[docsal]

Am getting my first pigs as soon as I can get the field ready. Good solid stock fencing, super heavy duty gate and posts, hardcore in gateway to prevent digging and poaching, ark en route........
The field is 50m x 100m. I was planning to give them (3 weaners) 1/4 of the area at a time. I thought the lectric fencing was the easy bit but am baffled by the various line/fence/battery/solar options.

Can anyone advise please?

PS (edit) Have run mains water to outside edge of field to make water supply easy. Any advice re best drinker??

[pharnorth]

I use a single strand of the wire about 20 cm off the ground (not poly wire which has much higher resistance) around the fence line. This stops them digging under and protects the fence. The pen is divided by two strands of 4cm wide white tape. This uses more electric due to higher resistance but I prefer it to be visible to the pigs, not least of all so when you take it down they are reassured they can move to the next part of the pen. Mine is wired back to a mains unit. Battery is fine (Leisure battery for caravans work well), solar good too. A good fence tester is very helpful and earthing is essential. That is, make sure fence is not compromised by vegetation and make sure whichever system you use you have a good earth stake or two or three even.

If your weaners are not electric fence trained set up,the white tape infront of a solid barrier first so they don't panic and run straight through it. I make a small corale from hurdles and put the White tape 30cm inside the corale. Once they have touched it a couple of times remove the hurdles and make the corale bigger.

[greenbeast]

pharnorth is spot on.
We have trouble with pigs going through electric subdivisions but usually when there is either trouble in the pen they're in (they get hussled through the fence by another pig) or there are pigs they want to get to. I don't suppose you will have such trouble with just three together

[bj_cardiff]

Good idea to let them have smaller sections to start with. I always do, use hurdles or something solid behind the fence as sometimes they can run forwards after getting a zap!  They've probably not been outside before so make sure you shut them in their house for a few hours so they know its there and feel safe there, I've mistakenly let mine straight out before and its been days before they found their house

[docsal]

Really good advice thanks.
Regarding mains supply - that sounds like a great idea. Do you have to bury the cable in pipe to stop them getting to it?

[Bionic]

I have an automatic drinker that is fed from a tank that's filled up every couple of weeks. It works really well.

[Marches Farmer]

We have plumbed-in Suevia drinkers, which are bomb (and boar) proof but with your proposed system a moveable drinker (maybe a metal livestock bowl drinker attached to something that can easily be attached to and detached from a fencepost) and a small tank may work better.  Very few drinker systems are frost-proof when it's really cold, however, which is why  we have a metal bowl drinker permanently attached in every pen, so we can fill it from outside when necessary.

[mab]

Really good advice thanks.
Regarding mains supply - that sounds like a great idea. Do you have to bury the cable in pipe to stop them getting to it?

I'd put the energiser where the pigs can't get to it and the mains cable too. You can get a well insulated wire to transmit the high voltage from the energiser to where you want to use it - so if you have to run the current through a paddock/enclosure/underground it isn't a mains cable.