# Fencing (last resort!)



## jlsullivan (May 5, 2011)

So, I've been a member here for a while (though only really lurking), but still feel like I'm figuring things out!

We've had goats for about 2 years now, but are at the end of our rope with trying to contain our 13 month old "baby" goats :kidred: :kidred: . These girls are Alpine/La Mancha crosses, and I think they inherited some serious hybrid vigor. We simply cannot keep them contained--they jump too high.

We started with 4' chainlink. They could sail over it. We then added an additional foot of chainlink on top. They could still jump over it, though they had to use the fence itself as a launching pad and this was kind of a flimsy fix. Our entire property is surrounded with 6' chainlink, and our neighbors swear that they've seen the goats jump over THAT as recently as 3 months ago.

Three months ago, we decided to make the switch to electric. We went with the Premier electric netting with a solar charger. It maxes out my voltmeter @ 8000 volts, and made my goats SCREAM when they first touched it. They've developed a healthy fear of the fence, and they had stayed contained in it, until a few days ago. Since then, the goats have apparently realized that they can jump over the fence, and even if they get shocked, once they jump, they're out. :hair:

Once the goats get out, we've been making them touch their noses to the electric fence, and then they are immediately returned to the enclosure (no positive reinforcement here...) Still, they keep jumping.

I absolutely LOVE my goats, and I can't stand the idea of not being able to keep them. But, we have giant gardens as do our neighbors, and it's starting to feel completely unsustainable to have them escape so often. I can't figure out what causes them to jump...we hike with them daily (so lots of exercise), they have access to alfalfa, grain, AND weeds from our property, and when they get out they mostly just stand around nibbling on weeds (and occasionally on my car door) at first [so it doesn't seem like they are on a mission or anything...they only get truly destructive if we happen not to see that they're out for a while...].

So, any ideas? We aren't made of money, and want to have at least a 20' x 60' area fenced for them for a less-than-crazy sum of money. And, we just really want this to work. I'm having a baby in 2 months and don't think that will compatible with constant goat wrangling, especially since the goats have figured out that it's really fun to climb on top of these giant boulders to hang out :laugh: . I'm considering adding more lines of electric fencing above our mesh, but I don't even know any more of that's likely to help things (and am unsure about the logistics...can these be powered off the same energizer?). Another thought was to have two layers of fencing, but my concern is about what happens if (and when) one of the goats jumps between them and gets stuck between the two layers. Any help would be SO much appreciated!


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## freedomstarfarm (Mar 25, 2011)

Wow that is a hard one. I had a boy that was a fence jumper so I had to make a 6' high chain link enclosure for him with nothing close to the sides that he could jump on to get out. I bought the fence in sections so it could be dismantled and moved. Works great for expanding also. Good luck with them. 

...and Welcome from NJ :wave:


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## LuvmyGoaties (Mar 9, 2010)

Have you tried slanting the top of the fence in? It makes the fence MUCH harder to jump/climb over. We did it but ours is slanted out to keep preditors out instead of keeping the goats in. You can see what I mean here: http://thegoatspot.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=22167 Ours has electric on the top but you can use anything. Good Luck.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

That is a hard one, if it was just one I would say to just tie them up with a long chain and put the chain in a old garden hose so that they can not get tangled up, but Im not sure on this one, you would end up having them all staked out all over the place. Ill try to explain this idea the best I can lol, what if you tied a rope around the back leg, say the right, then the other end to the front left, make it long enough that they can walk, but when they go to jump will pull the back leg out from under them. Even then I can see many things going wrong with that, get it tangled up ect. But if you were to try it while you were with them, then once they figure out what is going on maybe you could trick them and just have a small piece on the back leg, then a small peice on the front but not tied together. I had a goat that I was milking and had to tie her leg up, she was getting better about it but still had to have the rope on her back leg even though it was not tied to any thing. Thats the best I can come up with right now. I know dairy goats seem to be bad about jumping, I just have beef panels for the boers and that keeps them in and they never jump on the cars, but the dairy cross are bad about jumping on the cars.


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## MarthaBella (Mar 15, 2012)

I was watching two does for a friend of mine that I found out were experts at getting out. Grrr...every day trying something new to keep them in. Well, finally what I did was put a solid board about two inches above the welded wire field fencing. I used preused lumber. It doesn't work if you have metal fence posts though, unless you can figure a way to attach them. I left one area without wood above the wire because it wasn't a large spot and I was sure they couldn't get over that spot. Wrong, they sailed right over two days later. Soooo...I put the board up there too and finally they stayed in. I think the solid board prevented them from being about to "springboard" over the fence. They couldn't actually hop over but they would use the springyness of the welded wire fencing to bounce over. It was SO frustrating and I was SO happy when she took them home. Interestingly enough they don't even try to get out at her place...they have a huge field of grass and weeds and stay in all the time. Go figure. Hope that helps!


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## jlsullivan (May 5, 2011)

Thanks for all your help, everyone! In the end, we have decided to double up on the electric fence. There is now one very tall electric fence with five wires on the inside, and a somewhat shorter mesh electric fence on the outside. We also now have the top wire slanted, so hopefully leaving is less appealing. The logic is (a) hopefully they just can't clear the new, taller, slanted fence and (b) the second layer of fence behind it will make escape seem terrifying. 

They're in there now and, of course, terrified of the fence. We'll be staying outside with them during the day (I'm still worried about them somehow getting stuck between the two layers of fencing, though I think we got the spacing right to avoid that problem) and putting them in their shed at night...here's hoping this works.

Also, MarthBella, I loved your idea, though we had actually tried it (forgot to mention). We could only securely get the fence up to about 5' that way, so they could still clear it. Wishing I had taller posts/lived in a less windy area (we get sustained 60-70 MPH winds in the winter here, so planks larger than that would eventually just go sailing away!)


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