Electric barriers

eduardo_Brazil said:
In my opinion this can be the future of zoos, with bigger exhibits, more naturalistic, etc.

Principally we have to look for the pricing of such structure, that is very law comparing with "normal" enclosures.
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Hi Zooplantman, any thoughts or experiance on these ideas?

Personally had never considered the electric earth idea.
 
Several years ago we tried using 3 strands of hotwire to keep our emu from going across a moated area. We had one bird that went through the wire, came back through the wire again, then sat on it! Needless to say we abandoned the whole idea. The bird was no worse for the wear after it shook off the initial "shocking" experience.
 
eduardo_Brazil said:
Zooman,

This is not standart, it gives the impression that the soil is conducting a law shock, is imperceptible for humans, we made tests but dont show any thing.

In my opinion such barriers if well managed can be used for several species of primates, they have a low price and could be hiden with live trees, etc. Making more natural exhibits, for example fencing a bigger area with natural trees, etc. Attention have to be made for no leaf or other object be in conntact with the fence, this can broke the shock and the animals can scape.
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This has me curious.
If the soil was carrying the "shock" then the system has been grounded and there is no shock to touching the fence, as far as I know. Perhaps there is minimal leakage of current, but then how would the primate feel that?
I don't think we understand this phenomena Eduardo describes.
Electric fences make a distinct "tick tick tick" sound and the animals are very aware of it. When it stops, they are more likely to test the fence. Perhaps this primate was reacting to that? Perhaps her tail came into brief contact with the fence? Or she touched some other thing that was touching the fence?
Eduardo, more observations would be very helpful here!

Electric fence cannot safely be the sole or primary restraint for animals. It fails too often. When weeds touch it and are not trimmed, it shorts out and is inoperable (as Eduardo says). If a tree limb falls on it during a storm or windy day then there is no barrier. So as others have said here, hot wire helps restrict animals' access to parts of their enclosure (to protect plants, keep them from disappearing over a hill, etc.). So even with electric fence there needs to be a real, inescapable physical barrier. Even a good water moat is usually more about the moat than the water.

The "invisible fence" used for household dogs fails and they require shock collars on each animal. How often have I seen my neighbors' dogs trotting down the street when their fence was out or their collars had come off.
 
Hi,

Lets me try to explain again.

Perhaps you understand now with my bad english.

This female is a adult female, with 10 years and is very tame, she was acostumed to run freely some times during the day at our center, alone, and was easy for get she back to the old enclosure, the male also some times was out, walking aorund the trees and other buildings.

Due this tame personalitie of this pair we decide to build a electric barrier at the new enclosure.

She touched only on time the wire.

What I observe every day is that see walks around the barrier, put the hands near the wire at the soil and dont touch the wire. She go a litle bit more and makes the similar movement. It seems that there is a perception of the shock. The first line is about 5 cm from the soil that is prepared with artificial stones for avoid greens in the fence and consequently the line will be cut.

I will try to make pictures of this.
 
Hi Eduardo,

We're doing fine...ta bom...and if you'd prefer to explain it in Portuguese, I can have it explained to me ;)

So you can see that she is "sensitive" around the lower wire, but you cannot tell if she is actually getting shocked? Her reaction touching the soil is not the same as when she touched the wire?
 
By sure she is not shocked, if she where shocked first ting is run away from the fence and be agressive, she walks 2-3 meters around the barrier and make the test with the soil again.
 
Zooplantman said:
This has me curious.
If the soil was carrying the "shock" then the system has been grounded and there is no shock to touching the fence, as far as I know. Perhaps there is minimal leakage of current, but then how would the primate feel that?
I don't think we understand this phenomena Eduardo describes.
Electric fences make a distinct "tick tick tick" sound and the animals are very aware of it. When it stops, they are more likely to test the fence. Perhaps this primate was reacting to that? Perhaps her tail came into brief contact with the fence? Or she touched some other thing that was touching the fence?
Eduardo, more observations would be very helpful here!

Electric fence cannot safely be the sole or primary restraint for animals. It fails too often. When weeds touch it and are not trimmed, it shorts out and is inoperable (as Eduardo says). If a tree limb falls on it during a storm or windy day then there is no barrier. So as others have said here, hot wire helps restrict animals' access to parts of their enclosure (to protect plants, keep them from disappearing over a hill, etc.). So even with electric fence there needs to be a real, inescapable physical barrier. Even a good water moat is usually more about the moat than the water.

The "invisible fence" used for household dogs fails and they require shock collars on each animal. How often have I seen my neighbors' dogs trotting down the street when their fence was out or their collars had come off.
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Only when there is short in the fence and its arcing between strands!

Well installed and maintained electric fences shouldn't be audible to at least the human ear.

When we do night tours of the zoo and I'm telling people how animals that are crepuscular or nocturnally generally are less reliant on sight but on their other senses I get them to listen out for the ticking of the electric fence that is shorting out. You can even see the sparks crossing between wires where the fence is shorting
 
If the soil was carrying the "shock" then the system has been grounded and there is no shock to touching the fence, as far as I know. Perhaps there is minimal leakage of current, but then how would the primate feel that?
Click to expand...

I agree that there maby is a very small current leakage which some animals can feel and we can not. This would happen especially if the insulators were wet (raining). I have herd that pigs can sence an electric fence and have been seen waiting then timing their escape between clicks.
 
thanks eduardo, very interesting.
 
Indeed, very good. Does anyone have any pictures of the bears in that temporary exhibit, or how they've done the hotwire in the newer one? South lakes does it and I thought it was a bit risky, but if it was done in the same way as Jersey then I guess it must be ok.
 
Tells me I have to log in to view it?
 
Ok, I have registered now I'm awaiting approval, it looks like an interesting site.
 
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