Goat Fence – Repair

Last week while I was sick, one of our goats (Holly) escaped from the goat field a couple of times. Yesterday she did it again, so I thought “Enough!” it was time to fix the fence and, hopefully, make it a little more goat proof. Now I know that the only way to make a fence truly goat proof is to make it a 30 foot high sheer concrete wall … but my budget doesn’t go that far, nor do my neighbours think that that would make for a particularly attractive country idyll.

I had some 3m long star posts from the dismantling of the goat quarantine pens, so they would be the foundation of the higher, improved fence.

I wasn’t about to remove the old fence, but bolster the existing fence and increase it in height. As you can see, we had a lovely Sunday here in southern Tasmania. I then went along the fence and put in some plastic electric fence clips. These clips are great, they have a pin that goes through the star post fence-line hold and then another pin holds the electric fence tape in place. The idea is that you can have your electric line close to, but not touching the steel post and with enough space that the line will move with the wind.

I put a loop at both ends of the line and made the electric fence reasonably taut. Now the electric fence line runs at just over 1.8m above the ground.

Next, I ran a new support line along the length of the fence-line. The support line is attached at the top end of the fence with a simple loop and twist (so that the wire “knot” tightens itself when it is pulled taut) and then attached to a line stretcher at the other end.

The stretcher is kind of like a winch, it has an in-built ratchet and pawl with a box nut on the outside so that you tighten it with a wrench. The stretcher is attached to the end fence post with a kind of wire slip-knot (again so that it tightens when pulled). Then the stretcher is tightened and the wire becomes quite tight. I am always very careful when doing wire stretching, my wife’s friend lost an eye from a broken wire, and I have had a couple of nasty cuts on my face from wire breaking under strain (thankfully, I have never had any serious injury).

The support line is then attached to each of the star posts with a wire twist. I cut about 4” of wire and make a V. The bent wire goes through the hole in the star post with the point of the V in the middle. I then twist each end of the V around the support line three or four times. I find this method to be quite easy as I can bend both ends of the V simultaneously and just wrap them around the support wire.

Next, I rolled out a length of dog-proof wire mesh. The mesh has smaller holes at the bottom than at the top, this is also good for keeping out rabbits and other smaller animals. The mesh is then attached to the support line in much the same way that the support line is attached to the star posts. I attach the mesh to the existing fence at the bottom as well so that it is held in place. I left a gap of about 3” between the top of the dog mesh and the electric fence tape so that the electric fence doesn’t earth on the mesh. It is possible that a bird will alight on the tape and make the tape droop, but the bird will get a shock and it should just spring back.

Now that the fence and mesh is all connected up, I just need to power the electric fence and, presto … new fencing in the goat paddock.

Normally, I can handle the electric fence with my hands when it is powered without any pain, but when I was leaving the field, I got zapped on my upper arm, just below my armpit and, wow, that was a good jolt!