Tools Of The Trade

This photo illustrates the equipment that I use for Management-intensive Grazing (MiG) here at Liberty Farm. MiG relies on being able to quickly install and remove temporary fence lines to limit grazing to an area that the flock/herd will eat during the grazing duration. Right now this is one day but changes throughout the year based on circumstances. In April, when the grass was growing slower, it was 2-3 days and may go back to that if we get our typical midsummer drought here in mid-Ohio. The equipment shown consists of wire reels, power link, and posts.

The reels are wound with polywire. My preference is for 6-strand 0.2 mm stainless steel. Kencove has good quality wire at a good price. The reels are from Premier. Since our farm is small, we use mini-reels. They are advertised as holding 600' (188 m) of polywire but in the real world of hand rolling it's probably more like 450' (140 m) . They also sell much larger reels for fencing larger fields. The reels have a thumb screw for tightening the spinning part against the handle so it stays tight and a slot in the handle for hanging on an existing fence wire or on a wire loop connected to a temporary post as is shown in the photo.

The power link is an insulated wire with alligator clips on the ends. It is used to carry the charge between wire. Premier has the best price on these but they could probably be made more cheaply from components from Radio Shack. The newer model from Premier has clips on the ends that look like mini jumper cable ends. The wire on the reels is tied off to a non-conductive handle so the only way to energize the temporary wire is through a link like this or simply wrapping a short piece of aluminum wire 4 turns around the hot fence wire and the poly wire.

There are two type of posts shown in the photo. The gray post is a 4' (1.25 m) fiberglass step-in post with three integrated clips. There is a molded plastic piece at the bottom for pressing into the ground with one's foot (hence the name "step-in" post). The lower clip is adjustable, the middle one is about 28" (70cm) and the upper is at about 42" (1.1 m). The second post is simply a 4' fiberglass rod, 3/8" (9.5 mm) diameter, sharpened at one end. The yellow insulators are called "western insulators" and will adapt to any round post that fits the size parameters for that particular insulator (they make different sizes, I think). The white post with the 2 insulators is a little less expensive than the other but the step-in works better for a corner. I also have some black plastic (not fiberglass) step-in posts that the previous owner of this farm left. They have integrated wire clips along the entire length.

Finally, the contents of the blue can in the bottom of the photo helps with any farm chore on a hot summer day (hint: it's not Pepsi).

I've written here before that my boundary fence is made of 5 electrified 14 gauge aluminum wires (7-14-21-31-42 inch spacing). The bottom wire is energized through an energy-limiter (flood-gate controller). The permanent subdivisions are 3 electrified strands of 17 gauge aluminum (14-21-31 inch spacing). The temporary polywire fences that I construct are two wires at about 14 and 24 inch spacing. My calm, gentle rams are easily contained with only one polywire at about 18 inches. This, of course, will change when the rut begins in October and their calm, gentle dispostions become hormonally charged.

Some notes on electric fencing:

• Do not complete the circuit! Unlike applications using conventional electricity, electric fencing should be energized from one end to the other and never the twain shall meet. When installing temporary fences it's important to think about how the charge travels though the fence and not to have any places where there is a completed circuit. Doing so has the same effect as a short.
• Use a powerful, high-quality low-impedance or wide-impedance charger. My charger is a Kencove 4-joule digital model. I have about 3 miles of fence and the charger is rated for 50 miles. If I had a larger farm with many miles of fence, I would get a 20+ joule charger from Kencove or Twin Mountain.
• Make sure the animals are trained to respect the fence. My sheep could physically walk through any fence on my farm but they don't because the fence provides a psychological barrier. (The exception is lambs going through temporary polywire as documented in an earlier post).