Electric fence- Is this normal?

hurryiml8 · #1 10/26/13, 10:46 AM

I have a light duty Fi-shock charger. I have a strand on top of woven wire and one halfway up. My young buck got caught in it. He fell down and laid there moaning and screaming. My GS (7) looked on in horror as I ran for the plug. Would this have killed him if I had been gone? I have no other way to keep him off the fence and I have used this charger his whole life. Should I raise the middle wire so it's harder to get his leg over it. It's at the top of his leg now. I was just wondering if anyone else has had a goat collapse like that. It is a continuous charge. I tried the pulse kind and they ignored it. Thanks.

secuono · #2 10/26/13, 11:21 AM

Continual? Yes, he has no chance to escape, so it would of eventually killed him or done serious damage.
Aren't there trippers for these fences? Where if it senses it's been touched for X amount of time, it cuts off??

Grumpy old man · #3 10/26/13, 11:22 AM

I'll bet he finally learned to stay away from the wire this time . add another one lower down

where I want to · #4 10/26/13, 01:17 PM

I use a pulse charge and my goaties don't ignore it but then I have never tried to pen a buck with it either. Scary.

hurryiml8 · #5 10/26/13, 04:51 PM

I don't know about it tripping if anything touches it too long. It was really perhaps 10 seconds until I got the plug pulled. I hope he learned a lesson, but I doubt he did. He is in rut and persistent. Anyway, I decided to cut the wire between the posts and then hook it back together. I believe this will break apart if he gets caught in it again. I just hate weakening my fences.

Frosted Mini's · #6 10/26/13, 07:59 PM

Sounds like you need to work on getting some other type of fencing. Is this just electric strands? Surprised it would keep a buck in at all! If your only option is electric (don't see how that's possible) I'd look at getting one that pulses but with a nice BIG strong charge. I think if anything it might just be better to buy a buck when ready to breed the does, then re-sell after they are bred...or find someone you can rent from, so you can just keep him with the does while he is there.

hurryiml8 · #7 10/26/13, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosted Mini's

Sounds like you need to work on getting some other type of fencing. Is this just electric strands? Surprised it would keep a buck in at all! If your only option is electric (don't see how that's possible) I'd look at getting one that pulses but with a nice BIG strong charge. I think if anything it might just be better to buy a buck when ready to breed the does, then re-sell after they are bred...or find someone you can rent from, so you can just keep him with the does while he is there.

The electric is to keep him off the woven wire fence. I hate to see any animal hanging/climbing/pushing on fences. I wouldn't even try to keep him in just electric. Plan to convert to cattle panels, but will still use electric on top. There aren't a lot of Lamanchas in my area, so he's mine.
We ate last years buck after the girls settled, but this one's too well bred for that.
I really wondered if anyone had ever seen a goat react that way. I will look into a charger with a strong pulse. The other one might have been too weak.

wintrrwolf · #8 10/26/13, 09:53 PM

Saw a goat once touch a hot wire of a fence for cows...he jerked away fell like his back legs didn't want to work and then got up and ran. It was a pulsing one. I got the same brand for here...surprise it works for all my goats including my 4 bucks.

And yes if you had been gone and he stuck there being constantly zapped he most likely would have gone into shock and then ....

where I want to · #9 10/27/13, 01:31 PM

There is also a technique for intensifying the effect of a hotwire. If you cut a 6 or so inch piece of wire, make a small loop at the top and curve it gently, you can hang it off a top wire so the curve points the cut end outwards toward the animal. Touching that point gets a whole lot more attention than just the wire.
I had a horse that would happily slip between wires on a charged fence- before I could get to the gate, she was out the other end of the field- how she managed it I don't know but it never seemed to bother her. Then an old cowpoke type said to do this and it worked like magic- she never went near it again once she touched that hanging wire.

hurryiml8 · #10 10/27/13, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by where I want to

There is also a technique for intensifying the effect of a hotwire. If you cut a 6 or so inch piece of wire, make a small loop at the top and curve it gently, you can hang it off a top wire so the curve points the cut end outwards toward the animal. Touching that point gets a whole lot more attention than just the wire.
I had a horse that would happily slip between wires on a charged fence- before I could get to the gate, she was out the other end of the field- how she managed it I don't know but it never seemed to bother her. Then an old cowpoke type said to do this and it worked like magic- she never went near it again once she touched that hanging wire.

Now, that's a great idea! I think I could rig it to where he would touch that before he got close enough to get tangled. Thank you.

Cygnet · #11 10/27/13, 11:45 PM

We have an electric fence up to keep elk and our goats out of a flower garden and lawn. We have alternating strands of hot and grounded polywire. It's a lower end pulsing charger.

Last elk that tried to push through the fence got her head through between a hot and a grounded strand. She bolted so hard she left six inch deep hoofprints in the ground from her rear feet, and yanked a 5' t-post out of heavy clay soil. Bent the t-post about 15 degrees, too. Broke two strands of the polywire.

We haven't had elk tracks along that fence since ... LOLOLOL.

(Plain aluminum wire doesn't work well with the elk -- they learn to run through it. And elk are harder on fences than goats -- the cow elk around here weigh around 600 pounds and they'll stand on a regular fence and push it down if they want something on the other side. )