Grazing Fencing Solutions

Getting electric fencing right is critical in getting your grazing right.  The eclectic fence is a psychological barrier not a physical one, it is critical to make sure that it is working all the time and "hot" enough to maintain the psychological control.  Start by training your livestock to electric fences in a situation where there is a physical barrier fence behind the electric one.  With that set up when they get shocked they jump backwards rather than forwards into the electric fence.  If they go forwards they make a birds nest of the whole thing and blood pressure rises.

There are 3 `styles of fencing solutions that are mentioned here.  They go from least capital and most labour to most capital and least labour. 

  1. everything is polywire/braid and portable, 
  2. where there are parallel permanent steel wires which are cross cut with polywire to make strips, 
  3. where all the wires are permanent spring loaded steel wires.

I would recommend starting with 1 - polywire and portable - as you learn so much in the first year of doing this that you don't want to invest too much up front and then realise you put the fences in the wrong place.  Use your existing camp structure and make daily grazing strips inside it with polywire.  This is also the fastest way to learn what size camps you need to make to meet your livestock's demand, how this demand varies during the season and how to tweak strip size if you got it wrong yesterday.

Polywire/braid portable fences:  1. Energiser - there are multiple options, portable and fixed.  2. Broken reels - this happens.  3. "Boer maak n plan" upgrade.  4. Andre Lund's "caravan" loaded with home made solutions ready to go and set up the next 10 strips.

Portable fence posts:  There are many retail fence posts but while they work well in pastures few are up to daily use in Southern African veld conditions.  1. Simple 10mm rebar does a great job.  2. Most insulator producers now make insulators than can just be pushed onto the rebar.  3. Older models screwed on.


Permanent fence posts:  Permanent electric steel wires are erected either in conjunction with polywire or in permanent steel electrified camps. For cattle you can get away with one wire, for sheep you need three as are shown in the images.  1. Steel Y-posts can be used for stronger posts in a permanent system with 2. rebar or 3. fibreglass as standards. 4. Spring loaded permanent wires. 


Common errors:  These are what break the psychological barrier. 1. too much 'boer maak n plan and" frayed polywire touching posts, 2. Heavy reels pulling down wires / posts, 3. Wires touching vegetation.  4. Use meters to make sure there is enough oomph to maintain the psychological barrier.