Underground dog fence - looking for advice & tips

[ejtaylor822]

Was curious if anyone has any advice, tips or ideas that can help me put in an underground fence for my buddy – Weaver the choc lab, pic attached. I have a 5-25 acre system with 2000’ of cable. I am going to fence roughly 4 acres. Half of this is wooded, the other half is yard. The wooded part I am going to clear a path with the tractor (seat time!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) and lay the wire on the ground using landscape staples to hold it down.

Burying in the yard is the concern. I rented an earth saw when I put in some edging, but that makes a 2” wide trench (non-adjustable) and really chews up the ground. I have an edger for my string trimmer that I am thinking about using, but, if the ground is hard it is pretty useless - not sure if I really want to push a string trimmer edger around 2 acres. Don’t have access to a metal shop. Otherwise, think I would just take a piece ¼” x 2” flat bar about 24” long, sharpen one edge, bend it into an “L” shape, attach it to the draw bar and just pull behind the tractor slicing a little trench.

Will probably mount the transmitter in the garage, or, underneath the house. I was planning on putting it in the enclosure for the septic pump, but, the directions say to mount it where the temp never drops below 32 degrees. Under the house might be pushing it, but, think it would be alright.

Anyway, just looking for any tips, or tricks as I start this process. My buddy does pretty good on the electronic collars so I think this will work well for us. Any and all input is appreciated and welcome.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Dutch445]

I have one customer that does that for a living,, and he has converted a walk behind tiller into a machine for laying the wire.. I think he uses a big saw blade in the center of that shaft instead of tines.
I was thinking about maybe some sort of disc, that can just roll along the ground with some decent pressure.
Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to make a short shaft on the side of the loader.. and a bearing for the disc, like a big disc from a farmer.. 22 or 24".. that shouldn't take much to get it down into the ground a couple inches.. and if you were going straight, it should make a nice slice..
any other thoughts??

/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Freds]

Nice looking pooch.
This is a good reason to buy a subsoiler. They will rip through the earth/sod and barely leave a trace when the ground closes back up on itself (with a little help). If you do some searching here you should come across an old thread where someone mounted a piece of conduit with a 90 degree bend on the back side of a subsoiler and fed the wire through it as the subsoiler ripped the earth.

 

[wushaw]

You don't have to worry about stapling it to the ground...it ain't goin anywhere, I 've got 600' that is uncovered along a fence that hadn't moved in three years.
As far as burying it easily I can't help ya there I did about 1500ft the hard way..edger with blade and a middle buster, I liked the middle buster method but covering it up was labor intensive.
I like the suggested subsoiler and 90deg conduit idea with a spool holder.
I will make one suggestion on where you bury it.
Bury it where there is a noticeable obsticle like ditch, fence, creek, tree line...etc.
It will give him/her a noticeable object/permanent landmark when they are chasing something and know where to stop.
I know train with the flags and all that good stuff but when you pull the flags and if it is just flat field or yard they will forget especially when they are not wearing their collar(no tone).
My Brittany will not cross a barb wire fence in any state cause she recognizes the fence as a bad thing to cross without my help or riding in a vehicle of some kind.

 

[EdKing]

I would recomend the subsoiler as well, I have used on to bury quite a bit of wire in my yard. You just walk along the trench (maybe 3 inches wide) and push the soil back in with your feet, after a week or so you won't even notice whrer the trench was dug.

 

[Inspector507]

The mini-tiller I have also came with an edger blade. It was strong enough to cut across my dirt/stone driveway to install the cable for mine.

 

[ejtaylor822]

Hey guys thanks for the info. Like the idea of the tiller & mini tiller. Could see where this would make short work of this.

Good comment about having a noticeable barrier. Hadn't really thought about that one. The wire in the yard will run along the edge of our road. I am planning about 6' back. That should work shouldn't it? In the woods is another story. Not sure what do there. Was actually thinking about leaving the flags up as it won't hurt anything and no one will see them unless they are back there - which should be just us and the deer.

I had wondered about the sub-soiler. Just was not sure if this would really mess up where I was laying the cable. Sounds like it won't if you can push it back in with your foot.

I had seen the thread about the conduit and threading through the dirt. Once again, I thoght the sub-soiler would really make a mess. Looks like I have that all wrong. Going to check on the sub-soiler as I have other uses for it as well.

When you guys buried your cable, did the depth really make a noticeable difference? Reason I ask is that the fence is going to cross over the driveway, up near the road. Was thinking about just running the wire through the drain tile to the other side. Now that I think about it though, imagine the rebar inside the concrete could cause a little havoc.

Once again, thanks for the info. Very helpful.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[MadDog]

Eddie: I see that you have a 6' boxblade. Why not just mount one of your scarifiers in the full down position and use it rip enough of a trench to bury the wire. It is not so much that it will move without being buried; you want to protect it from something running over and severing it. It only has to be a couple of inches down to be pretty secure.

BTW, we have a black lab and a newfie on electronic fence and it works great. It took a little until they had figured out that it wasn't worth trying to cross it and the lab still checks it regularly to see if her battery has run down /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif, but we haven't had either of them actually cross the fence in about 2 years.

 

[FL_Cracker]

You may want to test the wire through the pipe. I did my house a few years ago and C-Lab could use the driveway and a fast running start to escape. I ended up taking the wire out from under the concrete and running it in the expansion joint. Stopped him in his tracks...... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Not really funny but it was nice to out smart him because he was one smart dude....

Charles

 

[ejtaylor822]

Hey Maddog and Charles,
Thanks for the info - I can just see your labs testing the limits /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif. They are truly smart animals and very ingenious as well as entertaining.

Didn't think about the box blade, actually I did, but rigging something to the side somehow?? Will take a look tomorrow and see how much I can lower one of the scarifiers. If I can get it low enough think that would be the answer - should be pretty close to a sub-soiler I would think. Will check in the morning.

The more I think about it, running through the drain pipe I don't think will cut it. We have a gravel driveway and I think I am going to trench across it and bury the wire in conduit. I can see him making a mad dart down the driveway over the drain pipe if he thinks he can get through it – especially during the summer to get to the pond. That’s the only thing I do not like about this fence – he won’t be able to go to the pond when he wants – which is often.

Was going to try and work on this weekend but my wife has informed me we have company coming. Guess it will have to wait but will give me another week to think about it.

Thanks again,
Eddie