Securing animals with an electric pulse fence

It is a simple enough technology, and yet the electric pulse fence has made the biggest impact on the way we keep our animals.

This type of fencing has made it possible to secure pets and livestock, for their own safety, on properties of all sizes. From smallholdings, and even just in back gardens, up to the largest of commercial farms.

There are two ways that electric fencing can be used to protect animals.

First, it keeps predators away from the more vulnerable livestock. Indeed, it can be argued that free-range poultry farms would not be possible without this sort of barrier between the birds and foxes.

Conventional fencing would be prohibitively costly, given that the structure needs to be at least two metres high to keep foxes out, and to continue beneath the ground as well to prevent these predators from digging under the obstacle.

Secondly, it provides an efficient and easy way to keep animals from wandering off - possibly into dangerous situations, such as straying on to busy roads, and most certainly from getting lost entirely. Here an electric pulse fence can help protect livestock and, with the use of special collars, pets as well.

There are three components to an electric fence. It needs a controller, also called an energiser unit, to provide the electricity, conductor wires and, finally, the insulators holding these wires in place.

On a small-scale fence, a battery-operated controller can be used. Bigger fences will need to run off the mains electricity supply or a dedicated generator. Wind-powered generators are increasingly popular for such use.

The controller sends a pulse of electricity along the wires at regular intervals, about once a second. A simple fence could have just two electrified wire strands, running along its top and bottom. Another alternative is to use electric wire mesh fencing.

Any animals, including humans, which touch the wire and the ground simultaneously during a pulse will get a shock. How big a shock the electric pulse fence sends out depends on its voltage setting. But it will be high enough to be painful and provide an important message. You really do not want to touch those wires!

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