Electric fence question.

[Dillon]

Hello everyone,I fenced off about one acre,and used field fence with a strand of barbed wire 8inches above that.I put electric fence between the field fence and barbed wire and about 6 inches off the ground to prevent digging.my question is will small tumble weeds and such stop the electric fence from working? I don't plan on kenneling my dogs.does anyone with a setup like mine have issues with the electric fence working?

[Mackdog]

It should work, just brush it out every once in a while. Barbed wire around dogs doesn't sound like such a great idea. Check out John Wick's method of trash breaking with an electric fence, sounds like it works pretty good.

[Dillon]

Thanks,ya I don't know why I used barbed,kinda silly I guess,but it's at 5 feet high,hopefully they don't make it that high.

[catdogs]

That is exactly what we have. Any dry weeds will not stop the fence you will have to keep the bigger and green stuff off of it tho. We intailly had our fence on for a month or so and after that the dogs wouldn't go near it so we unplugged it. Now, we just plug it for a few days once every couple months, just to make sure they remember.

[Dillon]

Right on,that makes me feel better about the whole set up.thanks

[rhromm]

Do you separate males/females?

[catdogs]

Ours is just a play pen. We'll let them all out males and females for a few hours everyday. We have seperate kennels.

[Dillon]

No I don't plan on separating dogs.I'm going to have the females fixed,I don't really want puppies.Im just not sure about the dogs in this big of a area,without kenneling them.I've heard good things about not kenneling the dogs and just letting em run in a big area.but than again I really dont know what I'm doing anyway. (:

[MThound]

My kennel is about 200' by 300' with welded wire and post and rail, standard 48" high. I put an electric wire 4" from the bottom and one at the top of the fence on the inside of the kennel. The dogs tested it a couple times the first week or two, but learned quickly to respect the fence. It has been close to 8 years that they have been it it and I have only had to plug it in a couple of times since to keep one from digging out. Try to keep vegetation off of the wire as much as possible when you are using it. Small grass and leaves will not effect it much. Electrifing barb wire is fine, it is used all the time around our place but most don't use it just for cost wise. My dogs have their houses in the large pen and get along just fine. Just watch your females around their heat cycles and seperate asap!

[Dillon]

Right on thanks a lot for your info.I feel a lot better about the set up.

[rhromm]

I struggle enough with heat cycles, that would be a hassle to say the least. I am also hesitant to spay the females, as I may want to breed to them. For a pen that small in height, any male dog/coyote/wolf can get in. Spaying a female in that type of inclosure would be a must for me.

I often thought about a pen such as that as the benefits would be immense. Stress, anxiety, boredom I see in a dog penned up would be eliminated. That would help keep dogs from barking, digging, and other nuisances. That would help to I have a major highway not too far from my dog pens, and I can not risk having any dog get loose, so mine stay locked up in kennels built like a prison.