Cattle

Select The Best Fence Design For Your Site

Let Premier help you decide which fence can be used to keep your cattle in or out. Choose from:

• Temporary Fences
• Semi-permanent Fences
• Permanent Fences

Why electric cattle fences work so well for so many...

1. Because cattle are sensitive to electric shock. Why? Short hair coat (in summer), heavy body, large hooves—so they're low-resistance animals (compared to goats and deer).
2. The lowest energized wire can be 2 ft above the ground. Result: energy loss from any grass-to-wire contact is much less.
3. Their frontal eye placement allows them to see low-visibility fences more readily than horses or deer.
4. Their body weight ensures very good hoof-to-soil contact.
5. No major predators. So low fence wires to deter predators are seldom necessary. Again less weed-to-electrified wire contact.
6. Most (though not all) cattle walk instead of run, giving them time to see fences.

Combine these 6 factors and you have an animal that's easily controlled by electric fences.

Why some fences fail...

An electric fence is a system that's only as good as its weakest link. All parts (posts, conductors, etc) of the system must be durable and effective.

Probable reasons of problems with electric cattle fences...

• Reliance on farmstore solar energizers. They often promise much and deliver little.
• Low-impedance energizers. They work fine when the grass is green, but their output in joules drops quickly when the soil is dry.
• Polywires and polytape that lack adequate visibility, conductivity and/or durability.
• Using posts and insulators that are prone to fail. The cheapest is rarely the least expensive.
• Frustrating windup reels (or none at all)! Good reels save time and aggravation.

Warning! Temporary, semi-permanent and single-strand high-tensile wire fences are pain barriers. They are not physical barriers. Cattle that are spooked or driven into pain barrier fences can easily push through, under or over them. So do not rely upon them in situations where: 1) this circumstance is probable; or 2) the result of escaped animals (onto highways, into crop fields) will be expensive.

To Reduce Risk and Liability...

Are electric fences a serious safety risk to humans?

Because touching an electric fence is painful and the voltages are high, most assume that the risks from an energized fence must also be high. That's a myth. Consider that millions of people throughout the world are "exposed" to millions of electric fences every day—yet they are involved in (but are not always the cause of) less than one human death or serious injury per year worldwide. Compare that to the number of annual injuries and deaths that occur from human exposure to tractors, skid loaders, ladders, PTO shafts, balers, mowers, combines, bulls, stallions, rifles, shotguns, knives, etc. This is not to suggest that there is no risk at all. There is, indeed, a small level of risk. And with risk, there is also liability to the fence's owner.

What NOT to do!

• Never place your head or upper spine near an electrified wire. Accidental head or neck contact can occur when pushing a voltage probe into the soil. Be careful when doing so to avoid head-to-wire contact!
• Never attempt to step over or climb through an energized fence of any kind.
• Never encourage anyone to touch an electric fence.