Everything they never told you about electric fencing for rotational grazing you didn't know to ask

Thanks to three regnerative farmers, all of whom do rotational grazing, took time to share their experiences in the Regenerative Agriculture Club on Clubhouse today.  I have their permission to share their knowledge here, but I neglected to ask if I could put their names so they may chime in here and I'll share their names to give credit if they wish.

When I've heard anything about rotational grazing it's always sounded awesome and humane and eco and philosophical and bucolic--but here's the thing.  Society has put about 0 effort into improving the fences and even less than zero into edcating people about which product would actually make farmers' lives easier, and so these things are really lousy and stressful.  If we put 1/1000th the effort of putting a human on the moon into fencing improvements, the world would be sequestering so much more carbon.  This fencing thing is not like gardening, it doesn't really feel like communing with nature or with the animals or soil, it is confusing what to buy and how to put it in, and then it fails again and again and again.  So come on, society, come up with a better fencing solution and better communication!


--the ground rods are essential to the shock, not just an extra safety feature. you need 3 of them, for some reason they didn't teach me in high school physics class, ten feet apart, connected by the thick insulated wire.  (you have to cut that wires' to expose the ends yourself).   You could also bury a bicycle under ground to serve as a ground rod, the sheep farmer said.
--single strand electric fencing is old school; nowadays a lot of other products are sold that include more wires--mesh/netting--for all kinds of animals, poultry, pigs, cattle, sheep, etc.
--it's  necessary in many cases to have a permimeter fence around teh whole pasture, but one farrmer doesn't need to do this
--it's important to train the pigs that they can't get away by going through the electric fence: the training area is surrounded by pallets or hog panels (hog panels: meaning big pieces of metal fencing in sections that you can tie together or attach to pounded-into-the-ground metal posts).  this second fence is close enough to the first that if the pig gets through it s/he still can't go anywhere and regrets having tried to cross the elctric fence, ostensibly she/he will turn tail back to where sh/eh came from)
--you need a lot of joules for pigs.  so probably a plug-in and not a solar energizer (energizer: the thing that puts the lectricity into the elctric fence)
[side note-- an American Farmworks plug-in energizer WILL SHOCK YOU IF YOU PUT YOUR HAND NEAR IT--like waht you'll instinctively do to see if the really pale light is has on it is actually lighting up or not to indicate it's working.  DON'T DO IT IT'S A TRAP!  this seems to me a serious design flaw, and it should say on the box that this might happen, and it doesn't.  This is known as Rotational Hazing, and makes you now initiated into the elite group of people who've been shocked by your electric fence.  Blech.
--I don't know what use the solar energziers have except maybe for ducks, ducks are gentle, wimpy creatures who don't really want to try to escape, they just want to sing!  ladadadadadada --Stop! Cut! Wait!
--but the good news !! is you can run one energizer to a LOT of fencing by
      a) putting in your energzier post and ground rods in one spot, with the plug-in extension cord from your socket
      b) running a poly braid wire from there, with step-in posts, to the start of the fence paddock
      c) that's it.  the poly braid wire (a single wire sold as such at the farm supplies store or on-line) can carry that current safely, whereas your extension cord, if you make it more than 100' feet, will give you a scornful look and say, Don't you think I"m a fire hazard waiting to happen?  you know this feels wrong, you just KNOW it's going to catch fire at some point.  What would your mother say?  Well F- you, extension cord, my mother didn't teach me how to do rotational grazing, my neighbors didn't, my teachers didn't, my mentors and spiritual teachers didn't either, and the guy at the farmer's coop told me about 1/00th of this information os pipe down and don't catch on fire, OK?  OK, well, don't say I didn't warn you, I'm feeling so so warm, I am just not comfortable with being so long and so daisy-chained.
--most fencing products for sale have some failure points
     --recommended products: Premier One (sp. you can order it on-line) is recommended for the _netting_ (netting means the mesh fencing that the electricity runs through)
     --for energizers: Ken Cove (sp?), a cheaper brand that's not sold in stores but works jsut fine.  Available in 16joules, 32, 10;

OK:
Gallagher pound-in posts, but they are a b**#$%# in compacted, hard soil in drought for example, or anywhere you have New England soil (New England Soil is a 90% rock, 10% rock, and 400% rock rocky mix, 0% to 2,000% grade, with some boulders in it)



not recommended:
Gallagher nets (they break)
Gallagher step-in posts, they break


PRO TIPS/HACKS:
hauling 100' of fence is a pain in the (*$&%)#.  so CUT THE FENCE INTO 50' SECTIONS!  100' of posts is more than you can really fit under one arm
     --he said something else about how you attach the sections together when setting it up that I couldn't hear unfortunately, bad connection.  i would speculate that you have to attach some emetal clisp to the ends of the top strand and connect the lower strands into a bundle up there, just like the endings of the fence that come from the store.  But this is a brilliant hack

if you're in compacted/drought soil, or New England Soil, AND if you are dealing with sheep (NOT pigs) you can put a round piece of wood (cross cut section of a log) upright and drill a hole into it for the spike of the poudn-in post. to go into



WHAT SOCIETY SHOULD COME UP WITH:
--I asked what would be an improvement, and basically "have the electricity run all the time" was the answer.  SO I said, what if you had an alarm rigged to go off as soon as the joules go below X level for whatever reason?  an early warning system, before your pigs go over into the road to inform you or your neighbor or the sheriff or an angry alien for Zorgon 5 are knocking on your door complaining about how your pigs got into their radishes (or Zorgonian freneckle patch).
   --maybe someone already invented such an alarm, evne if it's not for sale at the farm store or Tractor Supply??? anyone???  anyone want to do this?  (they have fence testers that you can do manually, but NO ONE is walking around 24 hours a day testing their fences, tis is a job for Artifical Intelligence to solve.  We put a human and a pig  on Zorgon 5, we could at least solve this problem.

I have more but that's all I can type up right at this moment, but please chime in with more.  These are the nitty-gritty things that make or break someone.   When Paul or Sepp says "put a strand of electric around it and run pigs in there" like it's easy, we need more explanation of how you actually do that, whatn ot ot buy and what to buy, and an idea of how much it might actually cost.

* should have said "*what not to buy and what to buy"
* "(sp.) should have said "(sp.?)"

I see there are a lot of errors in what I wrote here, I'll go through and fix it at some point, ask me if you're not sure if something makes sense and please try not to get a shock whatever you do.

Another thing I wish I'd known:

--you can take the posts off the mesh wire that comes from the store and rearrange them to make your post-to-post sections be any different length you want.  On the one I got (I don't remember the brand name):
           --navigate the top strand (bunch of strands actually) out of the black plastic thing's notch on the top, and the bottom one slide the black plastic piece down all the way off until the strand bunch is completely free, then slide it back on again so you don't lose it later.

This is helpful because you might want to make a training pen for electric and have 15' sections of electric inside a 16'x16' pen of hog panels.  The hog panels can't change sizes--but now, thanks to this trick I didn't know but in hindsight was obvious but in foresight it's really not, I could take the posts off and put them in to make 15' sections.

https://permies.com/t/17977/Podcast-Realities-Practical-Permaculture-Dell#1527298

great discussion of electric here.

dry soil is the worst--no conductivity, no grounding.

I'm thinking that building soil next to each grounding rod is worth it.  Plus it's building soil--something I feel good about doing anyway.  A worm town beside each grounding rod.  A bit of grading around it (if you're on flat soil).

Curveball.  We learned that electric fencing stops working when the ground freezes.  (Ice is less conductive than water.  Who knew? Why didn’t you teach me that in high school physics, something I could actually USE?). The tester was reading two volt-bunches (they are bunches of 950 v each, if you care) out of five, then it was reading one, then it wasn't reading anything at all.

I asked people what they did, and I learned that everyone who keeps pigs around here pretty much has the same solution—slaughter the pigs in the fall.  

That was looking like a better and better solution, especially when I looked into selling the pigs and a farmer wouldn't even tell me a price, just said you're gonna lose a lot of money, it would be much more worth your dollar just to slaughter them.  (He kindly offered us a spot in his slaughterhouse order, which was an amazing help, because the slaughterhouse here is booked until three weeks after the next two doomsdays.). But my partner and I decided to give Bonbon and Castle one more chance.  

So I web searched, and found some article from a fence company that talks about a “double hot wire” or “hot/ground” fence, two terms that are very confusing, but that seem to be talking about having two hot wires braided together in the poly, the + and - wires, and the pig’s nose completes the circuit.  No need for electric current to flow through the pig to the ground to the grounding wire.

Great, but they didn't sell anything called "double hotwire" or “hot/ground” fencing on their site, their helpline was automated and didn't give me any help, and there were no diagrams.  I wasn't even sure whether the wire we already have is a double hot wire or not.  They don't label things clearly.

So I called a friend, who is this an electrical engineer by training, and he gave me this brilliant suggestion, put chicken wire down on the ground in front of the fence and connect the ground wire to that, so when the pig walks toward the fence line, they're standing on the chicken wire and touching the fence with their nose.. Now the pig complete the circuit, ergo fried pig.  (I used to be so nice to my animals, how have I gotten so jaded in one year??  Oh yeah, because of all the 63 times that they've escaped and wrecked my stuff and menaced the motorists passing by on the state highway!)

I also asked for help from two other friends, one helped me to shore up the perimeter fence, and the other helped me actually implement this double hotwire idea.  B, it turns out, is also an electrical engineer by training and did the engineer thing that engineers do which is work in a very meticulous way and neatly and methodically.  I'm more of an artist, so not a good match to the situation.  Plus trying to do this alone while my partner is overseas after a death in the family was just madness—trying ot keep the pigs from escaping by offering food bribes and madly stringing up wires around them on slippery icy ground with my fingers freezing off—I needed to ask for help.  Granted, it was not ideal that I had to have friends drive an hour and a quarter and use of a bunch of energy and gas, but I was desperate!  I’m so glad I got help.  

Friends, the pigs almost broke me this winter. I thought it was bad in summer, but now it turns out that it was just warming up to get even worse.  

Now the pigs fear the fence again, or respect it, and won't go outside it even if I try to let them out.  I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.  I would like to let them out to play and run around more, but they do have some space to run inside their current paddock.  And frankly they deserve to be inconvenienced for a few days after what they did.

The other thing I was told and can confirm is that the plain wire works better than the poly mesh as far as actually shocking the pigs.  

And I discovered that the wire is much easier to set up than that stupid fencing. In fact, I don't think I'm ever going back. And I can make a much bigger paddock if I want, without having to buy any more material, since that wire can stretch long distances if you have even ground and keep it taut.  (I wrapped it around the regular posts from the poly fencing and twisted it off, I think it’s a half-hitch maybe? since the poly posts were already frozen into the ground in place.  I just took the poly mesh off.  I’d tried to put the metal wire on with the mesh still there but the mesh might move a little and contact it and then diffuse the current.)

It's been two days now with no escapes.  Such peace.  Ahhhhhh.

There's still one unsolved mystery, why is the power out of the ground terminal of the energizer sooo much stronger than the power out of the fence terminal? In fact, the current is so strong it makes the lights on the tester flash white instead of red, and you can hear the spark.  Any ideas?  It’s basically a diode in the energizer, I think. (By the way, I switched the ground and fence terminals, since it should just be the same effect out of each of them, but the ground one was punching so much harder.  And since I'm actually making a complete above ground circuit, assuming that the grounding rods aren't really doing much to pour the current into the ground, and this was done under the supervision of a trained electrical engineer, so there.)

I did mulch my grounding rods and that made a huge difference through the drought.  Then I also watered my grounding rods once a month or so during the drought.  

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:https://permies.com/t/17977/Podcast-Realities-Practical-Permaculture-Dell#1527298

great discussion of electric here.

dry soil is the worst--no conductivity, no grounding.

I'm thinking that building soil next to each grounding rod is worth it.  Plus it's building soil--something I feel good about doing anyway.  A worm town beside each grounding rod.  A bit of grading around it (if you're on flat soil).

1.  

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:

I also asked for help from two other friends, one helped me to shore up the perimeter fence, and the other helped me actually implement this double hotwire idea.

2.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:
I wrapped it around the regular posts from the poly fencing and twisted it off, I think it’s a half-hitch maybe? since the poly posts were already frozen into the ground in place.  I just took the poly mesh off.  I’d tried to put the metal wire on with the mesh still there but the mesh might move a little and contact it and then diffuse the current.

1. Would you be able to share a diagram or example of how yall did the double hotwire?

2.  It must be my migraine cause I'm struggling to visualize this.  Would you mind sharing a drawing of this also?

Honestly, if you'd send video I'd REALLY appreciate it so much!  

Thank you!
Honey

I’ll try to video it tomorrow if i can do it without freezing my hands


Here is a crude diagram:


  ///
|///.   <——Fence
|//
|/
| ___________———————————->ground wire
   Chicken wire/.       Connect to wire   T To ground
    Hardware cloth


The pig is on the right, and walks over to the left to try to get past the fence. Feet go on the grounded chicken wire (______________) and nose touches the fence wires ( / ).  Pig completes a circuit—pop!  Et voila, one annoyed pig.  

Update— they have still gotten out occasionally (even with 3 wires on it!) but they mostly respect the fence and won’t cross it even if I lift it up for a second or two. Overall it’s 100x better than before.  

Oh, I saw I do have on photo but it’s not a great angle.  Let me know if that makes it clear.

Honey Rowland wrote:1.  

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:

I also asked for help from two other friends, one helped me to shore up the perimeter fence, and the other helped me actually implement this double hotwire idea.

2.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:
I wrapped it around the regular posts from the poly fencing and twisted it off, I think it’s a half-hitch maybe? since the poly posts were already frozen into the ground in place.  I just took the poly mesh off.  I’d tried to put the metal wire on with the mesh still there but the mesh might move a little and contact it and then diffuse the current.

1. Would you be able to share a diagram or example of how yall did the double hotwire?

2.  It must be my migraine cause I'm struggling to visualize this.  Would you mind sharing a drawing of this also?

Honestly, if you'd send video I'd REALLY appreciate it so much!  

Thank you!
Honey

Here is a video ( I’ll have to put a link it says no .mov files).

It’s a bit tricky to see everything but the grounding rods sticking up out of the snow were set up In standard manner with insulated wire to and amid them (10’ 6’ and 6’ or whatever it is).

I realize it looks rickety, but it’s been stable through our 50mph gusts.

This is not an endorsement of shocking pigs if there’s any other way, I just don’t know what is safe with respect to the highway .  They have busted out of hog panels, welded wire, electric, Houdini coffins under 30 feet of water with their hooves chained, and gridlock in DC.  This pigs can do anything they set their minds to, and their minds are set to Trouble.

OK, here it is, the winter blockbuster we've been waiting for.  Pig Break is a heartwarming action thriller set in outer space.  Juliet, a Juliana, must rescue her vampiric lovers Roam-eo and the Free Ranger from the Dark Lord using only her wits, a water spell, and a lifting capacity of 4,000k. Will the Rebel Alliance text message fundraisers secure enough protein to ensure a free and fair microbiome or will her troubled past catch up with her first?

https://youtu.be/j7r-V4FDEts

See the trailer now.  Coming soon to a back yard near you.

WOW that took me a half hour? I need a tech VA.  I hope this is clear enough to follow, sorry it's not great quality.  Also if someone can please confirm you're able to follow the link that would be great, I'm not quite sure how it all works.  Thanks.

Thanks for the electric fencing tips and for helping me remember why I don’t have pigs, goats or sheep!

But you have the feed company name right there in your name!

It doesn't have to be that bad.  Sepp Holzer just lets his pigs free to go in and out of their shelters day and night.  He isn't worried about a highway.  Once the cars all stop existing the whole thing will be a breeze!  I do love Bonbon and Castle.

Update--they are really averse to crossing the wire now.   So even on a day when the  weight of the snow is dragging the wire down almost to the ground it's still a secure situation.  There have been no breakouts for the past 2 weeks or so.

Unfortunately, Rudolf the dog has somehow gotten spooked about crossing the fence line too when I lift it up.  So no pig playdates have happened.  

I don't know what happened exactly, I think he got himself shocked and is confused.  One time when he was inside the paddock he was being enthusiastic about getting petted when his mommy came home, and he got too close to the fence...but I'm pretty sure he would still cross it to go in after that.  Now he runs toward the fence but then stops when he gets close and jumps back each time.  I even tried putting the wire off, down on the ground flat, and a pallet over it, but he won't cross over hte pallet.  Or let me carry him over (which is tough as he's 100 lbs now!).  He wriggles free.  

So it keeps being complicated, but it's stable at least.  

Moving paddocks when the ground is frozen is a tricky bit.  You need a nail and mallet, and you have to cut each spot that way, and doing that with gloves on in the cold is a real drag.  I have just left them in a sacrifice area for the most part.  It's not gotten smelly, fortunately.  I am looking forward to spring after this last blizzard.