ELECTRIC FENCES FOR SHEEP

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27990, 9 June 1956, Page 7

ELECTRIC FENCES FOR SHEEP

NEW PRINCIPLE IN CONSTRUCTION

The high cost of conventional fencing and the work involved in erecting it have for some years been a severe limitation to more intensive use of land. Electric fences have to a large extent been the aswer on dairy farms, but in their usual form electric fences are not really satisfactory for sheep, principally because of the insulating effect of the wool. However, a group of farmers and manufacturers in the Rangitikei claims to have reached a solution with a three-wire fence for sheep.

The design of the electric fence evolved there is described and well illustrated in the May issue of the ‘‘New Zealand Journal of Agriculture.” The wires are carried on steel stakes and insulators have been made from short pieces of polyethylene piping. The wires can, with care, be fed out simultaneously from reels which are attached to a pipe sheathing that fits over a steel standard A feature of the type of electric fence is that the wires can be adjusted readily, depending on the height of the crop or pasture and the topography of the paddock. If the grass is high when the electric fence is erected the bottom wire should be placed high. After sheep have cleaned out under the fence it should be lowered to about 9in from the ground; a spacing of 9in between wires is satisfactory for sheep If cattle and sheep are run together. th£ top wire should be raised to 18in above the middle wire.