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HOGS   The SURGE Fence is valuable in special feeding arrangements. Many farmers use it to keep their brood sows away from the feed only the little pigs are supposed to have. He wired a dead chicken to his electric fence. The first hog that bothered it got a mouthful of feathers and amperes that sent him squealing. The other pigs also got the idea that chickens should be left alone. A wire is erected around the feeding platform that is high enough for the small animals to walk under. The sows get a shock when they try, and they learn to stay away from the smaller pigs' more expensive feed. When you have kept a sow away from something she wants to eat, you have really done something! Some farmers use the electric fence though or around their corn fields for hogging down the corn or getting the ears left by the pickers. Among the many uses of the electric fence, we recently heard of one farmer who trained his hogs to leave chickens alone. Smaller pigs give the most trouble. They start under the wire, get a shock and when they jump, go on through the fence. Yet, if the wire's too low, there is shorting. One solution is to run an ordinary wire close to the ground. It forces the pigs to get a good contact with the charged wire when they try to crawl between the two. The training with hogs should be careful. A few ears of corn wired to the fence will teach them to stay away, and once they get a good shock, they're held as effectively by electric fence as any other farm animal. SHEEP and GOATS   Sheep and goats can be held by your Surge Fencer... IF... you practice patient and careful training. The best time for sheep to learn about the electric fence is after they have been shorn or their necks have been clipped, Sheep and goats will need two wires... one about 12 or 14 inches from the ground and the other about 20 inches from the ground. Many times wild animals will learn to respect an electric fence. so that the wire can contact the skin instead of a heavy layer of wool. Sheep are especially sensitive to shock around the ears, face and nose, so if you can tempt them to expose themselves that way, your job is that much easier. Ears of corn wire to the fence or small cans of damp oats attached to the charged wire will furnish the bait. We have heard of elk, rabbits and deer learning to stay away from a charged wire, but that's something you'll never have to find out about yourself. Deer may come in a running jump that doesn't give a chance for a shock. If you can tempt their curiosity by getting them to walk up to the fence to examine some bait or bright bit of metal, there is a good chance they will find what electricity is all about and keep out of your fields. Smooth or Barbed Wire? No Need for Radio Interference There is no one right answer. About all we can say is that you'll get more out of Surge Fencing by using some of both. Smooth wire is so much easier to handle... and cheaper... that the man who uses it will almost certainly use his electric fence more. It is much easier to use smooth wire in temporary fencing, and you'll probably move your fences more often and dislike the job less. If does take a little more care in the training of the stock... especially the older animals. If you already have considerable barbed wire available that isn't rusty, you'll want to use that, but we can say that smooth wire is easier to handle, more economical and works as effectively in holding stock as barbed wire. The smooth wire carries the current a little better, so there's probably a stronger shock from it than from barbed wire. Smooth wire lessens the chance of cuts on your animals and that's something very important to consider too. It took us some time to develop a fencer that wouldn't give annoying static in a farmer's radio and that of his neighbors. Electricity is sometimes unpredictable, and things came up we hadn't expected. We finally built the fencer so that installed right it does not give radio interference. If you do have trouble with radio interference, there are several things that may be causing it, and a careful check on your fence set-up will probably correct it. Here are things to look for: A defective lightning arrester is the most common cause of interference. It can be readily detected by disconnecting the fence wire from it. Better try this first. Poor insulation of the fence... look for trouble here if you have any old, cracked, or dirty insulators installed near your buildings. Improper grounding of either the fencer or the radio. Radio aerial directly over, parallel to or near fencer wire. Improper location of fencer near electric junction boxes will invariably cause trouble if the fencer lead-out wire is run parallel or close to light or power wires. If you check all these points carefully, and still have radio interference, consult your local Babson representative or drop us a line.