[egglady]

has anyone used this - you know the stuff that comes on rolls?
do sheep respect it?
does it need electricity for them to respect it?

one of my friends has fallen in love with one of our shetland tup lambs and wants to buy him and one of his pals but she doesnt have decent enough fencing and doesnt have the money to stock fence it so she's thinking this would do.  i dont have any expereince of it so cant advise her.

many thanks

[cairnhill]

Would not recommend use of netting with horned sheep.   

[piggy]

We used the netting on some comercials last year no problem but you will need it to be electric.
As advised on another thread on here it is illegal to use netting for sheep with horns.

[ellisr]

You definately need electric for the sheep to respect it, it will not keep rams in if the ewes are in season they just don't care a couple of minutes of shocks if they can get to the ewes.

I have a wether that can jump straight over the netting without a shock, but he does think he is a pony or mountain goat.

[humphreymctush]

I spoke to a farmer who says he has from time to time found lambs tangles in it. Either dead or having endured repeated electric shocks

[ellisr]

I had the same problem and have to remove the netting when the lambs are young, but they get there heads stuck in stock fencing too unless you replace in all with the lamb stock fencing.

[egglady]

thanks folks - kind of what I'd expected.  She thinks that maybe she could trim their horns - anyone heard of this?  debudding i'e heard of and would never allow but never heard of this - kind of like feet trimming but at the other end!!

[Fleecewife]

Horns are live with a central core filled with arterial blood so not 'trimmable' unless in an emergency, certainly not just to try to make electric mesh safer - which it wouldn't do unless the horns were completely removed. The answer would be to keep a hornless breed of sheep.  Even then, we have had polled sheep which have become entangled in electric mesh by their wool.  Once sheep are slightly entangled they start to fight the restraint and end up totally tangled and strangled. I hate the stuff.   Sorry but half measures are never a good move.

[ellisr]

I agree with Fleece wife I am replacing all the boundry fencing with stock fencing a bit at a time. I must have this done for lambing next year and it also allows me to make the paddocks smaller so that I can rotate the grazing as I have suffered this year as they have had free range and ended up having to graze the lawns to allow the fields to rest.

[humphreymctush]

I dont know what your friends existing fencing is like but maybe it could be made more secure by adding two or three strands of electric wires on out riggers.

[Padge]

our Jacobs are quite at home with 3 line electric fencing    but then they really are quite calm majestic creatures 

[trefnantbach]

To keep sheep in We've just added two lines of electric wire below the two lines of electric tape used for the pony. After the initial shocks on the first day, they keep a respectable distance away and it is 100% successful. When we are working outside I turn the electricity off all day with no problems. The bottom strand is 20cm off the ground and the next 40cm so they need to be pulled fairly tight with wooden poles with insulators every 8m. The field is fairly flat  but in one place where it undulates and the bottom wire is much closer to the ground I've used an additional plastic electric fencing pole in between the wooden ones to lift the wire up a bit. I also run the mower underneath the fence every 3-4 weeks to stop growing vegetation from shortcircuiting the fence.

[old ploughman]

We have a pre-occupation with stocknet in this country - 99% of the fencing we put up is HT/8/80/15 and most of it is for fencing in sheep. It is usually topped with a strand or two of barbed wire and if correctly erected have never known sheep to get over - mules will climb up it (which is why we use high tensile rather than mild steel netting) and little welsh bu**ers will try to go under it if you leave a gap big enough for a rabbit!! Therefore, often have to put strand of barb underneath.

The point I wanted to make was, in New Zealand stocknet is very uncommon - the vast majority of fencing is strained high tensile 3mm plain wire strands set about 8" apart with a couple of the strands electrified. 'Hedges' are very uncommon in NZ too so the fences are usually all that stops stock getting out. I cannot understand why this system is not more popular over here - lot cheaper to erect and maintain - especially with solar powered energisers now available at reasonable money 

regards

[Fleecewife]

Now I'm not quite sure what we're talking about.  I thought egglady meant the soft electric mesh which is moveable, not rigid stock fencing.  The moveable stuff is what is not suitable for horned sheep as they can get entangled in it, so stranded is better there.  We use the rigid stuff - Rylock - with one or two tensioned strands of plain wire along the top.  Lambs can get stuck in that and sometimes break their horns but only occasionally and they soon grow out of it.  We started with high tensile stranded fencing when we arrived here and our sheep just walked straight through it - it wasn't electrified.  Now we find that Rylock as described above suits us fine, with no escapes and no strangling.

[humphreymctush]

As far as I understand we are taking about the electric netting because egg ladies friend cant afford Ryloc. Although saying that I'm not evan sure if the electric net is any cheaper! Old ploughman is pointing out that the New Zealand system is cheaper and more sensible