I was pleased to receive a call on Saturday from a customer wanting to purchase a replacement poultry net and was going through the process when she asked if the net had the fittings to plug it into a mains socket. Despite pointing out that no nets were supplied with this facility as the 220v mains electricity has to be transformed to 6000 v and rendered safe by various other means by an Electric Fence Energiser, the lady assured me this was not the case with her current net as it was definitely plugged directly into the mains socket.

They lady was absolutely adamant and took some convincing this was totally illegal and downright dangerous for these reasons outlined on this posting on the Safety of Electric Fencing. Despite attempts to establish if there was an energiser between the socket and the net I eventually said that purchasing a net and connecting to the mains was dangerous and illegal - I pointed out she was purchasing a net designed to be connected to the energiser and left it at that.

The fence as a whole would not be that effective as the voltage drop over the length of the fence would be substantial due to the small filaments having basically poor conductivity and at the end the result would probably barely be felt.