4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[half dozen]

Can anyone explain to me in very plain english exactly what I need to buy to make my omlet netting electrified im quite clueless in this department thankyou in advance

[Karen & co.]

Hello! you will need a charge generator ours looks like a litle plastic plantpot with 2 leads that have clips on like a battery charger. one clips to the fence and the other to a metal spike to earth it I used a stake from the childrens swing

 

Ours runs on 2 D cell batteries but you can use mains or leisure battery ones

 

We had a wooden stake hammered into the ground and hung the unit off that to keep it off the floor.

 

Karen x

[Gamebird]

Try this thread for some ideas.

[..lay a little egg for me]

The thread that Gamebird quotes gives just about all the info you need.

 

In summary, however, you need:

 

1 x electric energizer (aka fencer or sender) suitable for powering poultry netting

1 x battery (or if you have a mains outlet near the chicken run you can power the fence from the mains but you need a specific energizer for mains use)

1 x ground stake

 

Shop around on the internet as there are some good deals out there. Just make sure that the energizer you choose is suitable for netting...the energizers sold for electric tape/wire/cord (used for horses) are not powerful enough.

 

For peace of mind, you might also like a fence tester (it shows whether the fence is giving enough of a kick)...you can use a piece of grass to test the fence (less painful than touching it directly) but I hate even the reduced jolt that you get via the grass so I wimped out and bought a tester

[half dozen]

Thanks for the replies can I ask is the electric netting a good enough deterant I always stay outside when girls are out in garden because we back onto open fields but would like to leave them and relax in the house a bit more.I would not let them free range in the electric netting if I was not home

[Gamebird]

Thanks for the replies can I ask is the electric netting a good enough deterant I always stay outside when girls are out in garden because we back onto open fields but would like to leave them and relax in the house a bit more.I would not let them free range in the electric netting if I was not home

 

My girls have been free ranging behind their electric netting since last June and so far they have been safe even though there are still foxes very close by (they live in our wood behind the hen enclosure ). I don't lock them in their house at night so they are free to go to bed and get up at whatever time they please.

 

I am sometimes out all day but I still leave them out. All I can say is the system works fine for me. The only worry I have is that the girls have on occasion flown over the netting (silly girls ) so I have clipped their wings and that seems to have solved that problem.

 

...lay a little egg for me has some really good advice about energisers and testers. I bought this tester from Flytes So Fancy which lets me know that the fencing is working, although it is difficult to see it flashing during the day but very visible at night.

 

You also have to make sure that the fencing is kept free from debris. overgrown grass etc.

 

There is a good article about electric fencing in the January 2009 edition of Practical Poultry.

[..lay a little egg for me]

Like Gamebird, I let my hens free range behind the electric fence all day whether we are here or not. I do, however, lock them up at night. But I keep the fence on...it is important that Mr Fox never finds it switched off or he'll have you on his 'to do list' forever!

 

Although the fence is effective at keeping out foxes and the like, you need to be sure you have positioned your fence so that a fox could not jump over it from a launching pad (e.g., a nearby solid fence/dustbin or whatever), and also that your coop is not so close to the fence that the girls could launch themselves over the fence from the top of the coop.

 

Three of my four have clipped wings and the third does not seem to know that she could fly!! So they have, so far, never got over the fence (or even tried as far as I know).

 

Like Gamebird says, you also need to make sure there is nothing shorting the fence out so it is not at full strength...check it regularly.