The best electric fence to keep a fox out of your garden

Electric Fencing to Keep Foxes Out of your Garden

Foxes can cause a lot of damage to gardens, often sleep under sheds, can harm pets and leave a nasty mess on your lawn.  The good news is that electric fences are easy to use and have been helping to keep foes out of unsuitable areas for years.  There are a number of considerations:

1) How will you power you electric fence?  You can choose to run it from your mains electricity, from a rechargeable 12 volt leisure battery, from a 9 volt battery that will need replacing about every 9 months, from D-cell batteries or from solar power.  Once you have decided how to power your electric fence, you will be able to select the most suitable energiser.

2) How large is the area you wish to fence?

3) Do you already have a fence you wish to add an electric barrier to, or will the fence need posts?

4) Is the area you wish clear from high trees or anything that would allow the fox to jump right over your electric fence?

If you are creating a fence from scratch, you will need some electric fence polyposts.  These come in bundles of 10 and you can select 3ft or 4ft posts.  The higher posts are better, but 3 foot posts do manage to keep most foxes out.  They come in a choice of green (which blends in nicely with the garden) or white.  The posts are easy to install (they just push into the ground) and easy to move should you wish to do so.  The posts have loops on them to hold your wire or tape, making them a very easy solution.  you need to have a posts every 5 - 8 m.  The closer the posts, the stronger the fence.

If you are using an existing wooden  fence, you will need to get something called 'insulators' to screw into your wooden posts.   Insulators are easy to install (they just twist in) and they hold your wire or tape.  The wire or tape MUST NOT touch the fence post, or any greener or your fence will 'earth' and will not work.  You need insulators on each post, and for each line of tape or wire.  Ring insulators are the most popular choice and are inexpensive.

The most important and expensive part of your kit is the energiser.  There is a huge range of energisers.  A good choice is the Gemini 80, made her in the UK by Hotline.  It can from a 12 volt leisure battery or from the mains.  It comes with an earth stake and costs approx. £105.99.  https://www.farmcareuk.com/gemini-electric-fence-energiser.html  If you are running it from the mains you will need high voltage lead out wire to go from the main (where you plug it in) to the start of your fence.  https://www.farmcareuk.com/high-voltage-lead-out-wire.html  If you are running it from a battery you will need a leisure battery  https://www.farmcareuk.com/12v-leisure-battery.html  (you can also pick up lesiure batteries from Halfords at a good price).  Another popular choice is a solar energiser.  The FireDrake 67 is a great choice, also made here in the UK.  It is more expensive at £285.99 BUT you don't need to buy an expensive leisure battery and you don't have to worry about charging it up every couple of weeks.  Solar energisers are very reliable and would be my choice if I had the budget!  https://www.farmcareuk.com/drake-67-solar-energiser.html  You also need a t-earth stake to go with your energiser.  Personally, I wouldn't use a 9 volt energiser for a fox unless I happened to have a very good quality one that was lying around and needing a use - so I won't go into 9 volt energisers here.  

Now you need to consider your barrier.  Electric tape is a good choice.  I'd select 20mm Shock tape - available in white or green.  https://www.farmcareuk.com/tape.html  You could also consider stranded steel wire - but it's a bit more fiddly to put up and get tensioned correctly.  https://www.farmcareuk.com/superior-stranded-steel-7-strand.html  The most important thing to consider is how many lines of barrier you need.  With foxes, anything between 5 and 7 lines should work.  There must not be space for the crafty fox to squeeze between the lines without touching them and getting a shock.  

It's also a good idea to get a 'starter' electric fence tester, so you can trouble shoot.  There is a huge range of electric fence testers, but you only need a simple one.  This tester, at £12.99 is a bargain!  https://www.farmcareuk.com/multi-level-fence-tester.html  

Your other option is to get a poultry kit, which is specifically designed to keep foxes out.  It comes as a net and some people use them for smaller areas.  You can join 2 x 50m nets giving you a nice 100m barrier.  These kits are great.  https://www.farmcareuk.com/poultry-kits.html

I hope this helps give an outline of the bits you need to set up an electric fence.  They are effective, although you do have to ensure they are set up correctly as a motivated fox can be clever and will find any weakness!  however, electric fences are quite easy to set up. Just make sure your wire doesn't touch anything conductive, and ensure your earth stake is securely pushed into the ground.  The fence does not need to be in a circle and can even be a straight line.

If you have any questions, we are a family run business and we are happy to help.  Please email:  sales@farmcareuk.com

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FarmCare UK

Electric Fencing Specialists

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