Help Me Design Electric Fence For Garden

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

I need help designing an electric fence to keep the ground hogs, rabbits and deer that come to eat our garden each year. Attached is a plan of our garden. What I would like to do is be able to get into each grass path between each row to cut the grass and each planting row each spring and fall to roto till. So both the top between 1 and 2 and bottom fence between 3 and 4 need to be removed temporarily. The garden does not have electric near by so I will use a solar unit. I plan to buy everything at TSC, unless you have a better internet site to buy from. I would like to install the fence once and not each spring if possible. I was thinking of putting in pressure treated 4”x4” in each corner, other then that I am not sure how to proceed. We have 2 acres and no kids or pets that will get into the fence. Now for the questions.

1.How many wires do I need and how far apart should they be? Also how high should the overall fence be?
2.How can I temporarily remove the fence between points 1-2 and 3-4, so I can have access to the rows? Will a Rubber Gate Handle work, any better options.
3.How far apart do the posts have to be to support the wire?
4.What kind of wire should I use HIGH VISIBILITY ELECTRIC FENCE TAPE, or just plain electric fence wire, what gauge?

 

[MossRoad]

Hi.

Our garden is about 25' wide and 60' deep.

For our fence we used the type of fence that has the vertical wires about 4 inches apart. The horizontal wires are only about an inch appart at the bottom and gradually get farther apart as you go up higher. By the time they reach the 4' height, they are 4 inches apart.

We mounted the wire fence to the outside of a frame made of 4x4's every 8 feet and one 2x4 rail along the top.

Then we mounted electric fence stand offs to each 4x4 post at 6 inches off the ground and one foot off the ground. This allowed us to run two strands of fence around the entire perimeter of the garden. One at 6 inches and one at one foot.

When the critters try to climb the fence, they have to touch one of the wires while they are standing on the ground to get a shock. We also burried the fence two inches into the soil, so it acts like the ground. If any animal touches a wire and the ground or a wire and the fence, they get zapped. This is fine for the ground dwelling critters, but squirrels just hop up on the 2x4 top rail and jump in. If I had to do it over again, I'd mount the wire fence one inch above the top of the 2x4 rail and run a strand of electrified wire one inch away along the outside edge. That way, if they jumped up to the top of the fence, chances are excellent that they'd grab the hot wire and grounded fence at the same time and zappo!

For a gate, we just use a nice wooden gate and have patio blocks under it so there are no gaps.

This system has kept the ground hogs, rabbits and other ground critters at bay for many years. It is solar powered.

As for deer, 4' ain't gonna do it. 6' ain't gonna do it either, as I've seen them jump 7' in person. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

For deer, think of the following as a rectangle inside a rectangle inside a rectangle... I'd try putting up several strands at 1', 3' and 4' on posts about 10' outside of the garden. Then I'd run another set of posts about 5' inside of that with the same strand spacing. That way, if they jump the first row of fence, they'll hit the second, and possibly the main garden fence. The outside posts don't have to be anything fancy. Just T-Posts with insulators. And they don't have to be spaced that close together, so you won't need that many. Also, electric fence wire is not that expensive. The insulators will cost a bit.

Gating will be the fun part. How to make one that won't zap you when you open it? Hee hee. They make insluated connectors and handles for electric fence gates. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Good luck with your planning. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[rswyan]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The garden does not have electric near by so I will use a solar unit. )</font>
How far from electric ?

Price the batteries for a solar unit ... you might find that it would be cheaper in the long run to run electric out to the area as opposed to replacing the batteries very year or so ... that was the recommendation the manager at TSC gave to me.

Or you could do what I'm doing:

Last year I put up a temporary fence (plastic push-in posts) with an electric charger on a t-post and ran an extension cord out to it from the shed (about 90') Next year I plan on rebuilding the fence to make it permanent. The charger will be located inside the shed, out of the weather. I buried a piece of 3/4" conduit underneath the driveway over to the area where the garden is. Then I ran this heavy gauge wire that TSC sells in the conduit that is used to feed the fence from the charger. The wire is intended for direct burial and was fairly cheap for a 50' length.

And another source for fencing supplies is Agri-Supply.

 

[63DH8]

I took automobile brake drums and welded fenceposts onto them. For bunnies and small critter, place your insulators low. For deer, run wire from the top wire at the top of the fencepost to about six feet out away from the garden, towards where the deer are, to a brakedrum that has two inches of fencepost welded to it with an insulator on the fencepost section.

You can move the fenceposts easily when you mow by simply picking them up and moving them.

 

[srs]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I need help designing an electric fence to keep the ground hogs, rabbits and deer that come to eat our garden each year.

I plan to buy everything at TSC, unless you have a better internet site to buy from.)</font>

Tom, I too had a problem with deer tearing up my Leyland Cypress trees that I had planted. I originally was going to go to TSC but I learned on this site (TBN) of a place called KENCOVE. Their website is www.kencove.com. When I called them it was about 4:59PM on a Friday (I didn't realize that they close at 5 PM), and kept them on the phone until 5:45 PM. When I realized that they closed at 5 PM I apologized and they said don't worry about it, they were glad to help me with what I needed. Anyway, after describing what I intended to do I ordered everything right then and there and the supplies were delivered within 2 or 3 business days. They made several recommendations, etc. that really helped me in deciding how to put up an electric fence without breaking the bank. I was really impressed with their service and highly recommend them. Everything worked out great for me, no more problems with the deer. I spoke to John McConnell. Good luck! They were great to deal with!!!!!!!!

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

I am designing the fence and have a question regarding a gate. Can I use a steel tube gate like this sample gate and electrify the gate? I plan on using 6 wires in the 6' high fence. I thought this would be easier to open instead of disconnecting 6 wires to get into the area. I would hang the gate from a wood post and use the hinges and lock to charge the fence and carry the power to the rest of the fence. I could even put a switch by the gate to kill power. The garden is not large, 60’ by 75’ I will use the gate to get the BX into the garden and to enter garden, will this work?

 

[midlf]

Your would have to insulate the gate supports/locks. The wood pole will not do a good job of insulating. Passing the charge across the gate will also not work well enough to get the fence downstream to be effective. The previous owner of the place we bought passed the fence charge through a wire gate connection. It does not work well. Google on electric fence, there are some good info sources out there. Sorry but I did not bookmark them.

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Thanks for all the suggestions and help, I have used them all!

The fence posts are installed; insulators are installed, NOW for the wiring questions. I am using 14 gauge steel aluminum wire for the 7 lines on the fence.

1.Can I use the same bare 14 gauge wire to connect the ground rods? Some of the research I have done suggests insulated wire for the ground rods, some do not say anything. The grounding wire should be insulated and rated for 600-20,000 volts. I looked at the home center stores and the wires are not listed for this voltage. I am considering just using the same wire for the fence for the grounding wire, will it work?

2.Connecting each of the 7 wires together from the power unit, I was just planning on wrapping the wire together without using any type of connector, will this work?

3.I plan on carry the power over the top of the 8’ gate to feed both sides of the fence from the power unit to the fence. Will a single wire work or should I use several wires wrapped together?

Sorry if these are stupid questions I have never wired an electric fence before./forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[RonR]

If your fence doesn't keep the deer out, google on deer fence. I've seen some online that have their wires angled at 30 or 45 degrees, like the fence is laying down. They claim that deer won't jump it as it's too wide. Don't know if that's true. It looks to be six feet wide from the lowest wire to the tallest wire, IIRC.

Enjoy.

ron

 

[midlf]

1. you don't need insulated wire for the ground. Insulation is only needed where you don't want the charge to go to ground. That is not the case on the ground lead. The bare fence wire would work but regular single strand electrical wire, insulated or bare, will be easier to handle and route. You do need good grounds. IMO you need two 8' ground rods, 6' apart, at least. Poor grounds make for poor fence performance.


2. Just wrapping the wire will work, sorta. But can be a source of poor performance. Better would be to use a split bolt to make the connection. The fence companies sell connectors that require a special tool. This connector works well but a split bolt is just as effective and does not require special tools.

3. Single wire will work just fine. Multiple wires are needed for high current. Electric fence chargers do not have high current. (If they did have high current they would kill you.)

Google on "electric fence" there is a lot of good information out there.