Found in the plains and grasslands of the Andes Mountains, the vicunas are the smallest member of the camelidae family.  With thin legs, a slender body, and a long neck, the vicuna stands three feet tall from their shoulders to their feet.  Vicunas are said to have some of the world’s softest fleece, with colors ranging from golden to dark brown.  Once on the brink of extinction, the vicunas are now making a resurgence in South America.

A third member of the camelidae family is the llama.  Known to some as pack animals, llamas are considered domestic animals to the people of the Andes Mountains.  Grazing on mainly grass, llamas are able to survive on a variety of plant life, and require very little water.  Their limited need for food and water make them very dependable in the mountainous terrain of the Andes.  In addition to their duty as pack animals, llamas have grown to become effective guard animals over sheep, goats, and cattle, as well.

Interested in learning about the containment systems available for your domesticated animals?  Click here to learn more!

Long live the days where electronic containment has been used as a method of keeping animals confined to a set area. We often forget, however, that what may keep one in can also keep others out. This blog post explores using electronic containment as a means of protecting animals from outside predators such as wolves or coyotes.

The main difference between domesticated animals using an electrified fence and wild animals contacting the fence is the learning curve. In most cases after one or two shocks a domesticated animal will avoid the fence, while it may take several shocks to teach a wild animal that the prey on the opposite side of the fence is not worth the shock. Fences with the purpose of keeping predators out need to be sturdy and have more wires that are spaced closer together. Using a permanent high tensile fence system is ideal for this situation, as they offer the durability and stability needed to effectively protect your animals.

Coyotes and wolves often hunt in packs and prey on weaker and slower animals. They are also able to dig to go after their prey, so in this instance you will want to make sure that a wire is placed within six inches of the ground to deter them. The fence should reach at least 40 inches above ground and host a minimum of 6 strands of wire at about 6-8 inches apart.

High tensile fence systems are especially necessary in the event that you are deterring bears from entering a grazing area. Bears can become angry after feeling the shock of an electric fence so making sure a durable fence is properly installed is key. Bears are also very skilled at standing so make sure your fence is at a height suitable to them being on their hind legs.

To learn more about this method of animal protection visit our website. High tensile fence systems are recommended for this and you can learn more about their benefits from our videos.

Because frozen soil cannot conduct electricity to the degree that thawed soil can, the performance of your fence is affected during cold winter months. Snow creates a barrier of contact between animals and the ground, acting as an insulator and therefore not shocking the animal during contact. To avoid this issue you can use a “hot/ground” system for your fence rather than a traditional set up. A “hot/ground” system is installed by running parallel wires on the fence.  One wire is electrified or hot and the other wire is the ground.

Broken insulators are another issue that you may face. Although Zareba® Systems insulators are durable they can break due to wear and tear. When an insulator breaks and causes the “hot” wire to touch the fence post a specific amount of voltage will be drawn from the fence post causing a lower voltage to run through the wire. This decreases the intensity of the correcting an animal may feel and could decrease the effectiveness of the correction.

Much like the fence post pulling voltage from the fence system, weeds can do a similar thing. Weeds “short out” a fence when they touch the fence and draw all the voltage and amperage from the fence that is being produced by the fence energizer. Additionally, fallen tree branches, etc. can have the same affect. It is important to make sure your fence is clear of all debris year round.

If you’re not sure whether your fence is working at optimal levels, be sure to test it. Using a Zareba® Systems Fence Tester makes checking the system’s strength easy and safe. Once you’ve determined if a problem exists, you can seek out where it may be caused.

For more expert tips, visit our website and learn about keeping your fence at its best. If you have tips of your own, share them on our Facebook page or tweet us!

To learn more about the High Tensile Fence Systems offered by Zareba Systems visit our website or check out our video segments at youtube.com/zarebasystems!

Wild Turkey, Courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology

When we think of the Thanksgiving holiday there are a few key components that come to mind: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, football, spending time with family, and eating turkey! This blog post will take a closer look at the holiday’s mascot and reveal interesting facts we’ve gathered on this bird!

The Wild Turkey is native to the forests of North America, and is a relative of the grouse family. When first encountered by Europeans on American soil, turkeys were incorrectly identified as a type of guineafowl, which had been imported to Central Europe through Turkey. Guineafowl were also known as turkey fowl, and therefore were in short called turkeys. This is how the name turkey came to stick with this bird.

The most recognizable feature of the turkey is a fleshy growth on the front of its head. This is called the snood, or sometimes the dewbill. The wattle is the pouch-like area at the front of the turkey’s throat. These features are a red shade, but when the male turkey begins his mating dance the region becomes vividly red.

The wild turkey can fly up to 55 miles per hour for short distances. They’re able to move quickly on foot, with running speeds of around 25 miles per hour. Their domestic counterparts are unable to fly. At maturity about 3,500 feathers cover this bird.

Benjamin Franklin was a great fan of the wild turkey. He proposed that it be the national bird, rather than the bald eagle. He was fascinated by their bright plumage and ability to fly with relativity to their size.

Five hundred twenty-five million pounds of turkey are eaten on Thanksgiving, stemming from the average 45 million turkeys that are cooked. On average, 90% of American homes serve turkey for the Thanksgiving holiday, where only 50% do for the Christmas holiday. With popularity like this, it is no wonder the turkey is so wildly known in the U.S.

We at Zareba Systems are thankful for this amazing bird and its contribution to our Thanksgiving Holiday. We are also thankful for the business of our customers and wish to continue to serve them. Please join us on Facebook and share what you are thankful for this holiday season!

In late winter, as I come out of hibernation, the horticultural hormones kick in and I fall in love with my garden all over again. Unfortunately at about the same time the slugs and snails take an added interest in what I am doing. Since I’m not growing it for them, this leads to an inevitable face-off. I don’t find viewing my garden as a war zone an attractive prospect. It is, however, understandable how some gardeners readily slip into that metaphor, as they fight for their crops against a tide of enemies and search for weapons in their armory to defeat them. It is truly dispiriting to see a neat line of lettuice seedling disappear overnight, consumed by foraging slugs.

I’m not soft on molluscs but I have to concede that they are quite fascinating. I’ve seen slugs climbed high into the trees and once witnessed a slug doing a steady abseil down a thin rope of mucus from the ceiling where onions were suspended to dry. Leopard slugs use such a slime rope for their extraordinary intertwining hermaphrodite mating process. Snails are also hermaphrodites and can spend over 20 hours in mutual insemination. They are both ancient ecological survivors, showing that, despite their reliance on moisture to survive, they are successful evolutionary species – and don’t we know it.

There are probably some mollusc evangelists who feel that slugs and snails are as valuable to the biosphere as rhinos and tree frogs. They certainly have an ecological niche, many of them feeding on rotten material rather than fresh greenery. In my opinion there is enough wild space for them to thrive elsewhere and I have no compunction in trying to eradicate them from my plot. Not that I’m likely to succeed.

It’s heartbreaking to plant out seedling plants that you either bought at great cost to yourself at even greater cost in terms of time and effort, then to return to the plot a few days later to find every single one of them chewed to a bare stump. What do I do about slugs and snails? I zap them with slug pellets. I don’t like doing this but, in my opinion, using pellets as a defense against slugs and snail damage is the only guaranteed way to protect your plants.

In an ideal organic world suppose I’d put up a sign saying “slugs and snails, keep out!” And that would solve the problem. I could surround my plot with copper strip or a tiny fence that slugs couldn’t climb. I could line the perimeter with beer traps or I could go out every night with a torch and a bucket. None of these control methods are practical when you have a large plot. Besides, have you seen the price of copper?

On the other hand I don’t want to give the impression that I’m totally unimaginative in my fight against slugs and snails. My weaponry doesn’t emanate from a plastic container. Pellets are just the only way that I actually kill the blighters. But I do try to keep them at bay, mainly by understanding something of their habits.

Slugs and snails hide by day in dry weather and come out to feed at night, especially after rain. They don’t travel far: they move so slowly. So I try to keep my plot and its surrounds free of suitable hiding places and create a buffer zone, a no go area for slugs and snails about a meter wide around the whole area. The zone consists of a grass path that I keep short on two sides and a stone chip path along the other two edges. Only the most adventurous slugs are going to cross that for their dinner.

That doesn’t deal with the slugs that hide on the plot itself, either under plant debris or under the ground. I discourage them by tidying up whenever I get the chance, especially, slimy, fleshy things like cabbage leaves, and by hoeing and digging. If there’s one thing’s slugs and snails don’t like it’s a clean well cultivated growing area with nowhere to shelter when it’s dry and the sun is out. Basic garden hygiene really does make a difference. By late July it becomes impossible to keep the plot clean and the proliferation of slugs and snails is immediate and huge. Every cabbage, cauliflower and leaf that comes into the kitchen has its resident slugs. I don’t mind the odd slug in my cabbage; what I hate to find is half a slug.

I’m fond of mulches but I’m all too aware that coarse mulch, like straw, leaf mold, course garden compost, makes an ideal habitat for slugs and snails. Ideally, therefore mulches should be fine grained if they are to be used around vulnerable crops. Regular disturbance of mulches with a hoe also helps. Last season I grew potatoes by the no dig method, under a thick layer of semi-composted hay. I had a wonderful crop but the slug damage was terrible. I’ll think twice about repeating that experiment.

Talking of digging, I still believe it’s a necessary part of the business of growing vegetables. One reason is that it helps control soil inhabiting slugs. Often when I’m digging I uncovered a cache of slug aches, like tiny pearls, and leave them exposed for the birds.

Once you come to the realization that you will never win the eternal battle against slugs and snails you can then rethink your tactics that will allow you to minimize damage and this is really the only way you and your garden can co-exist with slugs and snails.

This is a guest post by Neil Jones from My Garden Hammock. A site dedicated to enjoying your garden to the fullest and that’s by sitting back, relaxing and watching the fruits of your labor mature and flourish.

For more information on natural slug control, click here.

Most electric fences use 14 or 17 gauge wire depending on how long the fence is and what animal is being contained or repelled.   Keep in mind that the lower the gauge of wire, the thicker the wire will be.

There are different types of wire: steel, aluminum, high tensile, polywire, polyrope and polytape. Each wire type has it’s own purpose. Your selection will depend on the type of fence you are installing, how long the fence will stay in place, and what type of animal you are containing.

Keep your pets out of the garden!

First consider how you will power your electric fence. Can you get AC power near your garden?  If yes, purchase an AC powered fence controller.  If your garden expands in the future it will be easy to upgrade.  Better yet purchase a more powerful fence controller in the beginning with future expansion in mind.

If you can’t get AC power to your garden consider a solar powered or DC (battery) operated fence controller.  These units are more portable and don’t require an AC (plug-in) power supply.  Solar units use a solar panel to maintain (charge) a battery inside of the unit.  It’s the battery, which charges the fence.  Solar units are a great option if you don’t want to change batteries periodically.  Solar energizers can easily fit on most t-posts to face the sun.

A final option to consider is an electric fence kit.  Check out our new video for our pet kit! These kits work well to keep dogs or nuisance animals out of gardens (50 linear feet of 2-wire fence, or less).

After considering how you can power your electric fence, next consider the animals you want to keep out.  If you are concerned with raccoons or rabbits your wire spacing can be tighter and near the ground.  On the other hand, keeping deer out of a larger garden will require a higher fence.  A nuisance animal trying to eat your vegetables will test the fence at all heights.  Rabbits will try and crawl between ground and first wire; deer certainly can leap a fence.  For rabbits and raccoons consider your first wire 3” – 4” off the ground with 6” wire spacing thereafter to 24” height (max).  For deer, space wire 10” apart to height of up to 70”.  

For posts pick whatever style you are most comfortable with:  T-Post, Round Post, Fiber glass or Plastic.  Consider that you will need to choose the right insulator (holds the fence wire) for the correct post. For wire consider aluminum for maximum conductivity.  It’s also “softer” (more malleable) and easier to work with.  Polywire, polytape, polyrope are popular with people looking for aesthetics, but these wire options include unique tensioning requirements depending on the type.

Click to see The new Fi-Shock Pet Kit!

Use Polytape for all of your equine needs

Not only is vision and association a factor, safety is also a prime concern. Polytape fences are much more forgiving when a horse hits the fence in panicked flight. Lengths of tape are joined with splices that pull apart and are less likely to entangle or otherwise injure the animal. Polytape installs as any fence conductor, but be warned special insulators and connecting hardware is needed to properly build a sound fence.

Polytape fencing is a psychological barrier and should NEVER be used as a perimeter fence system. Its application is to train horses to stay off conventional fences and to control the range within the physical boundary of the perimeter fence (Woven Wire or High-Tensile). It is a great cure for “cribbing”.  When it is properly installed with a low-impedance energizer, I guarantee they will only wrap their lips around it one time.

Another consideration might be to place wire close to the ground to help correct or prevent a digging dog.  Remember to keep grass and weed pressure off the fence to ensure most effective shock.

As with all electric fence systems a grounding system is required.  If you aren’t familiar with grounding please read more here.