[bumpkins]

Hi everyone.  We have just moved down to Somerset from NE Scotland. Until now I have been used to my hens happily free ranging during the day and then obviously being shut in at night.  In the whole of the 3 years that I have kept hens, I have never seen Mr Fox.  However, we have been warned that where we now live is pickled with them.  My neighbour had one of her drakes taken just a couple of weeks ago.  I want to install electric fencing to keep my girls safe but have never had any experience of using it.  Is there any particular type that I should go for?
Thank you. 

[twizzel]

We have a neighbour that uses electric netting with 2 strands of electric wire on the bottom of fence and 1 strand on top too. All powered by a mains fencer. That seems to be quite reliable and probably the best set up of electric I've seen.

[bumpkins]

Thank you for that Twizzel. 

[chrismahon]

I would avoid advertised netting as such because it sags so much and shorts out- even with extra posts. Best as described with individual lines carefully set and make the proper chicken wire fence as the ground circuit. So if anything touches the electric lines and then the fence- bang!

[Dave C]

This is quite a good website http://www.electricfencing.co.uk/poultry_01.asp

I've just bought 50mts of electric poultry netting off gumtree, came with 10 extra posts a gate & energiser for use off mains or battery, all for £50
Not sure what make it is though.

I wasn't really looking for some but at that price I was having it. 

50mts make a nice size pen and I will Putin a movable arc which has a run that I can also lock on a night.

[Stereo]

Giving up on electric netting for long term pens. In the winter they blow over as the ground gets too soggy to hold the posts. In the summer they are a nightmare to stop plant growth from shorting them. Rabbits eat holes in them and they take a hell of a whack to power properly. After all that, the breeds I keep simply fly over them into the next pen. Which is nice.

I think they are good if you have mature, docile hens and permanently short grass eg. following sheep. But I would advise against using this as a permanent pen unless you can overcome the difficulties above.

[Possum]

Hi Bumpkins,


I'm just down the road from you, in Stoke St.Gregory. There certainly are hungry foxes around here at this time of year. I use electric poultry netting from Mole Valley Farmers. If you are going to use it permanently you will need a few wooden posts to attach it to, just to keep it tensioned. You can get those from MVF as well.

[Mickey]

We use polyposts and a Rutland ESB202 energiser running of a 12v Leisure battery, it has worked well through the winter and rest of the year.  We linked old polytape and polywire in 6 strands with alternate live and earth wires, you need extra earth wires to catch any animal that tries to jump through the fencing,  We will probably got for wooden post and wire once the current set up wears out. 

As an aside, our chooks are locked up at night so we set the energiser onto its night/day setting which turns the power on automatically at dawn an off at night, gives the battery more time between charges.

[william_wt]

I find weedkiller is the only way to keep grass down below an electric fence that is in the same place for any length of time.
William

[Dave C]

The guy I bought mine from said he used a roll of damp course plastic on the ground to keep the grass from touching, he just stuck the posts straight through it. 

[bumpkins]

Thank you all for some really great advice.  It's going to cost me a bomb as the girls will have a half acre plot to roam in!  Thanks again. 

[Stereo]

I find weedkiller is the only way to keep grass down below an electric fence that is in the same place for any length of time.
William

That's the conclusion I came to but as we are maybe going orgasmic, that's not going to be an option.

[Stereo]

The guy I bought mine from said he used a roll of damp course plastic on the ground to keep the grass from touching, he just stuck the posts straight through it. 

I did try this in the early days and maybe my DPC wasn't heavy enough or wide enough (4") but it just seemed to get curled up by grass growth and form a water channel. You almost some kind of heavier rubber matting strip or something. No doubt electric net will keep foxy out 99% of the time but it has to be working well and when you've got 10 or more pens and the grass is growing like crazy or it rains for 2 months on end with force 9 gales, it all gets a little tricky!

Wooden posts on the corners are a good idea to tension to. I would also recommend either a proper corner plastic post or one of the high polywire horse paddock posts to tie to as the plastic posts with most netting will bend horribly so you need something rigid in the corners. I've also used guy ropes but the sheep just knock them out......

[AndynJ]

I too need help ref this topic, we are upping our numbers and need to get organised. The hens will have approx. 3/4 an acre.

Electric poultry netting isn't for us.
Its either chicken wire upto 6 feet high and sunk in the ground with an additional 2 wires of electric fencing
or
several strands of electric wire

Either way we intend to 3" timber posts throughout (already bought 166) + 4 7" for the corners.

Any advice, opinions, suggestions also would like to hear from anyone that keeps 100+ hens

[farmers wife]

Anything by Rutland is good but there are better out there.  I use two electric fences but not switched on as the boxes are in constant use around the sheep and cattle.  I totally agree about keeping them upright and long grass its a hard one.  Using stakes on corners help. But we grow a lot of grass and the idea of cutting it before hand isnt an option for busy farmers.


AndynJ - it would be an absolute nightmare and really not very good practice to keep hens in one place with anything over 25.  The grass would be a mess after a few weeks and a mud and disease bath.  Seeing that you want to sell the eggs and market your business its not a great advertisement.  Hens need to move, explore, pick up insects and in nature scratch etc.  Hens like to dig holes.  Mr Farmer is not happy with lots of holes in his field but moving them weekly would prevent craters.


Heras fencing is an option or smaller pens built on moveable frames (refer to  Joel Salatin) you could maneuver the system around we built one of these for 6 fattening ducks.