"Breakaway" Electric Creek Fence

"Breakaway" Electric Creek Fence FENCING Fence Systems 32-6-28 Mike Wargo, Williamsport, Ind., used metal clothes hangers and plastic conduit to run a "breakaway" electric fence across a creek that runs through his pasture. "It's an easy, cheap way to keep livestock from escaping," says Wargo. "The electric fence that surrounds the pasture is about 7 ft. above the creek. I didn't want to install a barbed wire fence under it because every time the creek flooded, logs and other debris would take the fence out and I'd have to fix it again." To solve the problem, he added a second strand of high tensile wire about 2 ft. below the original fence. He uses a tin snips to cut the hook off each clothes hanger and then straightens them out. Once the clothes hanger is straight, he uses a pliers to bend one end into a small hook. Then he hooks the straightened clothes hangers over the wire. He uses a wire cutters to trim off the bottom end of the wires to within about 1 ft. of the ground, following the contour of the land. The plastic conduits have a pre-molded slit in them, allowing them to be snapped over the wire. The conduits serve as spacers to keep the wires apart. "I've got four of these æbreakaway' fences on my farm and they really work good. I haven't had any problems with them in two years," says Wargo. "The hooks allows the hanger wires to sway back in a flood, allowing water, trash, and other material to flow through without damaging the fence. They also maintain electrical contact while keeping the hangers from coming off the fence wire." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mike Wargo, 3115 W. 575 S., Williamsport, Ind. 47993 (ph 765 893-8577; wargomike@ yahoo.com).

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