Getting the Fences Ready

Last week The Farmer and I spent an evening walking the perimeter of one of the pastures to see to the fences. A lot of grass and weeds had grown up around the bottom wire of the fence.

Some of the insulators had come loose or broken. Here The Farmer is replacing an insulator. He'll hook the wire back into the new insulator after it's firmly attached to the steel t-post. The plastic insulators keep the t-posts from being an instant ground for the electric fence.

One afternoon this week, we flipped the switch to turn the fence on, and tested to see the strength of the electricity flowing through the wires.

You might be wondering if the fence hurts the sheep, and the answer is: Only if they touch it. They learn to stay away from it when it's working well. When it's not working well, we chase sheep.

We set up some temporary fence (also electrified) leading out to the field that had corn in it last year. The pasture grass has been slow to grow this cold, wet spring. There is enough vegetation in last year's corn field to feed the sheep for a day or so.

The sheep know something is up.

More tomorrow, maybe...

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