Until we let the goats into their newly fenced pasture. They promptly escaped. They laid down on the ground and belly-crawled under the fence. They reared up and leaped through the top two strands of tape. They walked through it as though it wasn't even there; kicking the strands of tape from their legs as they went. Worse, when they got out, they invariably headed straight for the neighbor's nice, juicy patch of sweet corn.
Do you have any idea the damage a goat can do to a stalk of corn? To say nothing of seven goats in one small garden! Thankfully the neighbor laughed it off but after the third (or twelfth!) time of chasing the goats out of the corn, I was ready to sell (or eat) the entire herd.
We realized our first mistake was that our fence charger was just too weak. We took at face value the labeling which claimed the fencer would charge something like a couple of miles of fence. It didn't. We went back to the store and bought a heavy-duty fencer. We put a 10 mile fencer on about 40 yards of fencing. It really packed a punch.
The second thing we did was discover Premier One Supplies, http://www.premier1supplies.com/, and their line of electric, mesh fencing. No, we don't work for them or anything but when I find a product that works, I'm happy to pass along the information. We placed an order Monday and by Wednesday the fencing had arrived.
Between the heavy-duty charger and the electric mesh fencing, the goats learned to stay away from the fence. Now they even respect the four strands of wire we later used to make our permanent, perimeter enclosures.
This morning I was working at the computer and the children had just begun their school work when we got a knock at the door. It was DN (Dear Neighbor) telling us the pony was out. We secured the pony then went to walk the fence line. We soon saw the problem:
The passage between the main pasture and the top pasture had been created by using electric mesh fencing on the right side and the old post and tape on the left. The post and tape was pulled down. (The electric mesh on the right here is the pig fencing we never actually used for the pigs.)
We had another section of mesh fencing but it was already in use for making a nice, big corral for the new pony, Rio, who is still in quarantine. The only thing to do was to take his corral down to a smaller size and use that fencing along the passage way.
Pulling up the section of fence proved to be a little difficult since it had been in place for a while. The weeds had grown up around the bottom strands. We got it pulled up and moved what was left to enclose Rio's new, smaller pen.
The nice thing about the mesh is it's soooo much easier to move, if need be, than the posts and tape fence. As long as it's handled carefully, it rarely tangles plus it's light enough that one person can carry a section 164' long. This is DD (Dear Daughter) carrying the mesh fence down to the breach.
The ground was so hard and dry that we had to use rubber mallets to drive in the posts. We quickly strung the fencing along the corridor and over the stream, racing the goats and the pony who had come down to investigate. Clover, our Saanen kid from last year, escaped but was quickly brought back when none of her partners in crime were able to make it out before we closed the gap.
We put up the new fence in front of the old. The post and tape was left behind to be cleaned up another day. We had to go back up to the house to get back to work!
The goats enjoyed cleaning up the weeds that had grown up under the old fence-line around Rio's area. I gave him a flake of hay as a consolation prize for reducing his corral by half. He'll be out of quarantine soon anyway.
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