(VIDEO) Predator Prevention Fencing
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Video Transcript
Please note the transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
Why should you put in a predator prevention fence?
Kevin - So it protects your animals or your crops. It also protects wildlife. And it protects your peace of mind?
Nick - Oh yeah, the really neat thing about this is it's just a win-win-win like you said with those three factors. You can feel good about it. I know a lot of times we get in this contest with these wild animals and it's like us against them but really, you're their shepherd and can protect them by building good infrastructure for your homestead.
What is the best fencing to keep wildlife predators out?
Kevin - Hey there neighbor Welcome to wild homestead Living. I'm Kevin, and today we're here with our friend Nick. He is a wildlife professional that's been working with wildlife for over 25 years. He has dealt with a lot of human-wildlife conflict resolution. For the past two days we've been working on the fence that you see behind us. So Nick, tell us a bit about this fence. Why this design?
Nick - Julie and I worked on this design diagram together and I developed it over the years with some other projects I've worked on. It is really effective. Super effective. In fact, we haven't documented any failures or any depredations with it yet. I'm sure it's gonna happen someday, because it's not 10 feet high and doesn't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars like some of the commercial fences.
Why we like this design is it’s made from common materials. This is your standard 48 inch no-climb horse fencing. It's woven wire. This fencing design is manageable for labor purposes as a homesteader or doing it yourself on a small hobby farm. You can manage this predator prevention fence without a lot of equipment. It's still a fair amount of work and some inputs, but you can also manage it financially.
Two things that we are mainly looking to protect against are bears and mountain lions, but this also works for a lot of small carnivores like bobcats, raccoons, and coyotes.
How do you use electric fencing to keep wildlife out of your garden and livestock yard?
Kevin - So I see there's two different components of this fence. We have the actual fencing itself but there's also the hot wire that we put in?
Nick - So on the outside of this fence design we have 3 wires. Down below we have wires that we tend to place at 10 and 20 inches off the ground. And that's mainly from the bears and mountain lions. And it helps with some of the other smaller carnivores too.
With mountain lions, everybody says they will just jump right over the fence. It’s true that they are capable of it. But the truth is with mountain lions, that when 99.9% of them come across a fence in the evening or in the dark, they don't just walk up and just seamlessly just jump over it. What they do is they come up and they pace back and forth because it's a scary decision for them. They're trying to decide, should I do this? Should I make this decision? something's not quite right here. And so they will walk back and forth testing that.
So down on the bottom of the fence here we have just smooth wire at 10 and 20 inches above ground. It kind of disappears, especially in the dark. We have it sticking out from the fence a little bit. When those mountain lions and bears bump their faces into that, and they get that shock, they just go reeling backwards. That’s why it's so effective.
The lower wires also help with bears, but if there is a physical structure, such as this solid horizontal brace next to the gate, there can be additional issues. Bears will sometimes stand on their hind legs to go up and over, missing those lower wires. That’s one of the reasons we have another hotwire up top. If the bear does stand up, he bumps his face into that wire and it prevents him from going over. And so this is what solves that problem.
Oftentimes if we're trying to protect goats, poultry or other small livestock from predators, we will actually have this top wire down a little lower than we did in this fence build. We put the black and white poly wire on top of this particular fence, at this height, more as a visible barrier for deer. We're not going to have any livestock or poultry in this pasture here. We are protecting an orchard.
If this fence was for protecting livestock you would want to put a companion hotwire on the inside. That would be a fourth line. You would want to run it about 18 inches from the ground. Sheep and goats like to rub against things. If they rubbed into the woven wire fencing it would push into the electric lines on the outside of the fence, causing it to short and not work anymore. But I've had good luck with just a single line on the inside at that 18 inch elevation. It prevents your livestock from wanting to push this fence out.
This fence we built here is kind of a test fence. We're seeing how effective this is for deterring the deer from jumping over. They'll be slowed down because of the wire mesh and get their noses shocked on the lower wires too. But hopefully this upper wire will be a little more intimidating to jump over.
This isn't high enough to be a really quality deer fence though. In some areas deer jump over fences more than others. Around here we are going to count on maybe these deer being a little bit lazier. These are kind of lowland pasture deer. But we're going to test this and we'll have to report back to see how well it does.
What are some tips for working with electric fencing?
Kevin - So Nick is it dangerous to be working with this electrical fencing?
Nick - Putting up the electrical fencing is pretty easy and safe to do as a homeowner or homesteader yourself. The actual electricity that comes out of this is pretty minimal. It’s turned off when we install it. Even when it’s on it is safe to the average healthy person. While you should consult with your doctor first if you have a heart condition or maybe a pacemaker (those folks out there know who they are) we advise you should take extra caution around electric fences because that could possibly mess up those rhythms or something and cause cardiac distress. But other than that I've been shocked by these hundreds of times, countless times. It's never fun and it's always because I'm distracted by something else. Other than that it's safe to work with on or off.
Once you get from your fence charger, which can just plug into a normal outlet - just like plugging in a vacuum cleaner - that's safe all the way there unless you have one of those special health conditions we talked about. If you make a mistake and touch it, you're going to maybe cry just for a couple seconds and then realize why the fence is so effective at preventing human wildlife conflicts!
This predator prevention fencing design is 100% effective for bears and really effective for other animals you are trying to keep away from whatever you're producing.
In most climates, especially right here where we are we get a lot of rainfall, we get a lot of growth. Grass can easily grow up into the electric fence and short it out.
So the best way to manage that is to come along with a weed whacker a couple of times through the growing season. But there is a vulnerable point where the electrical wire comes out of the ground and connects with the hotwire fence lines. A great solution is to use an old scrap piece of PVC pipe to thread your wire between the ground and where it connects to the fence. Then you can weed whack around this and not damage your your wire. It makes the job a lot faster and easier. You can just cruise around with the weed whacker to get that grass down and not have to worry about ruining your fence.
Predator Prevention Fencing
This plan is cost effective, doesn’t require fancy equipment, and is easy to adapt to fit your needs.
We did some fancy jumps around the gate, but even better is this electric switch. When you walk up to the gate here, so you don't get shocked, we have this throw switch. You just flip it down and it de-energizes the whole fence. Then you can easily work inside the fence for the day and when you leave you can just flip it back up to keep protecting your crops and animals.
The electricity that goes into it is just pennies a month. Electric fences just pulse through so you don't have to worry about a big electrical bill from it. It'll probably cost you maybe at today's rates 35 cents a month or something around that.
Is this the fencing you need to keep predators out and poultry, livestock, or plants in?
Kevin - So Nick, earlier you mentioned that this is a setup that your average homesteader could probably afford to put together. I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about the cost-benefit?
Nick - It's almost priceless that drop in anxiety you'll have, and you'll be able to sleep at night because you won't be thinking that your animals are getting murdered by a bobcat or other wildlife. Also, it solves a problem that we've created. If I put something very valuable in here like tasty little chickens that are running all over, any decent carnivore that's worth having amongst our community is going to jump in there and eat those things right? Everybody loves chicken or some fresh lamb. So it's our responsibility to look out for them. Since we are baiting these carnivores here, we put up a fence like this. It protects all of our animals and it protects wildlife from having that conflict.
Plus this predator prevention fencing protects you from having that anxiety and misplaced anger towards that wildlife. It just eats you up and you lose sleep over it. I can speak to this because I've lived it myself, repeatedly. Since I have dealt with thousands of human-wildlife conflicts in my career, I have put a lot of thought into this fence design. I have installed this fence on my own property. I sleep well at night now. And I don't worry about every little sound I hear outside. I'm not listening and wondering if my flock of turkeys are being killed or not. I haven't lost a single animal since I put in a fence like this.
Will this fencing work for me?
Kevin - Any final thoughts on the wildlife fencing here?
Nick - Appropriate wildlife fencing like this is very approachable and doable for your average homesteader. We built this fence with just hand tools. We did not use any big fancy things with hydraulics or anything else. We just brute-force worked our way through with old school stuff that our grandfathers would have used. This design is one you can figure out on your own.
A fence like this pays for itself in a short amount of time. It protects your livestock and protects the wildlife and makes you feel better at night when you're sleeping soundly and not worrying about all your stuff being killed.
This is a very flexible design. You can download our diagram from your website. You can alter it slightly and change things around and mix up components to make it fit for your specific needs.
Kevin - So fencing is a lot like homesteading, there is no one right way to do it. Only the way that's right for you and as Nick said, the diagram for this fencing is available for free on our website.
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