fencing

[lorihadams]

Would a 6 or 7 strand electric wire fence work for Nigis? We are getting 4 goats in May and he was reading about the recommended fencing. We have about 1-2 acres to fence right now with another 6 available to us.
Does anyone run just electric for their goats? Ours are dehorned....as will be any future ones. Would woven wire goat fencing be better? We are in Va.

 

[ksalvagno]

A lot of people do use electric fencing. I feel much better having the woven wire 2"x4" holes with wooden posts. Add a line of electric at the bottom and the top if you want electric. So far my Nigi's have not challenged the fence and I haven't had any problems with them damaging the fence.

While the woven wire fence won't keep all animals out, it does seem to keep most out. I also like the fact that my goats can not get out through the fencing.

 

[cmjust0]

Would a 6 or 7 strand electric wire fence work for Nigis? We are getting 4 goats in May and he was reading about the recommended fencing. We have about 1-2 acres to fence right now with another 6 available to us.
Does anyone run just electric for their goats? Ours are dehorned....as will be any future ones. Would woven wire goat fencing be better? We are in Va.

We run 6 strands of hi-tensile electric, and it works great. There are a few sections where I made the mistake of putting up woven wire...they're pushing it down.

I guess I could put up a strand or two of electric along the woven, but it just kinda irks me to think of essentially running two fences where one -- electric only -- would have done just fine.

 

[chels24]

We have 6 strands also and have never had any problems. I would suggest that if they aren't used to electric fencing then you watch them closely the first couple days. Sometimes the fencing is also hard to see, so we tied plastic wal-mart bag pieces to the fence in places.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

What is the spacing on your 6 strand fences?

 

[cmjust0]

We did ours at 9", so it's 4-1/2' at the top. Ours goes:

54" ----------------Hot-------------------
45" ----------------Ground--------------
36" ----------------Ground--------------
27" ----------------Hot-------------------
18" ----------------Ground--------------
9" ----------------Hot-------------------

The grounds are actually grounds, too.. Our ground rods are buried far from the charger with the ground wires hooked to them, and also to the ground lug of the charger. As such, our fence can get you two ways...

If you touch a hot wire only, the charge runs from the charger through the hot wire through you to the earth to the ground rods through the ground wires back to the charger and ZAP...you've completed the circuit.

Or..

If you touch a hot and ground at the same time...you pretty much complete the circuit on the spot. Nice clean little shock that'll give ya.

I did it that way because if the earth gets really dry, sometimes electric fences will lose some of their power.. If the animal decides the fence is weak enough to try going through it...well, the hot/ground connection always works really, really well. Kind of a built-in fail safe.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I am looking into electic netting fencing. I was told that the poultry netting would be good for goats too. I wanted something that would be good for the chickens as well as the goats. They said the fence would have 4000 volts.
Does that sound right to you?
The energizer they recommend has an output of .5 joules. Is that the right amount to restrain goats and chickens?
Another thing is that I might at times want to pasture my goats elsewhere and might have to contend with coyotes and mountain lions.

I have no idea what I am talking about. I have never really dealt with electric fencing before, except to get the city kids to touch the wire in the cow pasture with a long piece of timothy
Well I also helped a neighbor check his fencing in the spring, but he did all the electic stuff, I was clueless about all the nitty gritty details. And his was for cows. And it was a looong time ago

 

[cmjust0]

To have been told that a fence would be ____ volts is, to me, something of a red flag. I dunno who told you that, but there are SO MANY VARIABLES that go into that final output number that it's nigh on impossible to make a statement like that.. That someone did gives me pause.

As for using netting for both, well...sure. After a few good whacks, it's a psychological barrier anyway. If ever you find your electric fence suffering the effects physical pressure (ie., rubbing, pushing, putting heads over/under/through it, etc), there's something bad wrong somewhere. Not even the grass within 3-6" of a decent electric fence should get pressure.

And, hey, if you can crank out a consistent 4,000 volts...that should suffice. Personally I like to see 6,000+ volts, but then again I'm a bit of a sadist when it comes to electric fences. I wanna see a big fat blue spark fly from fence to nose at a 1/4" distance.

In regard to joules...it really depends on how much fence you're running and how clean it is. That is to say that if you expect wet, heavy weeds to interfere, .5j probably isn't enough. My charger is 1.5j and works reasonably well even when I neglect the fence...which is almost always. I know my own habits and general weaknesses of character, so I had no problem shelling out a few dozen more dollars if it would let me go a few extra YEARS between weed-eating and fixing nitpicky short-outs.

I'd advise anyone who doesn't particularly want to make walking their fenceline with pliars and insulators and a weedeater a regular occurance to do buy as much charger as they can afford.

Well, actually...even if you don't mind all that, I'd still recommend buying as much charger as you can afford. You'll never be displeased with too much fence charger, but too little is always a waste of good money.

 

[jlbpooh]

I must have done well on my fence then. I have weeds knee high a foot from the fence. I have woven wire, but put electric about a half as high as my goats are tall on the inside to prevent them from leaning into the woven wire. I have a strand on the outside about 6 inches off the ground to help with predators, and a strand at the top too. Needless to say, my dog HATES the fence because she bumped it a couple of times accidentally. I have a 2 joule charger and it stays pegged at 9500 volts all the time.

 

[FarmerDenise]

Actually they said that the fence needs to be at 4000 volts, that the charger would supply more than that and that is does depend on the type of ground, wet or dry, grass and length of the fence etc.
..This fence would be generally at 4000 volts to stop the goats, chicken and dog.

But your answers are exactly what I am looking for. I dont want to spend minimum bucks right now, and find out I need the bigger stronger more expensive one after all. That would just be wasting my money one the first cheaper one.

My money is tight, but I rather buy what I need than waste my money on something that won't work as well as I need it to.
This fence BTW will be going inside of our property, which is completely fenced in. But I really don't want the goats or chickens getting into the field, where we grow our main crop of vegetables for sale. It is our only source of income these days.!!!

Thanks for the input.
I know SO would rather

see a big fat blue spark fly from fence to nose at a 1/4" distance.

Than find his hard work demolished by two little goats.