Electric Fence “Fixes” Help Keep Pigs Confined

Electric Fence “Fixes” Help Keep Pigs Confined FENCING Miscellaneous In order to keep his pigs where they were supposed to be for his farm’s rotational grazing program Caleb Howerton of Springfield Mo made some improvements to his electric fence system One thing he noticed was that the plastic on store-bought electric fence terminals would become brittle from being out in the sun He needed a stronger terminal that had more length than traditional 2-in store-bought screw-in insulator terminals since he also had a problem with the pigs pushing the electric wire up against his hard fencing and gates which caused the fence to short out PVC turned out to be the answer Caleb used thick walled ½-in pvc pipe cut into 7-in lengths; 2 in of the length of pvc fits into pre-drilled holes in the wooden gate posts and is secured by 1 ½-in screws going through the pipe into the wood at an angle and the remaining 5 in comes out of the posts Holes were drilled into the exposed end of the pvc to run the electric wire through Another electric fence improvement Caleb made was to keep his piglets in their respective paddocks Piglets can fit under electric wires that adult pigs can’t so Caleb created what he calls “piglet fingers” They’re made from 8-in long pieces of electric wire that are wrapped tightly around the fence wire and then pointed toward the ground Caleb placed these along his regular bottom fence wire which is about 6 to 8 inches off the ground at 2-ft intervals The result is that when piglets try to duck under the fence they are shocked by the dangling piglet fingers These can be made shorter or longer depending on how high the bottom fence wire is off the ground Since making these changes to his fence system Caleb said that the pigs have become much easier and more convenient to manage Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Caleb Howerton 1008 E Farm Rd 54 Springfield Mo 65803

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