Pig fencing (part II)

At the end of last week’s post I wasn’t quite sure whether the last few things I needed to finish the electric fencing for the pigs would arrive. Well, thanks to some efficient shipping from Electric Fence Online I’m pleased to say that everything arrived in good time and, after another couple of hour’s work at the weekend, we now have a sizeable area fenced off for the pigs to enjoy when they arrive in a few weeks’ time (see photo below).

In case anyone else is thinking of putting up electric fencing for the first time, I thought it would be helpful to mention a few things that I found useful:

  • This page contains a really clear guide to putting up an electric fence, including a couple of different options for wiring up gates.

  • The diagram on the right-hand side of this page is a useful summary of what seems to be generally accepted good practice for setting different wire heights for pigs. In the end I decided to go for a three wire fence as this has a low wire (only 15cm from the ground) to discourage weaners from rooting under the fence, plus two other wires set at sensible heights.

  • The combination of digging in wooden posts at key points (i.e. at the corners and the gate) with push-in plastic posts in between seems to work really well for a semi-permanent setup. The wooden posts can take more than enough tension to keep the wire taught, whilst the use of the plastic posts in between meant I didn’t have to spend days digging in posts every few meters.

  • Hotline’s Corner Pulley insulators are great for simply screwing into corner posts and allow you to easily pass wire around them to adjust the tension of the fence.

Everything's looking good at the moment but the real test will be when the pigs move in later this year. We'll let you know if we have any escapees!

If you’re putting up your own electric fencing and find the above helpful then please let us know. We’d love to hear how you get on.