electric fencers

[tweaker101]

I need to purchase an electric fence charger and was looking for some input as to which ones to avoid. So far I am looking at speedrite and gallagher.

[grassfarmer]

I use PEL chargers and have found them to be excellent. Lots of power and very reliable.

[jensend]

we've gone to all speedrite. seem to put out a really good pulse and power through vegetation very well. no more gallagher - too much service.

[smcgrath76]

We use Speedrite at home, and we have a Bulldozer mains energizer.
We get them from lambacres (www.lambacres.ca)
They are half the price of a Gallagher for the same quality or better of a fencer. Right now they are throwing in a free faultfinder remote as well.
We use little bee (I think they are called hornets) for temporary short spans. They are cheapest at the UFA in AB and they work well.
If you are near power get a mains as they are cheaper per unit of power. For remote application, set up the solar or wind power yourself. You can get a bigger better panel far cheaper than an electric fence company will sell it for. Also, make sure to use deep cycle batteries.
We have screwed up a lot of things over the last 30 years with electric fence, but we slowly and surely have learned a bit too.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Another vote for SpeedRite. Excellent fencer, better than Gallagher in my opinion. Very easy servicing with modular components and should you find that you've bought too small, they can be uprated as long as the cases are big enough.

I wouldn't go any smaller than 5 Joules output though, no matter how short your run. I've watched cattle walk through 3 Joule fences without thinking about it.

Rod

[poorboy]

I would avoid the gallagher fencers. I have 2 of the largest 12v models, and they are alway broken and costly to fix.

I have had very good luck with the bee fencers. The key is to keep them in a weather proof box. Cheap and way better life expectancy than both of my gallaghers.

[WoolyBear]

If you need one for good fences, in remote areas, we really like our 6V ParMak Solar fencers. They also have a 12V version. It comes with the panel, battery, current strength meter and fencer all in one unit. We have had 2 now for nearly 3 yrs with no problems. We don't have them on anymore than 3 miles of clean new HT, but we still are able to get a 3-4000V reading. We've never needed to worry about changing batteries, and one of them worked for us all winter. You can get them either at PeavyMart, Co-op or Princess Auto. They have been running in the $169 to $200 range. We also have the Bee (or Stinger) AC Fences and have been happy with their preformance.

Has anyone out there any experiences with the Gallagher Fencers with the remotes? I think sometimes that would be a good idea.

[smcgrath76]

I am surprised you have had such good luck with Parmak. We had one for 5 days and will never buy another.
Most electric fence literature says to try to get 7000 volts through the fence, but this is not really required if the cattle are trained.
We don't have a remote fencer, but I figure this is a GREAT idea. I have been blasted several times hooking up portable reels in our MIG system and 12000 volts from a big fencer is certainly a wakeup call.
Again I am a fan of speedrite, they come with a free faultfinder remote.
The faultfinder is a must have if you have any length of fence at all. It not only tells you how your fence is working but what direction to go in order to fix it.

[tweaker101]

I think its a toss up between the two big names and will most likely come down to who gives the best deals like the fence fault finder? or somthing like this and the best customer service. While we are talking about electric fence what is the best way to prevent lightning damage to the charger other than just pray.

[grassfarmer]

A couple of things we do - install a lightening choke close to your power source. This is a big coil spring about 2 feet long which you use to connect the two ends of your fence bypassing an insulator. OK, that sounds confusing - make a break in your fenceline by joining the two ends to an insulator then attach the spring either side of the join to transfer the power through.

Second thing is add a lightening arrestor. This is a small china insulator with a wire going to your fence and another going to a series of grounding stakes.
These should limit your chances of lightening damage although we have still had one hit in 6 years that fried our circuit board. That is another point to consider when buying a new charger - can a circuit board be replaced? On some it can't and you have to throw the whole machine away.

[cswilson]

Do they make one that bears don't find so tasty-they devoured a Gallagher on me a few years back lol.I'd go with whatever brand has a good reliable dealer fairly close by-they will all fail eventually and nice to be able to access repairs quickly. The only one I ever tried that was absolute junk was a twin mountain. I got a couple Parmaks this year and they seem to be working fine-I have 5 Gallaghers including one old E12 that keeps chugging along. We get the dealer to check them out every spring just to be safe.

[grassfarmer]

7 chargers? how much land are you fencing in cs?

[cswilson]

Enough that I need 7 fencers lol.

[grassfarmer]

Reminds me of the joke about the Texan rancher that was saying his ranch was so big it took two days to drive around it - to which the visiting Scotsman replied "aye I used to have a car like that too"

[northfarmer]

we had been buying gallagher...have a couple of them....we have upgraded to Stafix from NZ for our main requirement, our local supplier is selling quite a few and they had the best bang for the buck!!!!