Electric fence kits

TreeDog

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Due to unfortunate circumstances it looks like I will need to move in with my mum for a couple months. She has a small paddock and I was thinking about keeping my gelding in it while I'm staying.

She normally borrows some sheep from her neighbour to keep the grass under control but at the moment it's not being grazed. The fencing is fine for sheep but I'm not sure how much I can trust it to keep a horse in and one side of the paddock is a treeline/bank with low barbed wire along it which I worry he could get caught in. So I'm thinking about setting up an electric fence to reinforce the current fencing and keep him away from the barbed wire on the bank. I've seen kits for sale that include 'everything you need' for about £150. Has anyone used these before?
 

kinnygirl1

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Yes I got one for making a small rehab paddock for my gelding last year and now use it as strip grazing fence. I paid to upgrade the posts to 4ft as he has been known to break out over the 3 ft ones. Really pleased with it... Have used it pretty much all year round and only had to replace the battery a couple of times in the energiser... I got the most powerful one tho. Think mine was from country store uk.
 

HappyHollyDays

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I bought a kit from FarmCare last year to take to TREC. It came with 4 foot posts, the tape, handle, battery and energiser and was about £160. Ordered one day and it arrived 3 days later with an apology that as they didn't have a part in stock it had taken so long. Brilliant service and the kit itself is just what I needed.
 

TreeDog

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There's a few by various companies that all seem fairly similar, however looking at country store uk they've got one where you can set high or low power which seems handy for battery life. I've never put up an electric fence before, how easy are they to set up?
 

kinnygirl1

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There's a few by various companies that all seem fairly similar, however looking at country store uk they've got one where you can set high or low power which seems handy for battery life. I've never put up an electric fence before, how easy are they to set up?
The energiser was very easy to set up and I'd never done a battery operated set up before. The hardest part I found was setting up the tape fence with no twists or saggy parts lol.
 

Hack4fun

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I would check that the kit is actually cheaper than ordering the parts individually. In my experience there is little difference in price, but see what you can find. 4 foot posts and two lines of tape are best if you can. The key thing is to remember that fencing works by an electrical circuit so make sure that there is no vegetation or something that is short-circuiting your fence. The current goes through the tape, through the horse and into the ground. The circuit is completed through the earth spike on the energiser. Batteries should last a long time and are rechargeable (unless you have the small sort and then it may not be strong enough). The key measure is not the voltage but the energy in the pulse. The small solar units are about 0.4 joules, and the battery ones anything up to 1 or 2 joules. I would search to check that the smaller ones are effective for horses - I just don't know. Ring and talk to a supplier. They are easy to set up, put posts 5 metres apart and you may need extra ones in corners or at the ends to improve stability. If you have some tape left over and don't want to cut it, suspend it on a post or put it in a plastic box to make sure it does not touch the ground. They are not entirely reliable as a primary means of containing the horses, but good for partitioning or keeping away from barbed wire.
 
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