Setting up the first electric fence

As we currently don’t have animals on the farm and are using the neighbor’s tractor for several construction jobs, we are trading access to the stream for access to the tractor. That saves the neighbor the expense to truck in water and we dont’ have to acquire a tractor just yet.

We will have animals of our own later. First, we want to establish ourselves on the land and begin with the implementation of some basic infrastructure design.

The neighbor has about 100 cows that need water. We didn’t want those 100 cows get in the way of our other design efforts neither did we want their droppings all over the place. That provided a good oportunity to learn about electric fencing.

Within two hours or so we had created a wide pathway from the neighbor’s hole in the fence all the way down to the stream. It’s probably some 300 - 400 m in length.

That type of fencing is pretty much unknown in our part of Spain. There are either stone walls or permanent barbwire fences. After it was all set up we got a few strange looks then people shrugged and were ok with it. The investment for the whole fencing material, with quite a bit of surplus, was less than 400 € and the energizer probably another 250 €.

One solar powered unit provides the electricity. So far it is working well. We’ve seen the cows react and understand the fence. No harm done.

They are coming down to the water once per day where they have a wide area to gather and drink. When they are done they just walk back to the neighbor’s pasture where they like to hang out and feed.

The white fence looks also pretty nice in the Andalusian sunshine. :-)

We are using the tape instead of a regular string. It’s meant to be used for horses and we will use it for horses later on.