Tips on Electric Fencing

My childhood was different from a lot of peoples. Of course when you're growing up you think everything is normal, and it's only when you look back that you see it wasn't, but I think even at the time I knew it wasn't like everyone's.

There was a lot of "jobs" involved, we were forever helping dad on the farm. I can remember being picked up in the carpark of school and dad throwing our overalls and wellies out to us (my brother and I, along with my sister when she was old enough), telling us to get changed before we got in. The dog would jump all over us and we'd then go off to manage some of our sheep or some other job that needed our attention. 

Seems like a lifetime ago that we had the sheep here. Part of me misses it, but then a big part of me likes staying sane...

Dad would plan the jobs around what help he had, every job with the sheep was easier with one of us helping, this could be drenching them or sorting them, but more often than not it was was doing something with the electric fencing. 

All of our land was rented, and most had questionable fencing. Our land was fields dotted about the place that dad had managed to rent from different people, every time we moved the sheep it was with a stock box, and before we could let them out, we'd walk the perimeter and see how bad the fences were. 

A field I used to rent. I'd love to go round and visit all the fields dad used to rent and get pictures one day.

Electric fences became our first line of defence. This is also my very early memories of driving (very young), dad would sit the Landrover in low box (1st gear) and I'd steer it along the field at walking pace. He would walk behind and take the fence posts off the trailer, counting his paces to make sure they were spaced evenly. 

Then we'd each get a reel of wire and walk along the posts he had just laid out. The reel would be held on a fence post so it could unravel easily, dad would walk behind and clip each one into a slot on the post.

Then with an old car battery dad would power it all up, and we'd go quiet waiting for the rhymic "click, click, click..." to show it was on. Dad would always try to get one of us to touch it, saying we needed to test it properly, but even holding a piece of grass on the fence it would send a shock down your arm. 

We learnt a lot doing the fencing, but a few tips - 

The sheep had to fear the fence, if they got through it once, without it kicking them, then chances were they'd try again, it made us really good at changing the batteries (before the days of solar chargers) as the last thing you wanted was the sheep thinking it's not on. 

The fences worked better near another barrier, so a electric fence alongside a hedge would always work better than one cutting a field in half. 

You made sure it was clear under the fence when you put it up. Chances are the sheep would keep it clear afterwards, but was worth cutting where the fence was going to go with a strimmer (brushcutter) or at least driving the tractor wheel to flatten the grass. If grass could touch it then it would often short the circuit and not work properly. 

You took care when you wrapped the fence up. Rushing the packing up would cost so much time when it came to putting the fence out again. We used to make sure the reels were wrapped tight and the posts all laid the same way. You got a nice pace as you walked and wrapped, but as the wire got older I would hold a handful of grass in my hand to stop the stray wire from cutting me. 

You didn't leave it up longer than it had to be. It was easy to wrap it straight away when the grass was short, but if the grass grew long around it, you'd have a game trying to remove it. 

You left the fence unit out of sight - we only ever had one lot go missing, but they took the time to wrap it all up and take the posts as well. We used to chain the expensive unit to an old wheel or something tricky to move. Probably not so effective now with cordless angle grinders, but I feel you should make it as tricky as possible for them. 

I dread to think how many times we put up fences! Worst was as we got into our teens and dad would make my brother and me go and do it on our own. We then lived in fear of the sheep getting through one of our fences and knew where the blame would land! 

Do you use electric fencing much? 

Do you have any tips for using it?

Was it a part of your childhood like mine?