Electric Fence to keep out cats?

[oosik]

I'm in the trap/relocate camp. Anything else will probably end up being a waste of time/money.

 

[mikester]

I would feed the tomcats, trap the tomcats, and remove them to a shelter, a trap and release group, or offer them as barn cats. I'm not wild about free roaming intact cats.

I would be concerned about unsupervised electric fencing in any area where children might come into contact with the fence wire. The electric jolts can cause injury to young kids. I would also check the local laws.

All the best,

Peter

I guess the reason why there are fewer country kids than city kids is that they are all dying from touching the electric farm fences. Oh yes, barb wire fences are probably killing them off too. Classic Darwinism with real life examples.

 

[2manyrocks]

Electric fences are prohibited in some cities along with razor wire.

 

[EddieWalker]

As someone else mentioned, a catio to keep her cats in, let them enjoy fresh air, and keep other cats out.

On the electric fence subject, how are you going to make the cat be able to touch the hot wire and a good ground at the same time? That would be the trick. If you can figure that out, it would work just fine.

I enclosed her porch a few years ago for some of her cats. But she has a few others that she likes to let them walk around in her back yard. With the Tom Cats showing up, she wont let any of them into the back yard, or the porch.

I completely forgot that you had to be touching the ground for the hot wire to be effective. I was thinking that I would put the hot wire a few inches above the wood privacy fence and that would work. Now I realize that I made a huge mistake in forgetting the basics of how an electric fence works.

Scrap that idea. I guess I'm going to have to do it her way with more netting.

 

[2manyrocks]

Could be more entertaining if she kept her cats on the porch, but put motion activated sprinklers in her yard.

 

[Jrasband]

Electric netting would work as long as they don't have something to climb beside the netting that will allow them to jump over it. I would think the poultry net would work. You could call premeir 1 and ask them what would be best.

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[Spindifferent]

I have an elderly client who is a little wacky about her cats. Her backyard has a fencing system to keep her cats in, but it doesn't work at keeping a couple of stray tom cats out. She has stage 4 cancer and is driving to MD Anderson in Houston, 4 hours each way, for treatment. Between the cancer, her age, and being obsessive about her cats, she isn't able to function properly until her cats are safe from the visiting stay top cats. Shooting them isn't an option.

Her idea is to add more and more fencing to a degree that I'm not comfortable with. I think it's just a waste of time and money to do it her way. I suggested putting a hot wire around the top of her fence, across her house, and her shed. This way the leaves should still blow off of her roof, and it won't look like a concentration camp. She is open to the idea, but is afraid of hurting the cats. Did I mention that she's a little bit crazy?

I have a 2 Joule charger at my place to keep out coyotes and racoons. It works great, but it's overkill for her needs. Money is always a factor, and I don't want to buy more charger then I need. Does anybody know how much power I should be looking at to keep cats out? I'll run a solid metal wire on insulators, probably put in two ground rods. The yard is about 100 feet by 80 feet, so I'm looking at a total run of less then 400 feet. Just one lap around the top of the fence, house and shed.

Or should I try something different?

Howdy Eddie,

Here's a photo of what we built to keep our cats inside the backyard. It works great to keep the cats in, and has been mostly effective to keep other cats, raccoons, possums, etc. out of the backyard. I say mostly because occasionally smart raccoons and possums have made their way to the inside. The angled chickenwire on top is key to the effectiveness as cats don't like to climb upside down. While we never added a hotwire to the outside of the fence, it could have been added near the top as extra protection from the occasional climber trying to get inside.

The posts are 2x4x8 with 2x2 as the angled pieces. The fence is 5 foot 2x4 with chickenwire on top (the photo below shows a plastic mesh which was eventually replaced with metal chickenwire).

While the design does look like a fence around a prison, it works.

Good luck with the crazy cat person.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I enclosed her porch a few years ago for some of her cats. But she has a few others that she likes to let them walk around in her back yard. With the Tom Cats showing up, she wont let any of them into the back yard, or the porch.

I completely forgot that you had to be touching the ground for the hot wire to be effective. I was thinking that I would put the hot wire a few inches above the wood privacy fence and that would work. Now I realize that I made a huge mistake in forgetting the basics of how an electric fence works.

Scrap that idea. I guess I'm going to have to do it her way with more netting.

One last thought about "I completely forgot that you had to be touching the ground for the hot wire to be effective."
All you need is two wires. One stretched along fence top goes to charger black ground, this wire doesn't need insulators. Other red post 'hot' wire 3-4" above it does need to be insulated. Insulators come in every shape, size, color and attach different ways.
That still may be your fastest, easiest solution especially if it's a wooden fence.

 

[MossRoad]

...

Or should I try something different?

Has anyone attempted to convince her to spay her female cats and neuter her males?

Tom cats want to mate and fight other males for those rights. Spayed females don't attract Toms and neutered males don't really care all that much.

Anyhow, good luck. It's nice of you to consider what she wants.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks. I'm just now starting to rethink this and it might work if I fold some one inch welded wire netting over the top of the wood fence and attach it to the ground rods. Then I can run a hot wire about 6 inches above the fence.

Just the wire might stop them from walking along the top of the fence, or climbing the fence to jump over the existing cat fence netting. But having the welded wire on top of the fence should provide me with the ground to provide a shock when they touch the hot wire.

It's more work, but it might be doable.

 

[EddieWalker]

Has anyone attempted to convince her to spay her female cats and neuter her males?

Tom cats want to mate and fight other males for those rights. Spayed females don't attract Toms and neutered males don't really care all that much.

Anyhow, good luck. It's nice of you to consider what she wants.

Her cats are all spayed. There isn't any food out for them. I have no idea why they have decided to show up and hang out in her back yard. She lives in a private gated community in the middle of nowhere without any animal control services.

 

[MossRoad]

Maybe they're hanging out because it's a cat social?

Weird.

The folded wire cloth on the fence grounded with a hot wire above it sounds doable. A wire welcome mat, so to speak.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Thanks. I'm just now starting to rethink this and it might work if I fold some one inch welded wire netting over the top of the wood fence and attach it to the ground rods. Then I can run a hot wire about 6 inches above the fence.

Just the wire might stop them from walking along the top of the fence, or climbing the fence to jump over the existing cat fence netting. But having the welded wire on top of the fence should provide me with the ground to provide a shock when they touch the hot wire.

It's more work, but it might be doable.

I'd make it easy. Gutter screen wire would make it easy, like this 6" wide stuff. Simply roll along fence top and staple it on. It wouldn't look bad, bending edges down.
Overlap a bit as you go so it makes contact.
Wire that to charger black post...you do not need a ground (you could wire it also to a driven ground if you're concerned about lightning).
Then those plastic insulators with metal screw ends run up fence and along top every 10ft should be fine. Electric fence wire through them. This hot wire (we use both white round and 1/2" flat ribbon for horses) make sure it's at least 3"-4" away from fence everywhere. Too wide the cats may scoot under.
I'm retired electronic technician.
It will work.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

The added bonus she won't have to worry about raccoons or opposums either. Won't hurt birds. Won't hurt cats...one snap and they're gone.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

You can buy a high voltage tester at the farm store. My test is a blade of grass you feel the tingle...wet the grass it's stronger. (I'm serious).

 

[ponytug]

You can buy a high voltage tester at the farm store. My test is a blade of grass you feel the tingle...wet the grass it's stronger. (I'm serious).

I used to use the grass test, but having bought a tester, I find it is very helpful for running down the odd short quickly. (Voltage higher, or lower as you walk along it. Rancher's version of "Marco Polo"...)

All the best, Peter

 

[ericm979]

For a while we had an electric top wire on the fence around the chicken yard. It wasn't a big horse fence charger, just a small one that we'd been using to run a temporary fence to keep chickens in a pasture.

One day my wife came running in and said there were bobcats in the chicken yard. It turned out that a female and two nearly full grown children were in there killing chickens. Actually they were done. :-(

The electric fence hadn't kept them out but it hurt enough on the way in that they did not want to leave. I took the opportunity to make it a really miserable experience. I squirted them with a hose and whacked them with branches. Mom eventually went over the wire but the kids did not. They were really unhappy when I let them out.

If I'd killed them, more would move in on the territory and we'd still have trouble. But if I made it a bad experience they'd stick around their territory but avoid the chicken yard in the future. We didn't have a bobcat problem after that.

Anyhow the point of the story is that the electric wire might make it worse by keeping the intruder cats from leaving.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I'd make it easy. Gutter screen wire would make it easy, like this 6" wide stuff. Simply roll along fence top and staple it on. It wouldn't look bad, bending edges down.
Overlap a bit as you go so it makes contact.
Wire that to charger black post...you do not need a ground (you could wire it also to a driven ground if you're concerned about lightning).
Then those plastic insulators with metal screw ends run up fence and along top every 10ft should be fine. Electric fence wire through them. This hot wire (we use both white round and 1/2" flat ribbon for horses) make sure it's at least 3"-4" away from fence everywhere. Too wide the cats may scoot under.
I'm retired electronic technician.
It will work.View attachment 801736

This is the right approach. I'd take it one step further and use chicken wire or similar for the hot instead of fence wire. Basically one layer of some kind of metal mesh attached to the black terminal and another layer attached to the red terminal. Position the layers so there's no way to climb over without touching both at the same time. You need to insulated the hot layer from everything the grounded layer touches, I've done that by mounting the hot layer on PVC pipe.

I once made a chicken tractor out of chicken wire and electrified the chicken wire. The bottom layer of the tractor was 4" PVC pipe. Something probably could have easily dug under the PVC pipe, but anything that came up and touched the wire got shocked and went away.

This is safer for passers-by because if the black wire isn't attached to ground you can't get shocked just by touching the hot side.

 

[MossRoad]

...Won't hurt birds. ..

I have an acquaintance that has shown me pictures of bird legs hanging from her electric fence. There's a barb wire strand right next to it. Apparently the birds get on both wires at the same time and ZAP! Rare, but it can happen.