Aaargh! Knitting with electric fence - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Wednesday 2 December, 2009

by Rosemary at 6:53pm in Anything goes Comments closed

At this time of year, I usually put a few sheep on the lawn. When I say "lawn", it's the bit of grass INSIDE the fence as opposed to "field" which is the same grass outside the fence. Bowling green it ain't. However, the sheep do graze it nicely down AND they tidy right up to the clothes poles, fertilising as they go. The lawn was probably it's best ever this summer, thanks to the sheep.

In order to protect the postie from said sheep, - Dickie and Li'l' Bud this year - I run electric fence along the path between the lawn and the front door. Now, I have an electric fence in the big field - one strand, high enough to let the ewes through but keeping the horse out of the sheeps' trough and lick. We only have one energiser, though, and that has been on the big field's fence.

Bud and Dickie, and particularly the latter, quickly worked out that their fence delivered no "zap" and took themselves through my four-strand fence, pretty much destroying it in the process. They are now in the river paddock, but I want the off there and back on the lawn, so yesterday, I set about sorting the fence.

Oh boy, what fun! In Plan A, I had the poles in a zigzag to include a bit of patio for hard standing but I've decided that the temporary fencing really works best in simple straight lines, so I moved some of the poles. This caused the four strands to sag even more. Probably I would have been quicker to have wound up all the tape and started again but it was a nice day and I thought it woudl be a challenge! Actually, I was just too lazy to take it apart.

What a job - the only saving grace was that it wasn't a very long run. It was like knitting with tape, as one strand fell into another or lifted in the breeze. Matters got further complicated when Bertie Bashit came to help. He thought it was all a great wheeze; at one point, the tape was wrapped twice round his middle. He's going to get such a shock - literally - when we put the charge on it. I really don't want to be there for that.

Anyway, it's done now and looks OK. I'll get the battery on it at the weekend and get the boys back on to the lawn, where they should be.