[daisymay]

so i have aprox three acres that i can use for my herd of nigerian dwarfs and a horse.
currently their is field fencing on one side that i plan to put hot wire on top since the fence is so low(will fix next year). one side im almost done fencing with no climb horse fence. i have a buck pen set up on one end using cattle panels. so it leaves one side full of blackberries and poison oak to fence this winter.my question is. should i use netting to divide the pasture in smaller pens? if so what charger is recommended? i have a plug in charger but i dont have electricity so will have to get a battery powered or solar charger. what hot wire is recommended, currently i have large tape for my horse but i doubt it has enough charge to keep the nigerian dwarfs in the fence line it was used to keep my mare off the fence at my other place.
i also am getting a pole barn. so exciting. however it is up a hill from the pasture soooo. my horse will have a turnout area and a stall for winter, room for hay and some storage and planning on putting a kidding pen in the barn. any suggestions?

 

[ksalvagno]

Congratulations on the new barn. I don't have electric fence so can't help there.

 

[dchemphill1]

Just ran into a fencing problem with my Nigerians. We are experiencing a drought and my 6 hot wires are not very snappy because the ground is dry. Getting ready to add 3 more ground wires to the set up so I will have 6 wires from ground to about 2 1/2' above the ground. They should get a better pop when they try to squeeze out.

Never had an issue with my saanens but they were much bigger than the 2 month old Nigerians.

I have used the netting to moved boys around in the summer to work different parts of pasture. Has worked. Will work again as soon as the littles get a little bigger and wider so they can't crawl through the openings in the netting. The Nigerians are little escape artists.

Will need to bait the fence to get them trained to it.

 

[Jessica84]

Well I don’t have mine divided up for pasture rotation but I do have it to divide different goats up at certain times. Keep the bucks and their does from going together, doelings away from dams, when they are close to kidding they are penned up in the field close to the barn so I don’t have to walk the whole field on my nightly checks. So my vote is yes you might want to split it up for that reason maybe. Or maybe you might just want to do pasture rotation although when all the girls can go together I keep all the gates open and I feed less hay when they have a good amount of green grass out there and when it starts getting short and dry I feed more hay. It works pretty well since they will be lazy and go for easy food if they can.
My fences are actually field fencing and cattle panels. It’s cheaper then the netting and it just works. I do put a strand of hot fence along the fence to keep them from rubbing or going where I don’t want them. I have a parmark charger. It’s one I plug in but I believe it’s moerskikobers that has a parmark solar and it sounds like it works just as well as the one I have. It’s a good company.
Dchemphill1 I live in a SUPER dry area, we don’t get rain for over half the year. One of the reasons I went with parmark is because it was claimed to work in dry climates. I still didn’t mess around with any of the normal ground rods and I instead got a piece of oil field pipe we had and pounded that into the ground as far as it would go, then drilled a hole threw it to connect my ground wire. When I go out to water I fill that pipe up with water, which is still about a 6” above ground. That way it slowly saturated the ground right there at the ground and gets a good connection. It does a absolute wonderful job. I very possibly could have gotten away with just a few ground rods but I’m not joking about the dryness and it’s like pounding threw cement and no way to get down more then a few feet.

 

[dchemphill1]

Smart idea with pouring water in the rod! We normally are not this dry and have had good luck. I like the electric fence because it is cheaper and easy to install on all kinds of topography. Hate trying to stretch welded wire fence to get it good and tight. It works in a pinch for creating mini sections unless you have to pull up t posts and redrive every time you want to move them. Lots of work. Tractor with a loader makes easier work of pulling and driving t posts though.

 

[daisymay]

any experience with the deluxe field solar-pak 6? is it strong enough for goats do you think?

 

[daisymay]

or the magnum 12 12 volt. 30mile. didnt seem to be as many neg reviews. but seems not moisture proof but may last longer?

 

[dchemphill1]

I do not know that Energizer. I have used zareba and gallagher energizers. In the 50-100 mile range. It runs more than 7000 volts. The hotter the better for goats. Just working on adding 3 more runs of electric fence wire today these will be connect to the ground poles directly so the bottom 6 wires will be positive negative combo and the top three hot only. May still need to add one more if my little Nigerians start to try and jump over the first 6 wires. Sneaky little suckers.

 

[daisymay]

which one do you like? i am looking at battery or solar ones.

 

[dchemphill1]

They both work equally well. The advantage of solar is that you can take it anywhere and are not bound to wiring when and if you lose power. The advantage of AC is that it is consistent and you don't have to monitor batteries that will go bad after a period of time. I use both. Solar powered netting from Premier One during the summer to move the goats around and I ran electricity to my goat barn so I could power my regular fence.

Comes down to preferences and knowing your circumstances. Both will create a shock and your goats should learn to respect the psychological barrier. My older Saanen goat rarely tests the fence anymore. He has taken it on the nose and mouth several times.

Electric fencing is pretty affordable option for fencing but requires occasionally walking the line to look for shorts (wire touching t post or tree limb). You get really good at listening for the snapping of a fence that is grounding itself out.

Hope that helps and good luck.

 

[wndngrvr]

We use red top sheep and goat fencing - has 4 inch squares. Hot wire on the outside of the fencing as predators are my main worry. This is in an area of large pens for the goats. During the day our goats get the run of our property as they have great browse that way. Our whole property is fenced with field fence - but if we are going to town they are kept in their penned area for safety. Our yard for our home is field fence but going to be replaced this year with the sheep and goat fencing. Little guys can climb thru the field fence and I lost my whole strawberry patch to them this year. I don't like the netting (have several roles from Premier). We had a ewe lamb hang herself in it a few years back so I don't want it put up anymore.

 

[toth boer goats]

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