Sheep and Goat Fence: No High Tensile

Sheep and Goat Fence: No High Tensile. In this video, Tim talks about various farm fencing and specifically about why you should not use high tensile fencing for your small farm, hobby farm, or homestead. High tensile fencing may seem to be a more economical and easy manner to fence in your sheep and goats, however, in the end it simply does not provide an adequate fencing option!

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[emmanuelspromisefarm]

We did get the Woven wire Red Barn Sheep and Goat fencing and so Glad we Thanks For the video.

[danam]

This video reminded me of playing tag with my cousins at dusk...barefooted of course, in the horse pasture (dumb), I totally ran smackdab full force into the electric fence....didn't see it at all, and somehow forgot it was there (dumb again)...did NOT blow through it...got shocked and thrown back onto my butt.

[jeffmally]

I ran a 8 line electric fence and it didn't even slow my goats down. My goats jump forward when shocked. Only no climb horse fence for goats. Buy once cry once. Great video!

[parttimefarmer]

So this is easily remedied. You put them in a pen with some high tensile inside of it and train them to it. You can also run a poly braid in place of one wires to give it some visibility. A lot of people run high tensile with goats and sheep without any problem.

[nickhill]

We run 80 goats behind two strand polywire temporary fencing strip grazing stockpiled fescue. Perimeter is 5 strand HT. They were very easy to train.

[timlawson]

I buy the fence that has the virtical wire around the horizontal wire, that way if goats stand on it the horizontal wire cant be pushed down . If the horizontal wire is wrapped around the vertical wire it will slide down . After a few years I had to replace some fences .

[joshuajoseph]

We have found with our large flock of sheep that high voltage is needed. We have to have t post spacing similar to that of 5 Barb. Wire spacing needs to be 2 or 3 nubs on the metal posts. All 5 wires we have hot. We don't use it in corrals or pressured areas. Only costs about 60 cents to build without labor cost which really cheap fencing for large pastures.

[davidjarboe]

We have 400 hair ewes (across 5 farms) and we use as much 3-4 wire high tensile as I can. I use cyclops and speedrite chargers (I prefer the speedrites) and keep the perimeter's usually around 8K volts or more. We move the sheep every 1-3 days in the growing season with a single polywire. When buying groups of 30 head or less, we have a training area with about 10K volts that takes less than 15 minutes to train them for life, normally. However, we have brought in large groups that made the training impractical and they have always self trained on the single wire. They will inevitably graze into it and take 8k Volts across the forehead and that's enough. In my experience, sheep are far more likely to go under than over, so the wire has to be low enough that can't push it over their back without taking a charge in the head. I've trained groups as large as 250 to a single wire in 3 days by just getting the height correct and moving them daily.

All that said, if they are super wild and spooky, you'll have to find some way to contain them until they learn. I would put them in a secure barn lot with a wire or two around the perimieter, then pour feed UNDER the wire. It needs to be very hard to eat without getting shocked. I've not tried a lot of goats, but even 100% of the goats that I have trained this way would stay inside the single wire for grazing. I suspect if I had 400 goats, they wouldn't be nearly as polite....even with training. Lol

[joshminton]

High tensile is a psychological barrier. Definitely not a physical barrier. Prolly should have let those new lambs into a reinforced pen for awhile with a hot wire in it to let them get used to a hot wire. People keep sheep and goats successfully in high tensile if they are trained to it. The ones that get out just sell them. Love the channel man!

[AZHighlandHomestead]

If you have HT on a visible fence, it’s a different story. Many people have an existing physical barrier, such as a barbed wire fence, split rail, corral, etc that is a visual barrier to prevent them from running full speed. HT in the gaps or offset a little from the barbed wire will prevent the escape. At least for dogs and sheep. If water can get through the fence, a goat will get through the fence.

[andrewjordan]

what was your wire spacing and how much tension was on the high tensile? supposed to have 12.5 gage wire at 200 psi, i see you have the cheap yellow insulators on those tposts and no supports on the corners...i would think high tensile needs a bit beefier setup than that? They do make some visible high tensile wire you can buy out there indifferent colors.

[shaunsmuder]

I hate to admit this but I lost a $1000 dexter calf this same way we brought her home and I let her out and she took off right through the fence I never got her back we looked for days I even paid a guy with a thermal drone and still lost her. And we never made this mistake again and I was sick about it for atleast a month. Great video thanks

[harvestvillage]

Electric fencing is referred to as a "psychological barrier" meaning that animals have to be TRAINED to respect the barrier. Another option is a good perimeter fence around the pastures and then portable netting or polywire interior fences.

[alanwesterfield]

I agree to use field fence of some variety IN CONFINEMENT AREAS. With that being said energized fence (high tensile or even poly) is a game changer for grazing. Sheep do not test fences unless they are hungry. If they are hungry they need to be removed from the pastures either to another pasture or to a confinement lot. I have learned the hard way that sheep will DESTROY as pasture if left to their own devices and will pack the ground worse than even cattle. In Austrailia they are promoting confinement lots to protect pastures during drought conditions. Woven field fence or not... predators WILL find a way. Dogs will dig under and coyotes will go over. Livestock protection dogs are a must. You won't have problems until you do.

[imaslowlerner]

A friend of mine needed a place to put about 8 of his sheep on my farm. I had a fenced holding area however he wanted to put them out in the pasture. Well I only had electric high tensel that my sheep 🐑 and goats 🐐 were trained to it. So I explained the health reasons and the possibility of his animals will take off and they did. All but one took off and it took us about 2 weeks to catch all of them. Neighbors and animal control came to my place letting me know that they have seen the sheep 🐑.Animal control said that if they catch them before me that I wouldn't get them back. Now as he said in the video, if my wires are not hot, it takes less than 10 minutes before they start to get out, especially lambs.

[xblackdog]

We have two Nigerian dwarf goats, that have decided that the shock is worth it, and they just go back and forth at will. We keep thinking it broke, and nope still shocks (and is getting around 8-9kV at the spot they always go through), they just don't care. Luckily the fence is into our yard, so they just sit around the apple tree, and they stay within eyesight of the other, less brave goats. We have yellow placards along the wire that seem to work well enough at letting the sheep know it's there. Although we don't keep sheep over there much, currently we just have two ewe lambs that we don't want getting knocked up in that pasture. Luckily only around 1/20th (if that) of that fence line is HT, the rest is woven.

Also, on the square woven wire, we have a Nubian goat who I've had to pull or cut out of that stuff several times. It's what was put in by the previous owner, and we don't have the >$10k it would cost to replace it. Been planning on putting in a 6"-standoff scare wire or two to hopefully get her to stop going up to it (and to stop them rubbing on the posts).

Currently saving for a bunch of the poly-woven stuff, with fiberglass poles so we can do paddocks, and have better, mobile fencing.

[terril]

Lol goats and spooked horses. Always that one time... I love hot wire too. It's easy and mobile.

[jessealexander]

Woven wire sheep fencing or board fences is the way to go with small confined areas. It needs an offset hot wire to keep sheep from rubbing on it. Permanent HT is the best affordable alternative for larger pastures. I use 8 strands with alternating positive and grounded wires. Granted, it may not keep determined rams away from the ewes or newly weaned lambs from returning to their mothers. The sheep need to be trained to electric fences. If visability is a problem, tie some flags on the wire. BTW, using steel T-posts on an electric fence is something that only someone who uses Tractor Supply as their consultant would do. There is a huge potential for a dead short. Those yellow insulators look like junk that is sold to people that will only have livestock for a couple years or so before quit.

[yoopermann]

if you want to see how good your fence is just add some goats to your pasture if there is a way for them to get or get killed i found they are the ones to do it for you, , the few sheep i have raised in the past just stay where you put them unless they get hungry, then no fence will hold them either

[jeffpearson]

And take note that there is not a blessed living thing growing on the ground in that small paddock and by his own admission they headed into the "CROPS"