Sheep Fencing: Electric Netting vs Woven Wire

Author: Elliott Garber, DVM

Sheep fencing has to do two jobs at once: keep the flock in and keep predators out. Electric netting is the go to portable option for rotational grazing and for lambing paddocks, because it is quick to move and, when kept properly hot, deters coyotes and dogs as well as it contains ewes. Woven wire (field fence) is the workhorse for a permanent perimeter, but you have to pick a mesh small enough that horned sheep cannot trap their heads, and most producers run a hot offset wire along a woven perimeter to stop rubbing and climbing and to add a predator deterrent. Whichever system you choose, an electric fence is only as good as its grounding, which fails first in dry soil.

Why sheep fencing is a predator problem first

A cow fence keeps cows in. A sheep fence has to keep sheep in and keep coyotes and dogs out, and the second job is often the harder one. Sheep are close to the bottom of the food chain, they flock rather than fight, and a single loose neighborhood dog or a coyote family can do serious damage to lambs in one night. Alabama Cooperative Extension names coyotes and dogs as the primary predators of sheep and goats, with young lambs also vulnerable to foxes, bobcats, and even vultures.

That is why the strongest advice from extension programs is to treat fencing and a livestock guardian animal as a pair, not either or. A guardian dog such as a Great Pyrenees patrols the perimeter, a guardian donkey will chase and stomp canines (though donkeys are prone to laminitis and need their own management), and a llama will bond with the flock and drive off dogs. The fence slows a predator down and the guardian finishes the job. No single fence design is a guarantee on its own, so plan for the fence to be one layer of the defense.

Keep this framing in mind as you read the rest: every fence choice below is being judged on both containment and exclusion, and the two goals sometimes pull in different directions.

Electric netting: the portable workhorse

Electric netting is a prefabricated fence of electroplastic twines woven into a grid, strung on push in plastic posts that come built into the roll. You unroll it, push in the posts, clip it to an energizer, and you have a paddock in minutes. That speed is exactly why netting has become the default tool for rotational grazing and for temporary lambing or weaning paddocks. Cornell Small Farms notes that fewer than five nettings can equal a mile of single strand electric fence in the ground you can subdivide, which is what makes it so efficient for moving a flock across a pasture.

The whole system depends on the net staying hot. Netting is a psychological barrier, not a physical wall: a ewe that gets one good correction learns to respect it, but a ewe that touches a dead net learns the opposite. The most common reason netting fails is an underpowered energizer, especially once summer grass grows up into the bottom strands and drains the charge. Cornell’s practical guidance is to run an energizer of no less than two and a half joules for a few nets, and five or six joules and up for a few dozen, and to keep the vegetation under the line knocked down. A meter that reads the actual fence voltage is worth having, because a net that looks fine can be dead.

The real hazard with netting is entanglement, and it falls hardest on the animals you most want to protect. Lambs can push into the mesh, and horned sheep can hook a horn or a head in the grid, and a tangled sheep on a hot net can be injured or worse. Cornell is blunt that a sloppily installed net can become a death trap for a sheep that gets stuck. Two rules follow from this. First, keep the net taut and the bottom close to the ground with no sagging sections lambs can push through. Second, check a new group in the first day or two after every move, and check often when lambs or horned sheep are on netting. Netting works best where the flock is monitored, not on a back paddock you visit once a week.

Woven wire: the permanent perimeter

Woven wire, sold as field fence or sheep and goat fence, is a grid of horizontal and vertical wires knotted into squares. It is the classic permanent perimeter because it is a genuine physical barrier that holds up to sheep pressure without electricity, which matters if a storm or a fallen limb ever kills your charger. Penn State Extension notes many producers choose it, with the tradeoff that woven wire costs considerably more to install than high tensile.

The single most important choice with woven wire for sheep is the mesh opening, and the reason is horns. Standard livestock fence with large or graduated openings will let a sheep push its head through to reach grass on the other side, and a horned sheep or a curious lamb can then get its head or horns trapped and be unable to back out. A stuck sheep is vulnerable to heat, dehydration, and predators. The fix is a small mesh: general fencing guidance for horned small ruminants points to a roughly 4 by 4 inch opening (or a fence whose openings are graduated so the gaps are smallest low down), which is tight enough that a head does not fit through in the first place. If you already have large mesh field fence, an electrified offset wire (below) run at nose height goes a long way toward keeping sheep off the fence so they stop testing the openings.

Height and predator exclusion matter too. A woven wire perimeter meant to keep predators out should be high and tight to the ground, since coyotes both jump and dig. Many producers add a barbed or electric strand at the very bottom to discourage digging under and one at the top to discourage climbing over.

High tensile electric for long perimeters

For a long permanent perimeter where woven wire would be expensive, multi strand high tensile electric is the economical alternative. Oklahoma State University Extension reports that a permanent electric fence of five to eight properly spaced strands holds sheep well and can be built with high tensile wire for roughly half the material and labor cost of an equivalent woven wire fence. OSU calls a seven or eight wire fence about 48 inches tall ideal for sheep.

The spacing is the trick. Sheep are low, woolly, and inclined to go under a fence rather than over it, so the lower strands need to be close together (a few inches apart near the ground) to stop lambs and ewes from crawling under, with wider spacing acceptable toward the top. Wool is an excellent insulator, so the fence has to deliver a firm, high energy shock to reach skin through the fleece, which is another argument for a strong energizer rather than a weak one. High tensile is a good perimeter for a flock that will learn the fence and stay put, and it pairs naturally with interior netting for the rotational grazing you do inside that perimeter.

Grounding: the step people skip

Every electric fence system in this guide lives or dies on its grounding, and grounding is the step most people underdo. OSU Extension states plainly that improper grounding is the number one reason electric fences fail and estimates more than 80 percent of systems in the United States are inadequately grounded. The charge has to travel out the hot wire, through the animal, into the soil, and back to the energizer through the ground rods, and if that return path is poor the animal never feels a real shock.

The extension recommendation is three or four ground rods, six feet long, driven in parallel about six feet apart, not the single short rod many fences ship with. A single rod is only adequate when the ground is extremely wet.

Dry soil is where grounding gets worse, and it is worth planning for. Dry sand or hard baked summer ground conducts poorly, so the same fence that shocked hard in spring can go weak in a drought exactly when predator pressure is high. If you fence in a dry region, add more ground rods than the minimum, site them where the soil stays a little moister if you can, and check fence voltage with a meter through the dry season rather than assuming.

Offset hot wires on a woven perimeter

One of the highest value upgrades to a woven wire fence is a single electrified offset wire, a hot wire held a few inches off the woven fence on standoff insulators. Penn State Extension describes running one electrified wire on the inside of a woven fence to keep animals from rubbing on it or leaning over to reach outside grass, and to keep them from standing with their feet on the wire. That offset wire does three things at once: it stops the constant rubbing and leaning that stretches and eventually wrecks woven wire, it keeps sheep from pushing their heads into the mesh, and it puts a live wire in a predator’s path.

For predator work, extension guidance on combining the two systems is to run electric strands on both the inside and outside of a woven fence, near the top and the bottom. A hot wire low on the outside is what discourages a coyote from digging under, and a hot wire high up discourages climbing over. This layered fence, woven wire for the physical barrier plus hot offsets for the behavior and predator deterrent, is close to the gold standard for a permanent sheep perimeter, and it is why the two systems in this guide are usually built together rather than chosen between.

Keep the fencing on the record

Fencing is infrastructure you plan, install, and maintain over years, and it is easy to lose track of what you did and when. It helps to keep a note on each pasture or on the flock: what fence type, what mesh, when the energizer was serviced, when you last drove the ground rods, and any spot where a sheep got tangled so you fix that section.

On Creatures you can keep those maintenance notes and the flock’s health and medical records together instead of in scattered notebooks. Adding a record for a fence repair or a predator incident takes a moment, and you can set reminders for upcoming care so a pre lambing fence walk or a seasonal grounding check does not slip. If you are just getting started, here is how to add an animal, and you can browse the whole sheep species hub for related care such as shelter and lambing. Naming a new ram or ewe? The sheep name generator is there for the fun part.

Frequently asked questions

Is electric netting or woven wire better for sheep?

They solve different problems. Electric netting is portable and fast, which makes it the right tool for rotational grazing and temporary lambing paddocks, as long as it stays hot and the flock is monitored for entanglement. Woven wire is a permanent physical barrier for a perimeter, and it does not depend on electricity to hold. Most established flocks use both: woven wire on the perimeter and netting to subdivide inside it.

How do I stop a horned sheep from getting its head stuck in the fence?

Use a small mesh opening (around 4 by 4 inches) so the head does not fit through in the first place, or choose graduated field fence with the smallest openings low down. On existing large mesh fence, add an electrified offset wire at nose height to keep sheep off the fence so they stop testing the openings. Netting must be kept electrified so horned sheep learn to stay off it.

What voltage or energizer do I need for a sheep fence?

Strong enough to push a shock through wool. In practice that means a robust energizer sized to the length of fence, not a bargain unit. Cornell suggests no less than about two and a half joules for a few nets and five or six joules and up for many, and pairing that with good grounding. Check the actual fence voltage with a meter rather than trusting the charger’s light.

Why does my electric fence work in spring but go weak in summer?

Two usual causes. Vegetation grows up into the bottom wires and drains the charge, so keep the line under the fence knocked down. And soil dries out, which worsens grounding and weakens the return path. Adding ground rods and checking voltage through the dry season both help.

Can a fence alone keep coyotes out?

A good high, tight fence with hot offset wires makes a real difference, but extension programs recommend pairing fencing with a livestock guardian animal (a guardian dog, donkey, or llama) for durable predator control. Treat the fence as one layer of the defense, not the whole answer.

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