but like I said, they know what the wire is and the don't touch that fence. Even my 300lb Boer buck stays in his field "in rut" and doesn't challenge the fence. When we need to work in the field without being bothered by the goats we just put up one strand, we don't even energize it, and the the goats stay away.

Thank goodness mine are not as strong willed as yours were.
 
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