Article:
Fencing In Your Flock With Peter Gregory
Two types of fences are needed for sheep: perimeter and internal fencing.
Perimeter fencing is usually around the boundary or grazing area, but can also be around areas you want to exclude sheep with a high degree of certainty – such as your lawn, or vege gardens. Perimeter fencing is also there to keep out predators such as dogs. Most predators will try to climb, go through, or go under fences, rather than over them. Suitable perimeter fence options include 7, 8 or 9 wire and batten fences, post with wire netting or multi-wire high-tensile electric fences.
At pressure points on the property – leading into yards or handling areas, it’s a good idea to have sound “perimeter” fences as well. Sheep have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them. When the lead sheep decides to go through a fence for example, the rest of the flock usually tries to follow, even if it isn’t a good decision.
Internal fences subdivide paddocks into smaller areas and containment of stock may not be as critical as it is at the boundary. While an internal fence does not need to exclude predators, it may need to be good enough to separate weaned lambs from their mothers or keep rams away from ewes. Internal fences can be as significant as wire and batten or simply temporary electric fencing.
High-tensile electric fences are a good option – both at the boundary and internally. They’re relatively easy to build, and cost less than wire and batten fences. While cattle can usually be controlled with 1 or 2 strands of electric wire, sheep need multiple strands – ideally at least 5, to keep them in, and predators out.
Five, six or seven strands of 2.5mm high-tensile wire are common configurations for electrified sheep fences. The bottom wires of the fence are more closely spaced than the top wires.
For a 5 wire electric fence - wire spacings of approximately 150mm - 150mm - 150mm - 200mm - 250mm are ideal, with all wires electrified. Because vegetation shorts are the usual cause of problems with low voltage on a fence it’s useful to put a cutout switch on the bottom wire so that it can be turned off if there is too much grass growing up through the fence. It’ll buy you a bit of time before you need to get out the scrub cutter or herbicide to deal to the problem.
Wire netting is also a good option for containing sheep. Sheep netting is usually 800 - 900mm high, and has stay wires (the vertical ones) 150mm or 300mm apart. Use the 150mm wide option if you’re going to have lambs on the property.
Adding an electric wire along the top makes a net or mesh fence an excellent perimeter fence for sheep. An electric “offset” wire at animal shoulder height will also keep sheep from trying to stick their heads through the fence.
Another offset wire 170mm up from the ground will help to deter predators that try to go under fences. New life can also be injected into old fences by attaching electric offset wires on each side of the old fence. Set offset wires at two-thirds of the height of the sheep and hook the old fence to the electric fence unit earth wire to turn it into an earth return system.
Handy Hint:
Temporary electric fences – if you are using poly wire or poly tape to create multi-strand internal fencing – make sure you parallel it up at both ends of the run. If it has a high electrical resistance, the voltage drop over a 500m run (5 wires over 100m) is very significant. An alternative is to use a high performance/low resistance product such as Gallagher Turbo Wire or Turbo Tape.
Peter Gregory is a fencing contractor, specializing in small farms and lifestyle blocks. He has 20 years practical experience in the rural sector, including time as a technical field rep with a rural services company. Together with his wife he is currently developing a 40 acre lifestyle property on the Wairua River in Kokopu where they breed pedigree fullblood Dexter cattle. Peter can be contacted on 021-755705,
09-9460705 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
