The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Glentarki on February 17, 2011, 04:45:03 pm
-
Hi folks sorry in advance if this has been asked before!!……….Just been down the paddock to realistically see where we could section a area of ground for pigs using electric fence.
The area we would like to use approx 1 acre and is part of a 3 acre paddock all stock fenced…….basically the 1 acre bit would be a division straight across the larger paddock at one end so would have a perimeter on 3 sides with the existing stock fence.
We have absolutely no experience using electric fences and the best method to use. We really wont to get this done correctly from the start and not have to replace in a year or two due to our own inexperience.
So my questions being………. should we go for the battery or mains options for the electric fence?……….We have a large barn central to the paddock that we will use for the pigs housing needs this has electricity connected. I’ve also seen mostly with horses white tape electric fence is that what we would use?……Or is it plain wire?…..Is electric fence ok with very young piglets?…”Don’t wont cooked noses” :(
Hope I’ve been clear enough!!
Thanks in advance any help much appreciated as we hope to have things up and running come April!…Cant wait :yum:
Cheers
Dave
-
Mains is definately better (you don't need to remember about batteries ;))
White tape is much easier for them to see than the wire. You might have to 'train' them to the tape if they've not been used to it (they can sometimes go the wrong way ie. forward through it, rather than reverse away from it)
And the only other thing I'd add is a single strand of barbed wire along the very bottom of your stock fencing (basically at ground level) to prevent them from rooting under it and escaping that way ! Unless you're going to electric fence inside it to keep them back from it)
HTH
Karen x
-
hi we used to use battery for the pigs & horses, but as the battery goes down, so does the shock in the fence, resulting in animals with no respect for the fencing.
now we use the mains, with no problems so far, & its much cheaper to run (about £20 per year) the most important & sometimes overlooked part of electric fencing is the earth. for a mains energiser you should be using a 2m earth stake.
we use tape for the horses & stranded wire for the pigs
good luck! :)
-
I forgot to say - run 2 strands of tape ! 1 at about 8 inches from the ground and the other at 24 inches (or thereabouts depending on the size of the pigs) just to save them jumping over or going under ;)
-
good advice given already you should go and see others ideas before you take the plunge
mains is better now depends on your future plans get a powerful one also concider how your pigs are going to be moved they will not come over the line where the fence line is when switched of enjoy your pigs when you get them
-
Hi Dave,
Whichever system you choose, remember to clear all vegetation under/touching the wire or tape otherwise the current is sent into the ground and not along the tape etc. Therefore reducing the current/efficacy of the system.
Hope you saw the first episode of 'It's a Farmer's Life For Me' - that illustrated perfectly how not to do it!!!!
8)
-
IF you have the option - mains - the units are cheaper (they don't have to be so cleaver in eeking out battery power), and no batteries.
There is a good guide on the rappa site to fencing.
http://www.rappa.co.uk/fencing-guide.cfm (http://www.rappa.co.uk/fencing-guide.cfm)
Oh and definately horse tape, the pigs see it better, and you see it better to check that it's all in tact without having to walk the fence!
-
Thanks so much for all your advice explained perfectly!………Its definitely going to be mains and does make sense for our long term plans. Thanks for the link Oakland pigs im slowly starting to get the picture!!
Another question re the energiser unit’s, the price does differ considerably as does the size….Can anyone recommend a good all-round unit size and price I should be looking at that would be suitable for the area of ground we have and pigs?…..Off to check out some info tomorrow at a few local farm sale outlets but there is nothing better than having a little insight ;)…So once again big thanks all
Cheers
Dave
-
Mains - as everyone has already said. We use wire rather than tape, but have an outside fence of chickenwire, about 10cm from the wires. Just so that when they are young and get used to it they will not run through the fence. So far never had any escapes, but needs planning when you come to load them to go to abttoir, as they will not cross the fence line without something covering it.
-
we bought a mains, but didnt realise it couldnt be used near a fuse box, so that ruled out one field it was intended for. embarrassingly we have never used it in 2 years, got as far as buying the lead out cables. they need digging under the ground or our car would be driving over them everyday. i will get it going this year but i think the battery type would have been better. does anyone know if the small battery electric fencers (very little blue boxes) can be repaired as both of ours are not working. there are bargains at farm auctions!
-
what is wrong with it being next the fuse box
you may be lucky in getting a working unit at a farm sale(not so many sales now) but two or three duds and you have a new one
-
White tape is not necessary for igs, the wire is just fine. The white tape stretches after a while an touchs the ground and I found it was just more work, so switch to plain wire and also to mains power. Battery is not as strong as mains power. If it is shorting the battery flattens in no time where as mains stays high but shows by a beeper unit in the main box that there is a short. You can also you a hand held piece that is a directional finder and takes time out of finding the problem other wise you would be there all day looking for the problem.
some do 5 km others do 200 km. Depends on how big you want to get. Whether you have 3 strands or only one and how you set your fence up to work properly
-
White tape is not necessary for igs, the wire is just fine. The white tape stretches after a while an touchs the ground and I found it was just more work,
Interestingly we find the opposite. With white tape, you can scan an enclosed area by eye and see that it is all in tact, and that the pigs have not rooted earth over it. Our pigs seem to respond (learn) quicker. With plain wire, you need to walk the perimeter to check. We have not found white tape to stretch, and have tape that is several years old without any problems.
Blonde - not doubting your experience - just adding mine - your pays your money...! ;D
-
Certainly white tape is very useful around a training paddock, but once they are trained the use becomes unnecessary and an extra cost. Surely the electric fence posts are a good enough indicator to a pig to exactly where the fence is????
Yes the white tape does sag, but can be easily tighten(especially if you have isolators on each paddock).
Certainly would never use barbed wire to put around a pig pen(I know both Blonde and Happy Hippy use it) as it is totally unnecessary and I would have thought harmful to any animal that tries to run through it.
I suppose it just hinges on what you prefer.
As to the battery or mains I've used both and yes the mains is stronger, but batteries(heavy duty liesure batteries) work equal aswell and don't become a problem if you carry spares and you continually charge them systematically.
It will also depend on how conveniently place your mains supply is and the extra cost it may incur?
-
We use mains for our fence - and we also use the white tape forour pig paddock. Apart from anything else I can see the whte tape easier than the wire! We haven't found sagging to be a problem with the tape.
I wouldn't fancy lugging a battery around and would probably not be organised enough to keep an appropriate charging system. Also given sod's law I am sure I would notice the electric was failing when it was p*ssing down with rain.... ;)
Tish
-
Certainly would never use barbed wire to put around a pig pen(I know both Blonde and Happy Hippy use it) as it is totally unnecessary and I would have thought harmful to any animal that tries to run through it.
I suppose it just hinges on what you prefer.
My barbed wire is at ground level - no where else. I doubt very much that anything could get tangled in it (but it's only been there for about 5 years, so maybe I've just been lucky with the pigs, horses, cats, dogs and kids that have been near it during that time ???) It's down at the bottom to stop them rooting under the fence and pushing it up and escaping - and they WILL escape, without either that or electric fencing, trust me ! My wee Kune Kune boar moved to a new (& partially un-barbwired) field - found the weak spot and was out within about 20 minutes.
I can't use electric fencing here as my 6 year old daughter is autistic and part of her condition means that she doesn't see danger or recognise the consequences of her actions. We tried electric fencing with our first 2 weaners and after countless electric shocks for her and pig chasing sessions once the wire was pulled off :o we decided it was safer all round to go for the stock fence and barbed wire option.
I appreciate it's not for everybody, but please don't deem others' set-up's as 'totally unnecessary' when you don't know the full story :-\
-
Certainly would never use barbed wire to put around a pig pen(I know both Blonde and Happy Hippy use it) as it is totally unnecessary and I would have thought harmful to any animal that tries to run through it.
I suppose it just hinges on what you prefer.
we use barbed wire at ground level, so far no problems
-
WHO steady tiger i thought it was only me that weighed in (must be the Scottish thing) right joking aside fences and Dyke's are designed to either keep stock in or out and i have seen cattle clear both with ease once an animal knows it can get out it is difficult to keep them in and i know the KICK that comes of 8000volts of electric fence the last thing you want is spending hours chasing stock that is fitter and more able than some of us and takes the fun out of it
-
I have recently started keeping pigs after being spurned on by a fantastic pig keeping course by Oaklands Pigs.
I use a battery powered electric fence - a 12v car battery feeding about 80m of electric tape. All works fine (in conjunction with a strand of barbed wire at ground level). This setup has been in operation for 3 weeks and the fence is still zapping away without a recharge. I use the MVF b400 (http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/mvf/store/products/b400-mvf-battery-fencer-6-9-12v (http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/mvf/store/products/b400-mvf-battery-fencer-6-9-12v))
-
To me it is "unnecessary" as I have never needed it(for the whole 30 years in pigs) and if you read further on I also state that "I suppose it all depends on what you prefer".
Once again you have come out all guns firing from ever angle, which is also totally "unncecessary".
I suggest you read whats there.
As to lugging a battery about, just stick it in your tractor or on your feeder.
Pigs don't wonder very far in rain any way and the amount of power in the fence has never been a issue either.
Once again, if mains is your preference because it suits your situation better then so be it.
Whether you use mains or battery both systems work(if set up correctly).
-
Hi folks thanks so much for all the input, I’ve been taking on board all the advice and what would work best for us!!
Yesterday I went to our local farm supplies (Carrs Billington) it just so happened that the guy on duty I knew well and was able to get great advice. He recommended the mains system from hotline electric fencing, they vary considerably in size and price…..the one we decided to go for had a coverage of 3k and at around £100 we thought very good value.
.
Like most folk on here our aim is to keep the animals safe and contained affording a free range life……..thinking about it I dread to think of pig escapes here , surrounded by miles of forestry I don’t think they would hang around long!!
Now we also looked at the white horse tape one is half inch the other is a inch and come in 200 meter rolls….What width is best for pigs?. The guy at carrs agreed a good idea as the pigs would be able to see the stuff but couldn’t recommend the width of tape…..Hope you can help :-\
Cheers
Dave
-
Certainly white tape is very useful around a training paddock, but once they are trained the use becomes unnecessary and an extra cost. Surely the electric fence posts are a good enough indicator to a pig to exactly where the fence is????
Yes the white tape does sag, but can be easily tighten(especially if you have isolators on each paddock).
Certainly would never use barbed wire to put around a pig pen(I know both Blonde and Happy Hippy use it) as it is totally unnecessary and I would have thought harmful to any animal that tries to run through it.
I suppose it just hinges on what you prefer.
As to the battery or mains I've used both and yes the mains is stronger, but batteries(heavy duty liesure batteries) work equal aswell and don't become a problem if you carry spares and you continually charge them systematically.
It will also depend on how conveniently place your mains supply is and the extra cost it may incur?
I like barb on the very bottom of the ring lock as if the fence is to be off pigs actually dont attempt to get out, If they do they poke their nose under the fence and probably touch a barb, they pull their head back in a dont give geting out a secondthought. Generally the barb is on the ground and not even seen and when the electric is working is not even a problem to the pig. Certainy not harmful to the pig.
-
Now we also looked at the white horse tape one is half inch the other is a inch and come in 200 meter rolls….What width is best for pigs?. .Hope you can help :-\
Cheers
Dave
We've used both, and found that both work equally well. The thinner is less prone to "blowing" in the wind, and I suspect cheaper, so I would go with that.
-
As long as no animal gets injured in the use of barb wire then I don't have a problem.
But once again I still don't see the need of its use???????
If you are using ringlock fencing, why would you need barb wire???????????
If you are proclaiming to be totally organic, is the use of barb wire permitted??????
I can give you a case scenario where if I put barb wire round all my paddack, there would have been major problems.
Lets have a leveled discussion and not a heated arguement please!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D
-
If the system that people choose for them and it works perfectly, then as they say if it's not broke don't fix it. Remember everyone will find their own way of keeping stock safe and secure.
-
Hey, Stevie, lots of exclamation marks are what make a post seem 'heated' ;)
Being organic and type of fencing have nothing to do with each other as far as I can remember, though someone else may know more about that as I haven't read the rules in quite some time. A scratch doesn't hurt that much compared to the (low level) electric shocks from the wire we use.
Id' rather use fixed fencing with a strand of barbed wire along the bottom, actually, like HappyHippy and Manian do. But as it's not our field we don't have much say in it.
When the piglets get out, which they inevitably do when not yet trained or the electricity is off for whatever reason, they can get far very quickly indeed. When the wire was still part of the loop that runs around many fields and is on the mains, it malfunctioned every now and then (nothing to do with us), and once several piglets were very nearly on the road. Took 10 years off my life, that did, hence why I'd rather that the little ones are behind something they can't slip through. For us, that would work better given the location and lack of further fencing around the farm. The larger ones never went far when the electricity was accidentally off, they knew very well where they were supposed to be. ;) But when installing pens or moving pens around, no doubt electricity is an awful lot easier.
It's the white half inch wide tape that's around our pens, now charged with a car battery rather than on the loop that serves all those other fields. It never sags, and we have the usual lower strands to keep the pigs in, and a higher one to keep the marauding sheep out ;) with a short strand a bit lower as our 'step-over gate'.
Get a big roll of tape and as many white sticks you can find, Dave, you'll use them over time ;)
-
The exclamation marks mean "didley squit" really, except that I have NEVER in all my entire life had to use barb wire.
Piglets will roam, and are very comical to watch, especially when they charge around in backs, but they always come back and never really eventure far. I love seeing that ;D
Are you guys saying that on your farrowing, dry sows, weaners that as a course of practice that you use barb wire????????
Need to be clear on this.
I have used the white tape some of the time, mainly on training paddocks and gilt pens, in other words only when necessary and I believe at the end of the day it all hinges on who does the setting up ie how tight they tention it, that determines whether it sag or not and how well the posts are put in. ;)
Iam not rying to be heated, just getting a good open discussion here. ;D
Happy pigging to you all.
Until next week. ;D
-
I would like to add to this also, I put weaners in my weigh shed for some 3 weeks.... they forget about mum and she forgets about them goes dry and remates and returns to the dry sow paddock. aftr leaving the weigh shed they go into a weaner pen which is surrounded by weldmesh to the ground, no barb wire and no spots to escape. they then go on to another paddock that is sightly bigger and finally to a large paddock that has pig lock and barb wire at the bottom. No one escapes out of here and no one gets hurt by the barb wire which Imust admit is barely visible by the dirt that they have pushed hard up against the fence. The fence has a bulge in it all the way around ......from them pushing on it for the green pick on the other side but they can only get their snout through it and that is all, not their head. I know lots of piggeries here ithe west who use barb on the bottom and no hot wire and this is how I grow to finisher.
My sows on the other hand have stock fencing and a single hot wire around the inside at the bottom of the mesh some 8 - 12 inches off the ground. Just a deterent. I have strung barb on some of the pens but some times they dont go under but over the top. If a sow gets out she is sold, not kept. One now and then, and I guess I am not the only one with the "rogue sow" . but you dont want her to teach others so she is better off on a walk down the road on her own.
The farrow pens have a single hot wire around the same vacinity and this helps with getting the pigles away from Mum. They cannot touch it because it is set too high but it keeps her away from the side walls and makes her layin the centre of the hut, yes she can turn around without touching it and she can enter her hut without touching it also. She can lay down without touching it. They have hay in there hut also without a problem.
Each pen has an area outside the hut and she and the piglets have access to this, Each pen has a wallow.
At 2 weeks of age the mums and piglets are shifted to a combination nursery pen and continue there until 3 to 4 weeks of age. The piglets are all weaned and the sows go back to their pens to be remated.
-
Intersting that both Blondie and Stevie G have mentioned horse tape stretching and sagging to the ground, which I have never seen or heard of.
Both of you are in Australia I believe - is Aussie tape made of differerent stuff?, or maybe as in the UK we barely get above 20C for the vast majority of the year, the tape never gets hot enough to sag ;D Anyone in the UK seen sagging tape?
Just had a quick look at cost of bare wire vs. horse tape - 200M wire £15.30, 200m white tape £13.60 (www.rappa.co.uk (http://www.rappa.co.uk)).
-
To clarify Stevie G,
I don't claim to be organic (but as Eve say's, I don't think fence type is linked to the organic status of your ground - in the UK at least)
I don't use any electric fence anywhere on my land.
My fields (pens, paddocks, whatever you want to call them - outside space of at least 20x30meters for a couple of weaners, up to an acre for a couple of adults) are fenced with stock fencing (the square wire stuff) with a single strand of barbed wire along the bottom.
I bring sow's in to my shed to farrow (and there's not a fence to be seen in their 'maternity suites' they're constructed with gates and shed sides) and they go back out with their piglets into a paddock with the same fencing.
As I've said, so far - no problems with that set-up. Only problems I've had have been when putting pigs into fields without the barbed wire on the bottom - they get out, and yes, it's lovely to see them running around, racing and jumping into the air - it's just I'd prefer to see them do that, safe in their fields, without having to worry about trying to find them in 130acres of forrest or rescue them from the side of the main road.
-
Well folks yet again big thanks for all the advice and guidance. Its been refreshing to read so much information and see how all you experienced folk keep your pigs contained………..Were going for the half inch tape its windy being at the top of a glen lol, and can now see this may be a problem with the thicker tape.
As for our 3 sides of existing stock fence, they are strong and very well made but for my own piece of mind and animal containment I think barbed wire or a single electric tape at low level is in order.
Cheers
Dave
-
Or you can use both, I have some pens set up with both. the tape stretches and may b tha tis because we have it stretched in a larger paddock, I dont really know but when it touches the ground it shorts out.....escape time......Hooray!!! Ilike the wire just put a pair of wire strainers on it, attach it with outriggers and away you go
-
Intersting that both Blondie and Stevie G have mentioned horse tape stretching and sagging to the ground, which I have never seen or heard of.
Both of you are in Australia I believe - is Aussie tape made of differerent stuff?, or maybe as in the UK we barely get above 20C for the vast majority of the year, the tape never gets hot enough to sag ;D Anyone in the UK seen sagging tape?
Just had a quick look at cost of bare wire vs. horse tape - 200M wire £15.30, 200m white tape £13.60 (www.rappa.co.uk (http://www.rappa.co.uk)).
Just thought I would make this point(have lacked time lately to reply as too busy), but I have never used white tape here in Oz, only in the UK and if the posts are banged in well enough and the tape isn't tighten enough, then it sags(not my doing!)
Blondes in Western Oz where it gets to 47 degrees C some times, so that may aid to the problem of tape saging.
I used to get hot air ballons flying over my sows in Dorset and it scared the hell out of them, causing them to run through fences, so barbed wire who have been a night mare if used and have never needed it any way, which is why I also don't see the need.
Happy pigging to you one and all, in a beatiful cold Uk. ;)
-
White tape stretches but then so does ordinary fencing wire and just now and then it has to be tightened to be like a guitar string. It gives a good boot as well and this is what you want when it comes to keeping pigs in.....