[Dans]

I've heard back about renting some land off a farmer. He has 3 acres but it is currently unfenced. He seems keen for me to use electric fencing to keep the sheep in but I'm wary of relying on just electric. Am I right? I seem to lose all  confidence in my decisions when talking to someone else!

Will electric strands keep sheep in reliably? The land is 3 mins drive from our house and is off a private track that is owned by the farmer and surrounded by arable land farmed by the farmer. My thinking is that we can't use netting as the sheep are horned and with strands they may just push past (there is a tasty young hedge that will be on the other side of the fence and these are Castlemilks) and that thier wool will give them some insulation. Am I right? I am more keen to look down the route of stock fencing with a long term let to give us some security. He's also asked how much I would like to pay which I had no answer for other than if we were stockfencing we could look at a longer term let taking the cost of fencing into account.

Dans

[Foobar]

"Will electric strands keep sheep in reliably? " ... no.   Even if they can't get onto a main road if they were to escape, I'm sure your farmer would not been keen to see your sheep eating his arable crops.


Work out how much fencing it would cost and go from there.  He may be able to fence it cheaper than you can....

[bj_cardiff]

I sectioned a field in two with electric and thought it worked fine, then started noticing loose bits and a couple of the lambs were getting between the strands. I had 3 strands on a 3ft plastic post. I wasn't that bothered as there wasn't anywhere for them to go and they seemed to of got back ok but after a week one of the other sheep must of copied and pulled the posts across the field snapping the wire. I still use one strand of electic on a 3ft post to keep the horses off some parts of the field, she sheep just duck under it.

I imagine it'll be very expensive to stock fence it off.. 3 acres is probably around 450 metres, at £5 a metre, thats £2250!  I'd want a seriously long lease before investing that in someone elses field!

[Dans]

Pretty much what I thought then.

He says he has a small labour workforce but he doesn't want anything to do with the maintenance or fencing of the land. He does want it all kept 'proper'.

I'll start looking at costings to fence it but it is 580m so I'm expecting it will be a lot. He also didn't seem very keen on a long term let straight off saying he will 'see if he likes us' so I'm thinking this may be a no go :-(

Dans

[Foobar]

The NAAC contractor rate is currently £6.08 per metre, Obviously it's a lot cheaper if you do it yourself.

(http://www.naac.co.uk/userfiles/files/Contracting%20charges%202016-17%20V2.pdf)

[bj_cardiff]

The problem is if he didn't like you you'd of fenced his field for free.. I'm sure he knows exactly how much it will cost to fence. For me I'd either offer to buy it or thank him for the opportunity but you just couldn't make the figures work out and walk away

[DavidandCollette]

I'm with bj. So tempting when you get an offer, but you end up fencing it for him. I know that farmers dont like to commit, but you need to be clear about what you are committing to.

[Tim W]

Electric fencing will be fine
I keep 1000 ewes , mostly behind electric fencing
3 strands , 80 acre block ---no worries

Just earth it well and keep the fence line clean (strim occasionally)

[devonlad]

our ewes wont cross an electric strand even if its not wired up and laid on the ground. the lambs however are a different story- no respecters and long gone through the fence before any chance of a zap

[crobertson]

Electric fencing has been fine for ours, we use in about 80% of the year (only the lambing paddock is fenced). Put it on high to start off with, after the odd zap they won't go near it again so it can be turned down - the battery has ran out on ours many times and we've just left it until a convenient time and we've never had any of our texels escape. It is very useful to move, section off bits or split the field in summer so they can get on top of one bit before extending, kind of rotating within a rotation !

[farmershort]

We're regular users of electric fences from a battery energiser for sheep. Buy a good quality energiser. Good quality string strand. Good quality 3 in 1 reels, and good quality corner stakes.

All the above means you'll be able to get some decent tension on all 3 strands,  and provide enough of a physical obstacle to an escape sheep to keep it in place for a good few zaps.

Loose wire will be walked through, and seen as the path of least resistance if the electric does kick in in time.

To be 100 percent sure on the shock, drive an old copper pipe into the ground with a sledge hammer and use that as the earth spike.

[Tim W]

Should have added that some of my sheep are 50 miles from home behind electric fences so I have to be pretty confident of the system working

[shotblastuk]

I find breed makes a difference. Cotswolds. Wensleydales and Texels no problem won't budge. Shetlands not a chance! They don't see it as a barrier just an obstacle. through it, under it, over it. How do people keep these things? Hence we'll be eating Shetland this easter... alot.

[SallyintNorth]

Electric fencing will be fine
I keep 1000 ewes , mostly behind electric fencing
3 strands , 80 acre block ---no worries

Just earth it well and keep the fence line clean (strim occasionally)

Your sheep and Castlemilk are chalk and cheese.

I've just moved to a farm where the resident Zwartbles are easily managed using electric fencing.  Not so my fleece flock - and especially the Castlemilk crosses amongst them I may say!  The full grown adults are now almost all reliable, except the part Castlemilk , but the hoggs still test and test and test, and learn how low to limbo...

[Womble]

.........whereas we had a Zwartbles tup lamb this year who climbed two walls before barging through an electric fence without difficulty.

Mind you, he did have nine vestal virgins for motivation!