The availability of electric fencing has transformed free-range poultry keeping. It is arguable that without it, the keeping of extensive commercial flocks would never have happened.

There is only one thing that will stop a fox dead….it comes out the end of a gun!

Electric fencing stops them….alive!! There is no cheaper or better combination.

Electric fencing is extremely portable and versatile; it may be used on its own for both permanent and temporary fencing and has been used around the world to control every mammal in some guise or other. It is cheaper, easier to erect, more effective and far safer than a barbed wire and is a fraction of the cost of a fox-proof wire mesh fence.

Lightweight electric poultry netting supplied by Agrisellex Electric Fencing may be dismantled, bundled up and re-erected repeatedly. It is effective at allowing poultry access to specific grazing areas, as well as excluding a fox. The netting is made of polythene and stainless steel conducting twine and is erected with support poles and ground spikes.

An adequately designed and constructed electric fence works by the combination of a weak physical barrier (the fence) and a strong psychological imprint (the 6000v sting) created in the mind of the animal. An energiser attached to the fence wires produces a short but painful sting when touched by the animal, similar to a sharp “thwack” from a riding crop. The low amperage (15-100mA) and short duration (about 1/300th. of a second) results in a sharp but safe sting that then creates a psychological barrier that the animal associates with the fence and discourages it from touching again.

A “wimpy” electric fence energiser gives you a wimpy fence. Animals will think a single strand fence is a joke without a strong bite and they’ll walk right through it. Please buy one that puts out lots of power. During a wet year, you may have lots of plant growth touching the wires. That’s when you will need extra oomph to power through the heavy, wet vegetation. Better quality energisers will burn off a fair amount of casual vegetation and assist in maintaining a good fence, but this should not be counted on to maintain your fence. Electric netting is very resource hungry in itself so more powerful 12v or mains energizers are required. A 9v energizer will only run 1 net at best.

Electric fencing has been used in wildlife conservation and is particularly effective in ground-nesting Plover and Tern breeding sites around the world where foxes predate on the nests extremely heavily.

Study on Fox predation on Lesser Tern Colony,

“Tracks and scats of the foxes were first noticed near the colony on 28th. May, and almost daily thereafter. On 18, 19, and 20th. June, observers recorded that the incubating terns seemed “skittish, nervous and uneasy.” This phenomenon was first thought to be associated with hatching but no chicks were noted. Nest numbers decreased from 138 to 129 on 20th. June, to 61 on 22nd. June. By 23rd. June only 45 tern nests remained. Fox tracks crisscrossed the colony.

On 24th. June the electric fence was erected. On 25th. June we noted a slight increase to 48 nests; a week later, 2nd. July, we counted 60 nests, and by 6th. July, 85 nests. Fresh fox tracks were seen near the colony, but they never came closer than 10 ft to the electric fence, no tracks were found in the trial area. New nests outside the fence were consistently taken by the Foxes – none survived.”