Electric fencing question.

[jaytori220]

 Electric fencing questions.I am thinking of getting electric fencing and I am totally clueless. Its only maybe just about 200ft that I need to be electric. I have no clue what electric charger I will need. I saw TSC has one for about $30. Im not sure if it would be strong enough for two mini horses. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[mini horse mania]

We love electric fence..thats all we use due to less injury..we love the poly wire,and use the ten mile box which is around $60..it covers two acres of 6 strands.a five mile box should suffice for your needs.

 

[mini horse mania]

Oh another tip to save money...tsc sells small fiberglas poles for around $1 ea..we space then 10 ft apart and use zip ties to hold it in place.its cheap and works great..we use t posts with clip on pieces for corners,we pull from there..the small pokes knock down with a hammet and just support the wire.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

A suggestion: do not hang any flags or other stuff on the wire if you have young horses. They will eat it and then you have problems!

We use regular electric fence wire and have never had a problem with injuries. New hroses will sometimes go through it and break it, but only once. Our charger is a Gallagher (sp?) and good for about 5 miles of fence. That brand has a good reputation. Be sure you ground your charger with a ground rod!

 

[jaytori220]

Thanks....Oh yea Ill ground it. Wonder how many rods i would need here in fl? It would be used as a permanent fencing to separate my two as my larger mini/pony has been picking on my much smaller mare. And they can still be near each other and she would be able to eat in peace!

 

[mini horse mania]

We used an 8 ft ground rod..a piece of rebar works or copper..just hammer it into the ground after you wrap wire on it.....the ground is most important in a good strong fence

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

Get the most powerful fencer you can afford... remember, the little 2mi one doesn't handle ANY weeds, you need more juice for those. I use a 50mi charger on my fence. I also use electric ROPE, not wire. Remember, any string, rope, or tape requires 10x the fencer, compared to plain wire.

One ground rod is generally good. I prefer the Zeraba brand myself.

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

I use Zereba products and use the 100 mile charger as I've found grass and other weeds and stuff take away from the smaller ones too much. I don't think you need a 100 mile one, but I wouldn't get the smallest/cheapest one either. I use eletric tape and love it. Looks good from a distance (kind of like white vinyl fencing), so easy to put up and repair and extremely visable to the horses.

 

[Riverrose28]

I agree with Parm & Nathan, get a really good one, we have three, but, you won't need that many for your small area. I also use the white electric tape, three strands for my big guys, and four for my minis but my brood mare & foal paddocks have stock fence with electric wire so that is why I need three boxes. Buy the best you can it will be worth it 20 years or more down the road. The electric tape is excellent if you live in a storm area, as we have all manner of branches, trees, etc. fall on it, just get it off, stretch it back out and it's good to go. Plus some of the small post make some of it portable for moving around and saving grass. Are corner posts are wood, wood posts in the big pasture, but the small paddocks just use the small posts bought at TSC they have some with the loops attached so the tape just slides right in and makes it easy to tighten. For mantenienc you just wipe the tape off once a year wix a mixture of bleach & water, real easy.

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

I agree with Parm & Nathan, get a really good one, we have three, but, you won't need that many for your small area. I also use the white electric tape, three strands for my big guys, and four for my minis but my brood mare & foal paddocks have stock fence with electric wire so that is why I need three boxes. Buy the best you can it will be worth it 20 years or more down the road. The electric tape is excellent if you live in a storm area, as we have all manner of branches, trees, etc. fall on it, just get it off, stretch it back out and it's good to go. Plus some of the small post make some of it portable for moving around and saving grass. Are corner posts are wood, wood posts in the big pasture, but the small paddocks just use the small posts bought at TSC they have some with the loops attached so the tape just slides right in and makes it easy to tighten. For mantenienc you just wipe the tape off once a year wix a mixture of bleach & water, real easy.

Terry, can you either post of picture of the "small posts" you use or find me a link of them online? Since we are moving soon, we have 5 ac of pastures to fence with the eletric tape and I've always used t-post. As you know, they take a lot of muscle to get in the ground and maybe I could use less t-post and more of these more portable ones you've mentioned.

 

[Minimor]

These are the plastic step in posts that I am using--they work great for the minis and ponies and I like them much better than the posts that have just the loop on top--these are so easy to get the wire height or spacing just right.

http://m.alibaba.com/product-gs/222667597/step_in_poly_post_electric_fence.html

 

[kaprikorn]

I have one of the battery operated chargers from TSC, use the 3" wide ribbon and fiberglass poles. I ran 2 strands of ribbon and one of the wire type on the bottom. This covers several seperate areas over 3 acres. All my horses respect the fence, even the stallion with mare in heat on other side. They will not come near it and they can smell when it is on. My unit has a pretty nice jolt to it ( I have hit it once or twice !! ) Easy and fast to put up or move around.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I have used the solar operated one before and it does a good job. But it doesn't last very long, a couple of years or so. It is a good solution for somewhere with no power. They are basically disposable. But perhaps the technology has progressed in the last year or two?

Also, we try to remember to unplug our fence charger in a thunderstorm. Lightning struck the fence, blew the fuse in the charger and the GFI outlets. We replaced the fuse in the charger and that fixed it, thank goodness. Also had to replace the GFI outlet.

 

[Riverrose28]

Parm the ones that minimor posted a link for are the ones I get from TSC they are really cheap, only bout 89 cents per pole, and easy to install and move around. And believe me horse respect the fence. We had a storm with tornados come through her last night, my guys didn't even test the fence even with the electric off for over 12 hours.

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

Thanks Terry. I will look into them.

 

[Miniv]

We've been happiest with the Gallagher brand and use the white tape and a copper grounding rod. Larry prefers to put up 5 strands, but 4 are okay.

Remember when measuring the size of your paddock or pasture to times it by how many strands you're puting up when figuring out how strong a charger you need.

 

[Minimor]

Also be wary of using the cheapest brand of wire, especially when buying the poly rope or tape. Not all dealers will tell you this but some have said it to me--o e cheap variety of the rope fencing is very high impedence and will not be effective when fencing in a larger area--I was told not to buy this brand to fence my five acre pasture. They said it would be okay for a small area. A larger area will result in a very weak shock that won't keep animals off the fence.

Gallagher is a good brand; I bought Zareba and it is working well for me. I initially used two strands, both hot, but then cut the power to the bottom strand. I hooked the bottom one to the ground instead, and if a horse sticks his head between the two strands and touches both he will get a very good shock. I am not sure what brand my fencer is; we bought it in 1986 and have been using it ever since. It did get struck by lightning once but we had it fixed and it is still going strong.

 

[Riverrose28]

FYI, Hubby said last night that the last time he bought some replacments at TSC the price had gone up! Also we ordered our electric tape and insulators from a web site Hope I can post it here, I'll try but if it is deleted you can PM me.

www.horseguardfence.com toll free number is 800-773-36923. Just call or e-mail and they will send you info, including all you need for your area.

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

Thanks Terry! I plan to look into them as I'd planned/budgeted $5 per t post for our new pastures and I was going to need a min of 240 of them, so these would be a HUGE savings for us.

I do have other questions about them and plan on doing a poll.

 

[Jean_B]

Make sure it is "Low Impedence" which means it will won't ground out if you have tall wet weeds touching it. I use electric braid but because it is such a far distance from the house or barn, we use a battery type that we placed in a wooden box, and use a car or boat battery. Just have to re-charge it every few weeks.