# goat fence issue: goats on the loose



## blueberrygirl (Jan 26, 2015)

We have about an acre enclosed with solar electric fencing.   We researched & did everything "right" according to several extension publications.   We have steel t posts every 20 feet, 8 wires (bottom 3 are 6" apart & electrified, wires get increasingly far apart & every other is ground), & have a 30 mile solar energizer.   This worked just fine with a smaller energizer for our first 4 goats that were about 6 months old when we got them.   Their kids, however, & 5 new goats  (3 months old when we got them) aren't even phased by this fence.   We touched their noses to it many times.   They just slip between the wires & get them all stretched out.   We've had to tighten & tighten & some have been broken & spliced because of it.   So we upped the energizer to the 30 mile.  They still constantly get out.   They are nearly a year old now & all have kids on the way.  I know we are in for chaos.  We also got a second warning from animal control because there's one that likes to eat the neighbor's trees & garden.   We don't know what else to do since there's no way we can afford to put up goat panels.   Oh & we did try adding orange snow fence but they just busted through that as well.   HELP please! !!!


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## norseofcourse (Jan 26, 2015)

Once they are in the habit of getting through that fence, there's not much you can do besides put up fence they can't get through.  Electric fence is a mental barrier - if that doesn't keep them in, you need a physical barrier, like woven wire.

Four goats in one acre was probably fine at first - but now it sounds like you have at least 10 or so goats in the same area?  In general, the more animals in a pasture, and the smaller the pasture, the better the fence needs to be.  How much grazing is there in your pasture?  If there isn't much, even if you're feeding plenty of hay, they'll have a huge incentive to get out and eat what they can find.

If you truly can't afford to put woven wire fence up, you still have a couple options:

Fence in a small area inside your pasture, and keep the goats that escape there.  Then as you can, fence in larger areas for them and eventually the whole pasture.

Sell a few goats for fence money.

I understand it's not easy, but it's better than animal control fining you, or telling you to get rid of the goats, or a neighbor poisoning or shooting one....

Good luck.


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## blueberrygirl (Jan 26, 2015)

Have you ever heard of training them by putting peanut butter on the wire?  They lick it & get an extra big shock.... sounds mean but like you said better than the alternative.    How about adding more posts so they can't squeeze through as easily?   I thought once they bigger they'd have a tough time & would stop.   No theres nothing to graze right now but they do have plenty of hay.


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## Sweetened (Jan 26, 2015)

Our goats thrashed our electric. The first time it was up one got tangled in the wire, being electrocuted the entire time. She ended up on the OTHER side and taught everyone if you just lose a few brain cells and deal with the pain you can do whatever you want.  Good luck with this, i hope you figure something out.


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## norseofcourse (Jan 27, 2015)

blueberrygirl said:


> Have you ever heard of training them by putting peanut butter on the wire?  They lick it & get an extra big shock.... sounds mean but like you said better than the alternative.    How about adding more posts so they can't squeeze through as easily?   I thought once they bigger they'd have a tough time & would stop.   No theres nothing to graze right now but they do have plenty of hay.



I've heard of the 'peanut butter on the wire' for deer.  The problem with that and things like extra wires and posts, is your goats are already in the habit of going through the fence.  When my lambs started escaping, I thought the same thing - when they were bigger, they'd stop.  They didn't.  I added extra wires, spaced closer together - they still got out.  I finally confined them to just their pasture, and put silt fence all around it - more of a visual barrier than a physical one, but it worked - and was only intended to be temporary, since most of the ones escaping were scheduled to be processed.  I am hoping the silt fence has also 'broken the habit' for the one or two I'm keeping that were also getting out.  If not, I'll be right back where you are, needing a physical barrier.



blueberrygirl said:


> We have about an acre enclosed with solar electric fencing.   We researched & did everything "right" according to several extension publications.



One of the first lessons when keeping livestock - none of our animals have ever read any of that stuff


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## blueberrygirl (Feb 6, 2015)

First thing I'm gonna do tomorrow is go out & teach those gals to read!  

And what is a silt fence?


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## Southern by choice (Feb 6, 2015)

Having the t-post 20ft apart can also be part of the problem because the longer the stretch between posts the easier it is to go through as there is more leeway in the wires. At that distance you can only get it so tight.Try putting t-post at every 8-10 ft with tight wire or even alternate with the tape style.
We do ours pretty close together at the bottom and increase going up but our wire is still only 8 inches at the widest gap toward the top.

Have you checked the fence with a fence tester?


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## babsbag (Feb 7, 2015)

Southern by choice said:


> Have you checked the fence with a fence tester?



My thought exactly.

I have woven wire with a hot wire at goat knee height and they get no where near that fence. I can now run one hot wire across a pasture and the goats stay away. Not all chargers are created equal or made for the same animal. I have a 1 joule charger, I believe that it is the lowest one rated for use with goats. 

You need to find out how many "ouchs" that fence is putting out.


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## secuono (Feb 7, 2015)

8 wires (bottom 3 are 6" apart & electrified, wires get increasingly far apart & every other is ground), 

So it's air grounded and not actually grounded to the soil? If so, you can touch that 'hot' wire and it will do nothing. With the way you have it set up, you have to touch BOTH the hot and ground wires to get the shock. And that's too little too late for goats. 

Ground should go into the soil by several 4-8ft long grounding rods. Maybe you meant to say cold wires?

When I had goats, they would walk through hot wire in the pouring rain, ground soaked, goats soaked to the bone, 8 strands, all hot, all 4in apart. Goats don't care, full 9k volts and it meant nothing to them. They were a massive pain so I rehomed them asap. 

I use woven fence for perimeter fencing and most people say for any animal, you need a real, solid fence for the perimeter and you can mess with other fencing types for the internal fencing. Why? Because you need to keep your animals on your land and hot wire just loves to fail. You end up with all of them outside in the street or neighbors yard. 

"Miles" means nothing, you need to know the volts or joules it puts out. You can extend the strength of any small mile energizer by adding connected grounds along the fence.


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## babsbag (Feb 7, 2015)

@secuono  WOW. that is certainly not the experience I have with my goats. Granted, we have a woven wire fence too, but like I said, they know what the wire is and the don't touch that fence. Even my 300lb Boer buck stays in his field "in rut" and doesn't challenge the fence. When we need to work in the field without being bothered by the goats we just put up one strand, we don't even energize it, and the the goats stay away.

Thank goodness mine are not as strong willed as yours were.


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## OneFineAcre (Feb 7, 2015)

I put 1 strand about 12 inches high inside my woven wire just to keep them from rubbing on it and stretching it out.  Mine learned really quick and give it a lot of respect.


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## blueberrygirl (Feb 10, 2015)

We don't have any problems with the goats we got when they were older, but the ones that were younger are always going through the wires no matter how much we shock them.   It's a 1 J energizer & my husband tests it regularly by grabbing it (I think he's crazy).   The idea behind alternating hot & ground wires is that goat feet don't give sufficient grounding to get an effective shock.... so if the touch both hot & ground wires when they try to go through then they get a stronger shock.   The bottom 3 wires are hot then it alternates upward between hot & ground.   From the bottom the wires are (approximately) 3", 6", 9", 15", 21", 29", 37", 48".  We only have 3 ground rods though, in a triangle 3 feet apart by the energizer.   Should I add ground rods by each corner as well?   Yeah I think our plan is to add more posts to get the wires tighter because I think the biggest problem is the slack.   We ended up putting the biggest offender in an old dog kennel for now & that has helped.   We have another that still gets out sometimes but the dog is able to get her back in.


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## greybeard (Feb 15, 2015)

1 joule is not much, especially if you don't know whether that is stored energy (joules) or actual output energy (in joules) at a specified impedance (usually 400 ohms). Stored joules means the energy that is stored in the unit's capacitors. Output joules is the energy that is actually on the fence during each pulse along the wire.


As far as the hooves acting as an insulator, that's very unlikely, especially if the ground is wet, there is a dew on the grass, or snow and ice on the ground. If hooves were truly offering any resistance or insulation, no charger would work very well and they do in fact work very well all over the world even in very dry climates and rocky areas as long as they are properly grounded.
An all hot wire fence especially works on the principal that the voltage travels from the hot wire, to the animal, out the animal's hooves and thru the ground to the ground rod and there are millions of these type fences in successful use around the world.
A dry winter hair coat would offer more insulation than hooves, but even then most energizers emit plenty of voltage to penetrate a hair coat. According to Zareba (a well known fence energizer used globally) :
_Studies conducted by PAMI, a Canadian testing organization, indicate that it requires approximately 700 volts to penetrate the hair, hide and hoof of shorthaired livestock.  Less than 700 volts and the animal will not feel a shock because the voltage is too low to break down the impedance of the animal’s body. Zareba recommends a minimum of 4000V at all points along the fence wire_

If your husband can grab the wire and hold it, it either carries way too little voltage or you don't really have 1 joule cpability on the fence. Tractor Supply sells a little fnce tester for less than $15 and it's indicators go from 1kv up to 9kv.








Even in a dry land fence, or rocky terrain, using multiple hot wires and  ground wire return, the ground rod is still instrumental and necessary.








Keep in mind, that any mammal that gets touched, hit, or shocked behind his eyes or ears will almost always instinctively move forward, not backwards.  If your goats are getting their head past the wire before getting shocked, the will instinctively move on thru the wire, especially if the wires are not good and tight.





I suspect, you have too little voltage at the wires. One of the ways people lose volatge is placing the energizer a distance from the fence and using common household or even industrial wire and cable to run from the energizer to the fence. These type insulated wires will usually carry the modern pulsed voltage of an electric fence, but the insulation is only rated for 600V. Above that, voltage can bleed off thru the insulation and your fence won't be very efficient due to voltage loss. The lead out wire from the charger needs to be the type specifically made for electric fences--it's insulation is rated at 20,000V.

20 ft spacing should be fine--I have mine spaced more than that, but the wire MUST be taut enough not to sag and allow the animal to easily get their head thru. That means the corners must be good enough to be able to withstand  the strain of tight wires.


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## babsbag (Feb 15, 2015)

Zareba makes a chart for thier chargers telling what animal they will repel. I have a 1 joule charger that is rated for 25 miles and for goats. It works and there is no way on God's green earth I am testing it by grabbing it. It will sit you on the ground.  We have 3 grounds rod as well.

You really need to get a tester that gives you a real reading.


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