Author: John
Date: 02-15-13 14:36
I have an existing woven wire fence enclosing about ½ acre. I want to add two scare wires to the outside to exclude deer and predators, especially coyotes and possibly weasels. The existing fence is 2x4x48” woven wire on 6-7 ft natural cedar posts. The woven wire is topped by two strands of galvanized wire (not electrified) at 5 and 6 ft, so I have a total fence height of six feet. It’s been effective at excluding deer in the summer, but this winter the deer were hungry enough to jump the fence once. Starting this spring I will be enclosing chickens year round and a small number of sheep in winter next year, so I want this to be as predator-proof as possible, so here are my questions:
1) I was thinking of using intellirope 4.5 at 6-12” and 4-5 feet for the scare wires. Is this a good choice?
2) With two wires, this will be about ¼ mile of intellirope. Is the intellishock 20B a good choice? Too much?
3) I was considering using 11” pigtail offsets for the upper wire and smaller (4”?) insulators for the bottom wire. The bigger offset at the top seems to discourage deer, at least for non-electric fence. Not sure about coyotes. Is this a good idea or overkill?
4) Last question: The existing enclosure has three pretty secure 6-ft gates, each of which are used regularly for people and equipment. They could easily be extended to 7-8 feet. Am I better off continuing the hot wire in front of the fence gates and adding gates to the wire (maybe rope gates?) or running double insulated wire above or below the existing gates and continue the scare wire on the other side?
I’ve put in lots of traditional fences, but I’m new to electric fence, so any advice is appreciated. Sorry if this is a duplicate post, but my first one doesn’t seem to have shown up.
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