Electric fence help

H

helly86

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 April 2009
Messages
225
Visit site
I need to electrify a maximum of 80m of fencing. I have a car battery with life still left in it and fencing. I know I need an energiser and a battery charger but what else do i need? I've never needed to electrify a fence before as my horse is scared stiff of white tape wafting in the breeze but his new field mate...

Any help appreciated (particularly if your suggestions are cheap)!!!!

Thanks
Helly
 
Ideally you should have a slow release battery / leisure battery as these have a trickle feed of constant electric - unlike a car battery which is designed to give a quick full burst of power i.e all you need to start your car but once it's running re-charges the battery - so you'll find that your car battery may only last a few days , but it may be enough to put the field mate off the fence . Also don't forget that electricity works on circuits so make sure that you either make your fencing into one continuous loop i.e ring fence the whole area with one top strand that loops back to its self using a gate hook to link it together , or if you just need to do one stretch of fencing say between two points then put your tape along the top holes of the fence and then drop it down and run it back along a lower height and join it together so that it makes a loop top and bottom , oh and of course you'll need some plastic fence posts , i tend to use wood stakes with a screw in insulator , at each end to take up a bit of strain and give the fence some good support. Sorry if i'm rambling a bit...
 
thanks, i'm all sorted with how to do the fencing it's just what equipment i need to make it fry the sod that i need a hand with???
 
Where abouts are you? Having just sold my horse (sadly giving up for good) I'm in the process of writing a list of all the stuff I have to get rid of, amongst which is electric fence energiser (powered by normal Duracell type batteries), posts etc. I'm in wiltshire
 
Don't forget too that you need to have no branches, brambles, dock leaves, long grass etc etc touching the tape or it will earth out at that point. Also, depending on your horse/pony's height, you need to adjust the tape height. A determined shetland can limbo under a too-high tape and an athletic horse can pop over a shetland height tape.
 
If you are only going to energise a short length of tape using a 12volt battery, an ideal fencer would be a Wolseley Mosquito, these come on their own stake,are easy to install and all you will need is some suitable insulators and posts. Nb to the poster who said you need to close the loop because electricity makes a circuit, it is not actually neccessary. It is quite ok to just run a single strip. The current goes from the tape,through Neddy and through the soil back to your earth stake,thus completing the circuit. The only time it pays to "close the loop" is when you are doing a paddock perimeter. Thus with a closed loop, if you had a break in your tape at some point, the shock will still travel, either side of the break.

The most important factors in electric fencing are:

Good Earth
Good connections
Properley strained tape/wire
Good quality tape (ie one with a good weave and plenty of metal conductors)

These will give good results
 
The tape should be at the same height as the targets resting nose height. All animals use their nose to investigate objects so make it easy for them to realise this is a different fence. A Rodeo A8 would be a suitable energiser.

Add to most important.

Make sure the tape touches nothing bar plastic, no wood posts, trees.
 
Bert&Maud said:
Where abouts are you? Having just sold my horse (sadly giving up for good) I'm in the process of writing a list of all the stuff I have to get rid of, amongst which is electric fence energiser (powered by normal Duracell type batteries), posts etc. I'm in wiltshire
Click to expand...

I'm in Herefordshire, bit too far me thinks!!! Thanks tho :-)

And thank you for suggestions re engergiser- will look into both.

Cheers
 
Don't forget that energisers & batteries are VERY nickable (I know from personal experience x3), so I would try to position it out of view if you can and only leave it out for short periods of time. If your field is not adjoining your house I would advise perhaps using it only for a day or two until the horses are aware of it and then taking it home, so a smaller portable unit with internal batteries might be more useful. A small unit would easily do 80m of fence and I agree with an earlier post about using the best conductive tape you can find (higher number of strands of wire woven in with some copper if possible), good earth stake and possibly a double line with connector. As previously said there is no need to form a continuous loop, in fact I've never heard of that before in the electric fencing literature I've read. Perhaps the experts could advise.
 
having just put up my leccy fence, we used good corner/straining posts (wooden) and then used the plastic ones to just support the tape. Having two different sizes of horse 16hh+ and 12hh has been the hardest test - because what's good for the monster girl is not good for dick and dom!! I bought the entire kit from Countrywide for £175!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top