Electric top wire only on perimeter fence?

[Cindy in SD]

We have 12.5 acres already fenced all round with barbed wire... some 3 strand, and mostly 4 strand. I would like to use electric fencing to create and modify temporary paddocks for management-intensive grazing (ie: moving my three heifers daily. I realize this is a ridiculously small “mob,” but it’s what I have. ) I plan to follow them 3-4 days behind with my poultry in e-netting, with portable coops/tractors for summer shelter. I could either attach the netting to the cattle’s paddock wires/perimeter fence, or set it up separately with another energizer if it drains too much spark.

I’m currently using a small (0.16 joule) solar charger to keep the cattle on the east side of the property for the winter. It works... not a big spark, but they very much dislike it. I’m only using a short temporary ground rod and the ground is frozen. I’m lucky it’s working at all. I want to give the charger a permanent home along an area of fence where it’s almost always moist but not so moist as to be under water. That way I could set it up with the multiple permanent ground rods I’ll undoubtedly need in drier years.

My question is about the existing fence. I’m too old to take down all that barbed wire, or otherwise I’d replace it with all electric. Would it be safe/kosher to affix a single strand of energized fence wire above the top strand, well-separated from the barbed wire? Our land is surrounded by USFS land (public land) which is subsidy grazed in summer by a herd of Black Angus. While I don’t much like the situation, I don’t want to hurt the BA, nor the local wildlife (possibly excepting coyotes), nor certainly my own animals. The fence is sound. I mainly want the access to power.

Thanks for any wisdom any of you can offer!

 

[secuono]

Are you saying you want one line of hot so that you can tap into it as you move fencing?
If so, you can buy insulated hotwire and cut off the coating in spots you'll use for future tapping into. That way, it is safe for the animals with the mixed wires.
Barb and hot openly mixed is a big no-no. If the animal gets stuck and repeatedly shocked, that will make it panic, hurting itself worse on the barb wire.
Though, I've used offset hotwire on the opposite side of the barb wire to keep predators out. Still not safe, but it was that or loose critters. Plus, the fence was 6 strands of barb, pretty impossible for my sheep to get stuck in to begin with.

 

[greybeard]

Kinda hard to visualize what you want to do.
You could draw it out and post it for easier understanding.
What's critical to know, is the total length of the hot wire both as it is and as you envision it when the completion but to answer your question about the top wire, there's nothing wrong with it in reality.
There's undoubtedly several hundred thousand miles of barbed wire fences in my state with a hot wire at the top..I ran unbarbed hot wire on top of 5 strand barbed wire and another strand of hot wire on standoffs about cow eye level. This was mostly to contain bulls.

Frozen ground (the moisture in the ground is basically ice crystals does not conduct current as well as wet ground because the ice contains air bubbles which tend to both insulate plus disturb the straight even flow of electrons.
One solution, is to run a hot wire atop your 3-4 strand existing fence, and a ground wire about eye level to you cattle. This way, you aren't relying solely on ground rods.

Rule of thumb for cattle and electric fence..
1 joule per 5 miles of fence.

 

[Cindy in SD]

Thanks, Secuono and Greybeard.

That’s just what I wanted to know! Great info—I really appreciate your help.