I want to run electric wire all around the outside of the chicken run and across the barn doors to protect against black bears. I don't want to have to break the wires for all four doors, as that will be tedious and risks connections accidentally being left undone at night. I would prefer a solution that goes across the front of the covered patio so I only have to open up from one place, but I'm unsure how to run electric wire across such wide openings. What would you do in this situation?
Backstory:
My chicken coop is inside the horse stall on the left side of the barn. The barn has two doors to two horse stalls, but the rafters are open so if an animal gets into one side, they can probably get over to the other. Additionally, there is the door to the chicken run and the tackroom here. On the back side of the barn are two openings to the horse stalls, which are boarded up with plywood and wire as we don't have horses and do have pretty much every wild animal imaginable that likes to eat chickens. But my big issue is with black bears.
Recently, a bear managed to get into the barn and killed all but one of my chickens. The bear first attempted to get in through the barn door. When it failed, it climbed on top of the run, tore off siding and entered the barn through the crawl space. This is the second time in five years that a bear has broken into the barn. I've already hardened all the entry points, but given the ingenuity of this most recent bear, I know it is time for electric wire and feel it is really my best option to protect my chickens.
Thanks
by Not_l0st
13 Comments
Your best bet is to have a motion sensor alarm and then shoot the bear.
Do bear boards instead. They might work.
Is that smooth door to the right of the bear accessible from inside the barn? If so, I’d be inclined to block off that entire “porch” area with some cattle panels, lag bolted to the posts and stacked 2 panels high. This would offer security, and still keep visibility + ventilation if you need it. No need to worry about if your wire is live, or shorted, or if the charger is plugged in or not.
You want to run electric fence across 4 doors, and not have it break?
I haven’t seen everything there is to see in the world, but I’ve never seen anything that would work like that. If anyone comes up with something that would actually work, my guess is that it’ll be so convoluted that just remembering to connect/disconnect the fence across the doors would be easier.
If you’ve hardened the wooden portions of the structure properly, just run electric wire around the outside of the mesh run, and call it good. Don’t preserve any openings/doors in the mesh run; run the electric wire right across any doors in the mesh run.
You’re trying to solve your problem the wrong way. The way to deter a bear here is continuous perimeter fencing with powerful, heavy electric across the top, and a separate continuous perimeter outside of that with several strands of powerful electric, preferably barbed. That’s how you stop apex predators with electric, layers of pain.
As an alternative, involve a dog or three. Dogs are the solution to almost all predator problems on a farm.
You could increase the strength of the material, go to steel, add rebar strips inside of the studs, motion detecting alarms including fake dog barking sounds, bright lights, yowling mountain lions.
In the meantime, doing it the wrong way on purpose is just sacrificing helpless chickens to predators.
30-06 or larger wouldnt be a bad option 🤷
First off, you need electric Fencer energizer a joule or more output.
You will need tposts, tpost insulators, some bare metal eletric fence wire, and those insulated handles to make your gateway.
Make a paddock around your building however far away you want. Space 5 wires every 6 inches or so. Make sure you have some good ground.
Bait the wires with an aluminum tin of sardines or bacon wrapped in tinfoil.
Do you have a need to keep the hitching post? If not, I’d remove/cut it off below ground so as to not give the bear a literal leg up onto the roof.
That aside, this website has a helpful chart for recommended voltages for predators as well as domestic/other animal species regarding electric fencing.
https://www.zarebasystems.com/learning-center/animal-selector
I’d remove the hitching post, drive some 4×4’s into the ground in the open spaces between the current roof supports and run hot wires with standoffs on all of the posts. Space them as you need to and have them attach to an additional post at the building corner via spring handles. Space the wires so s/he’s likely to contact them with their nose; induce them to pull back rather than shove forward through the wires if the gap is too large and it lets the shock hit the back of their head or body.
It would be a hassle to move the handles each time you go in or out but beats dead chickens. That or add a gate such as this one if it will support sufficient voltage to suit your needs:
https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/easy-gates?cat_id=45
https://share.google/yuf8QmQKvcThyWHiY
Psu has a few different best fence designs. One I remember was putting tinfoil with PB on it so it zaps them in the mouth…..
Did you try talking to the bear? Maybe sitting down, brewing a fresh pot of coffee and telling the bear why their actions are affecting you?
Definitely befriend the bear! 😁
Build a gate for that open area. Looks like place to tie the horse. Put a fence panel behind that. Run a wire in a circle pattern on that side. Feed the electricity form the left. Now put a large somewhat solid gate on the right side. It can swing left or right. Which ever you do, feed the electricity from the hinge side. You can run a bare wire there. I would run an insulated wire across the gap that moves. Now you open or close your gate.
Rig up a gate latch and handle so you can open and close with hour touching the wires.
I am curious how well electric fence works for a bear. Does it need to be stronger than for a cow? I know that cows like to get fresh grass. But they won’t cross an electric wire when they have plenty to graze on this side of the wire. I also knot that a bear will endure hundreds of bee stings to get to the honey. The chickens or the feed bags is NOT on both sides of the wire. They have stronger claws and maybe they will take more of a shock and still work at getting in?
Not a bad idea. Bears are terrified of electric fences once it pops them.