Need advice on electric fence

[B&M Farms]

Hello everyone. I have a gained the use of a 15 acre coastal meadow that joins my cow pastures on one side. The meadow didnt get cut this year because of the drought but has alot of standing somewhat green grass. My neighbor sold his cows and is willing to lease it to me. I was wanting to graze it this fall to help on hay by putting an electric fence around the two sides that are not fenced, but I dont have any experience with electric fencing. I have searched this forum and gained some info but would like to know more from some of you that have already seen what works. I was looking at using a 10 mile solar controller. Would this be big enough? Im not sure if the solar thing is worth the added cost or works as good as just keeping hot battery. I would also like to know how many wires would be enough to realistically expect to hold them. I have plenty of extra t posts to use so was trying to do this as cheap as possible and it still work. Thanks for any help.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I use Parmak I have four and a couple are over ten years old and still going strong, of course the battery has been changed out. Now they are a couple hundred bucks for the solar model.
http://www.baygard.com/

 

[Caustic Burno]

I used three wire's in my bull lot two on everything else they are hotter than the hinges on the gates to he!!.

 

[cross_7]

i sell a ton of the parmak 12 volt solar chargers (mag-12-sp) that cb is talking about in sw ok for steers on wheat pasture.
imo for the money it is the best.

another thing on a non-solar keeping a battery charged is a huge pain not to mention what happens to cattle when they lick a battery

 

[msscamp]

Hello everyone. I have a gained the use of a 15 acre coastal meadow that joins my cow pastures on one side. The meadow didnt get cut this year because of the drought but has alot of standing somewhat green grass. My neighbor sold his cows and is willing to lease it to me. I was wanting to graze it this fall to help on hay by putting an electric fence around the two sides that are not fenced, but I dont have any experience with electric fencing. I have searched this forum and gained some info but would like to know more from some of you that have already seen what works. I was looking at using a 10 mile solar controller. Would this be big enough? Im not sure if the solar thing is worth the added cost or works as good as just keeping hot battery. I would also like to know how many wires would be enough to realistically expect to hold them. I have plenty of extra t posts to use so was trying to do this as cheap as possible and it still work. Thanks for any help.

We've used a Red Snapper solar charger with good luck for many years. Regardless of what type of fencer you choose to use, you need to understand that an electric fence is not a physical barrier. It is a psychological barrier and I would strongly suggest you electric-fence train your cattle in an actual pen because a lot of cattle will simply jump through the electric fence the first time they encounter it.

 

[cross_7]

i also sell zareba and to my knowledge red snap'r doesn't offer a 12 volt solar charger.
i wouldn't use anything less than a 12 volt unless the cattle are hotwire broke.
as CB stated the parmak when you hook one up right(read the directions) it will cause you to involuntarily evacuate your bladder

 

[dun]

A 12 volt and a deep cycle battery is in my opinion a better solution. A decent deep cycle battery will last for several weeks before needing recharging. I have 3-4 of that type and one that hooks to a deep cycle battery and has a separate solar panel that keeps the battery charged. Every couple of weeks I'll pull a battery and recharge it replacing it with a little 12 volt motor cycle battery. When it's charged (a copule of hours) I put it back and move the MC battery to the next one.

 

[Farmerjon]

Had trouble with electric chargers until a guy that raised pasture pork told me to forget about reading how many miles or acres the charger charged. He said to look at the Joules. I bought 14 and a 15 joule chargers for my farm. Those things will literally knock you down. No more cows across the fence or horses walking through the wires of a high tensile fence. Follow Dun's advice on the chargers, he is right on the money. One wire will hold them on grass. Around here you have to plan on deer taking out a temp fence and look after it daily.

 

[tncattle]

I used a 10 mile Zareba solar around 28 acres of river bottom pasture for two years. I only used one wire about 32-36 inches high and it held the cattle fine. I never had a bull but only stocker cattle ranging from 500-800 lbs. It always ran between 7000-8000 volts and yes I accidentally touched it once and it was really 7000-8000 volts I assure you! Once the cattle figure out it's hot they leave it alone--I actually turned it off once when working on the fence and forgot to turn it back on and they didn't get out for the few days it was off. I bought my solar charger used for $35 and it worked great. Still have it but lost my lease on that land-- :cry2:

 

[cross_7]

A 12 volt and a deep cycle battery is in my opinion a better solution. A decent deep cycle battery will last for several weeks before needing recharging. I have 3-4 of that type and one that hooks to a deep cycle battery and has a separate solar panel that keeps the battery charged. Every couple of weeks I'll pull a battery and recharge it replacing it with a little 12 volt motor cycle battery. When it's charged (a copule of hours) I put it back and move the MC battery to the next one.

the mag-12-sp and mag-uo are the exact same charger. the only difference is the sp is solar powered and the uo is unit only( no battery or solar panel).
so once you figure the cost of a deep cycle battery and the problem of having to haul ir somewhere to charge the battery, i like the solar.

 

[cross_7]

Had trouble with electric chargers until a guy that raised pasture pork told me to forget about reading how many miles or acres the charger charged. He said to look at the Joules. I bought 14 and a 15 joule chargers for my farm. Those things will literally knock you down. No more cows across the fence or horses walking through the wires of a high tensile fence. Follow Dun's advice on the chargers, he is right on the money. One wire will hold them on grass. Around here you have to plan on deer taking out a temp fence and look after it daily.

that is exactly right.

 

[B&M Farms]

I purchased a Zareba 12 volt controller. I didnt find a feed store close that had a Parmak in stock. Thanks for all the advice with the controllers as I would have probably bought the 6 volt. I am thinking of using 3 wires at 1,2, and 3 feet from the ground with my post about 15 feet apart. Does this sound like it will do? I dont have anything too wild. Gotten rid of the troublemakers a long time ago. Thanks

 

[Caustic Burno]

I purchased a Zareba 12 volt controller. I didnt find a feed store close that had a Parmak in stock. Thanks for all the advice with the controllers as I would have probably bought the 6 volt. I am thinking of using 3 wires at 1,2, and 3 feet from the ground with my post about 15 feet apart. Does this sound like it will do? I dont have anything too wild. Gotten rid of the troublemakers a long time ago. Thanks

After they become trained one wire will hold them, if they have been trained by the right charger.
You might have ground issues at first, I had to go back and add ground rod's due to the drought.

 

[SDM]

A search brought up a number of these older threads on this topic. I'm planning to put a couple of strands of electric in front of some older fence. It should all be redone but I don't have the time, money or equipment to do it right, right now. I just want them to stay off the existing fence. I'd like to get your recommendations for a charger that's available currently. This first stretch is about 1000' so 2 or 3 times that depending on how many strands I put up. This is for stockers so I'm going to put some inside a small lot to train them as well.

 

[M-5]

I recommend Taylor Fence - cyclops I have excellent service out of them and they are made right here in alabamer

 

[pdubdo]

Just trained my first 4 heifers to electric fence. Watched a couple youtube videos and put a hot wire across a corner of my pens with a pile of range cubes. Took longer than expected for all the cows to hit the wire (like almost 2 hours). After I let them into the pasture, I followed them in my utv along (just outside) the fence, making sure that as they tested it, they didn't just run through it. Within 20 minutes they were all settled down and three weeks later they are still holding with 1 strand of polywire and step-in portable electric fencing. Good luck!

 

[Supa Dexta]

Relate fencers to car accidents - KV would be the speed the vehicle is travelling, Joules is the size of the vehicle.

1 jules = getting hit by a bicycle doing 30mph
10 jules = getting hit by an 18 wheeler at the same 30mph.

They're both doing 30 (Kv of the fence) but one hits with a lot more oomph. I don't care how many miles they say the vehicle can go, that depends on too many variables to mean anything.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Dexta - great explanation. Even I understood that!! I always knew the joules were the important factor, but loved the visual!

 

[SDM]

I ended up with the parmak (southern states) as it was available and pretty much what we had when I was growing up, familiar. The book says 6 something output joules and the cheap tester I bought says 7000v at the furthest point from the charger. So far so good. Every one has stayed home up to this point.

 

[tjmdo]

How much line can a solar energizer charge? I had 2 TSC 10 mike chargers on my place with a 2 line system. 1 hot 1 ground. Total hot wire approximately 5miles. Would not keep them in. We changed to a powerflex charger with .5 joule output and ran the hole place. Cows got out. Now we were told by powerflex that the generator is only good for about a half mile of hot wire. So we have them in a 6 acre paddock. We really don't want to buy 5 more chargers. Any advice?