Passing along a fence lesson

[cooper101]

Something that worked well for me so I thought I'd pass it on. Somebody might be able to use the info.

With my last 2 batches of pigs, I just used electric wire and it worked fine, but I have more pigs this time and I moved my pen. With this batch, I've been a little nervous about fencing because they're right next to the neighbor's corn field and if they get out, they're in the corn and gone forever. I have one long pen about 70 x 200 feet that they will get moved into soon which will be their final home. It's just 4 strands of electric wire about 2 feet high at the highest points.

I started them in a pen of hog panels 3 panels long by 2 panels wide with one electric strand near the bottom. The panels kept them in while they learned that testing the boundary gets you zapped. They got where they're pretty happy with their home and used to me. Then, I bought 4' orange snow fence from Home Depot and cut it in half so it's 2 feet high and ran it around one end of the final pen zip-tied to the top and bottom wire every so often. One end of the hog panel pen was using the 4 strand fence, so they got to learn that the orange grid is some bad news, too. Then I let them out into the part of the pen that was 4-strand and snow fence. They saw that grid and haven't gotten near it. They know what it is. I plan to run the snow fence around all the rest of the pen and then let them out into the big final pen this weekend. I think they would be fine without the snow fence, but I'm much more confident they'll stay put with the additional visible barrier of the snowfence.

All the fencing I had came with the house when we moved, so I had all these great posts and wire, but I needed more of a physical barrier and hog panel and electronet were out of my budget. The snow fence seems to work great. It gives them the barrier to see and the electric zaps them to move them back off it. Also, when it comes time to butcher, I think I'll be able to use the snow fence to pen them in tighter so the butcher can get at them easier. They're as scared of the snow fence as they are of the electric because to them, it's one in the same.

It's not quite as convenient as other methods, but if you have wire from horses or cattle or other animals and want to use it on pigs, the snow fence has been a pretty cheap way to retro-fit a wire fence to work with pigs.

[tailwagging]

thank you for the tip