I wouldn't worry about a livestock fence, back on the farm, the boy's,
incl. the neighbours used to hold on and see
who was toughest to hold on the longest,...bare foot!
I would put it a bit below so the neighbour wouldn't see it.
Volts really don't mean much......it's the amps what gets you.

Konrad

I think you would be fine using a livestock fencing charger. Just post "electric fence" signs and tell the neighbor that you are trying to keep "pests" out of your orchard and that they should warn their kids to not touch the fence. That should cover your "backend."

Then, I'd set up a trail camera to catch the "pests" in action. May get some entertaining pictures of the urchins testing the fence.

About the amps, they don't rate them in amps, only volts. They also rate them by animal but they don't include kids for some reason.
I don't think anyone would've been playing around with our 2000 volt weed burner, by the time it let go you were really wishing it would.

I went to TSC and I could put together a "kit" as cheap as the Petco dog fence kits. It would be 1000v, $20 more would get 2000v. Either would give me enough power to do the whole yarn plus run an auxiliary fence around the corn for the coons as needed.
They also have some insulators I could connect to the top rail.

I didn't think about a trail camera. I'll have to check and see if my friend's is digital. As entertaining as watching them get zapped would be it would be just as entertaining to show their owner pictures every time they do something. Maybe after a dozen times he would get the idea to stop allowing them to run the neighbor's yard unsupervised.

I think you might be on the wrong tack. Our horse fence runs about 8000 volts, and while it can really sting if you are well grounded, wearing rubber boots really protects you--you hardly feel it. Same with rubber gloves. I think these urchins are devious enough to find a workaround. Another consideration is the potential risk to very small children. I have read of toddlers being injured by electric fences. I don't think you'd want to expose yourself to any liablility. As entertaining as it might be to watch the older urchins get zapped, I think it's time to talk to the parents. Nobody wants to start a war with neighbors, but I would make it clear I won't tolerate trespassing. Good luck and let us know the outcome.

Marc

The amps are not given because the discharge is limited by the resistance of the human body. An adult is about 2000 Ohm, hence 800/2000=0.4 Amps (a hefty current if you ask me), depending on the exact current path. I measured it on myself a few times with a voltmeter, hand to hand. Hand to foot might be closer to 1000. A child might be closer to twice the resistance of an adult, but the current density (the ampere per square inch) will be twice as large.

There's more to the technical calculations involved here, but I'm not sure that's critical.

I'd go with the cattle fence charger and signs and put the wire on top of the fence higher than a toddler could reach. The kids might figure a way to bypass your fence, but I'd bet they just leave it alone. I think the larger chargers are less likely to be the subject of sabotage than the smaller ones. One good zap, and I think your problems are going to be history. Kids and electric fences have been mixing for a very long time. I'd bet lawsuits are very rare.

Have you made a trip to the neighbor to talk about the kids' behavior? Is there a chance that the parents don't know about their juvie behavior and that they would appreciate knowing?

I like the idea of getting some video on them.

marc5,
Something isn't adding up.
You have a horse fence 4 times stronger than what the pamphlet I got at TSC recommends for horses and 8 times stronger than what I'm looking at. I also recall pictures that showed your wire pretty low to the ground in reach of toddlers. The pamphlet doesn't even recommend 8000 volts on any fence, although I've seen that figure for bears from other companies. I don't think you have enough bears in Ohio to use that as your excuse should that hypothetical toddler with a pacemaker grab your fence.

Yet I'm supposed to worry about liability with a low powered fence 4' off the ground and on the inside of my chain link fabric?
At the same time I'm not supposed to worry about the liability of kids getting poison on their hands, eating poison apples before the PHI, the kids sticking their hands over the fence to get bitten by the dog, the kids jumping the fence to get attacked by the dog or driving down the street and having one of the kids dart out in front of me.
If I was going to worry about getting sued over every little thing I'd have to strip my trees until these kids get too old to visit the swing set, I'd also have to get rid of my dog.

Be real. We're not talking the 50,000 volts from a Taser.

Brandon,
I'm thinking the 1000v may be enough because of the short run and short distance to the ground rod. I think the cattle guy I know has a modern charger and while it doesn't lock you up forever like a weed burner it still makes you wish you hadn't touched it.
I don't know how many volts his is but it covers quite a spread cut into different pastures and fields so it can't be too high at the fence.
If 1000 wouldn't be enough to make them think I bet it would be enough to keep them from climbing.
But I guess if 1000 doesn't work it would've been better to spend the $20 extra for 2000.
Knowing what 2000 felt like from my childhood I don't think it would need to be more than that.

Rhizo,
The father is a weekend father - full time drunk. He is the one that yelled at one of the kids to "leave the apples alone ... they're fake anyway". She was actually trying to get my dog to go to the fence and was just near the tree to hide from me while she called the dog.
That tells me he knows they took apples last year and any sane person knows as soon as their back is turned those kids are going right back to what they were doing. He cares when he is there, but since this is someone else's playground he rarely is. He doesn't care enough to watch them, they have to be beating on the swingset pretty loudly before he yells ... even when he's already outside.
Or maybe he only cares when I am there, he's quicker to jump when the neighbors are out than if they aren't. He would probably be willing to take an apple himself if they were beer flavored, stealing fruit is not only a kid thing. My nephew who is a cop was part of stealing apricots from his brother's neighbor. My sister-in-law says her aunt will stop and take apples off any tree she she's anywhere.

The fact that they jumped the fence to get to one of the traps is the big issue, my dog does not like kids, and I bet these kids are a big part of the reason why.
The number of apples they take isn't much of an issue. Them becoming so bold as to jump the fence could make the number of apples they take in the future become an issue but for now it's a few cider apples off the fence side of the tree.

Myk,

You truly have my sympathy. I find it extremely offensive that with all the time you take to prune, spray, and otherwise care for your trees, some awful neighbors have no consideration allowing (perhaps encouraging) their kids to vandalize your trees, and steal your fruit.

Still, as a practical matter, I really don't think the electric fence will do much. I grew up where electric fences where everywhere, a part of life. If you wanted to get past the electric fence, you simply crawled under, used a stick to raise it up, unhooked it, etc. They just aren't that secure for thinking beings. All the kids have to do is grab a pair of wire snippers, and your fence is history. Or they can simply ground it out on the chain link fence below. Like Konrad, I used to grab hot fences and let the other kids walk under. I really don't think an electric fence will do much but frustrate you, in the long term.

My only suggestion is to talk to the drunk. My guess is, a polite discussion with the drunk about the problem his kids are causing will cause him to have a discussion with his kids. My thought is, drunks don't want any problems and want to be left alone. You ring his doorbell a few times, and he'll start hollering at his kids about them stealing fruit, rather than encouraging them. If that doesn't work, the only other option I can think of is a tall privacy fence, although I know that option is expensive.

Well, as a kid I got zapped many a time because my father forgot to tell us kids he moved the fence and we had a lot of respect for that fence. Yes! if kids really want something they will find a way around it, but the fear of getting zapped makes one very reluctant to take chances. I would tell the neighbor just for the heads up.

Myk,

Work load has been pretty heavy lately--haven't logged on in a while. 3000 volts is generally enough to keep a horse inside the fence. Our higher voltage (8000) derives from a shorter run, but it's not going to cause harm to horses or people. It's far from being a high-voltage "weed burner" that's available.

I didn't mean to sound like a liability worry-wart. My fence lines are low enough for any kid to grab, but our voltage is reasonable and we have no toddlers around. I only mentioned the toddler scenario because I read about it a while back. Good luck to you.

So far catching them and yelling plus waiting until they pulled up the next weekend to spray so they saw me spraying seems to have worked.
Of course it's only one weekend. But they were timid last weekend and I heard them talking about me poisoning the apples.

I had thought that I could try bribing them with pie and a promise of better apples. I think there's a better chance of that working rather than talking to the father.
I figure a mean old man gets no respect from the kids he hates, the nice old man gets protection from the kids that think he likes them.

But as long as they're acting timid I didn't want to lay my cards out yet. I have 4 pies worth of apples left, I'll just make sure I save one for when the apples are turning red but far from getting ripe.
Hopefully that will hold off until my McIntosh are ripe and I can use those as a bribe.
I'd rather avoid an electric fence because I don't want to be shocked either and I know when you have one you get hit sometimes, besides that $50 is $50.

My sister's reaction was about getting sued over a shock too. I said I certainly couldn't shoot them with a BB gun, we just has a "shooting" in a park that was with a BB gun, BB gun wars were good enough for us when we were kids but not this generation. And I certainly couldn't shoot them with rock salt since I'm in city limits.
So we talked about the good ol' days when kids listened because they knew they'd get shot if they didn't.

I did read up on the EPA papers and the poison I'm using does not go good with kids.

I was intrigued by this post's title, so I had to read it- Wow, makes me glad for my rabbit problem! Too bad you can't grow a "catch crop" for these pests! I think your bribe idea sounds best so far, although even that might not work. Sounds like the kids' experience with adults is a lot like your dog's experience with kids! Maybe you should threaten to put them to work if you keep finding them in your yard? Well, I don't really have any amazing ideas, just a sympathetic ear. Good luck!

Sunni

I was kind of shocked by this post...if daddy is a drunk obviously all he does is yell and scream and not spend time with them, would be my guess. It really is not your job to parent these kids, but at the same time what would it hurt to give them 3 or 4 apples and explain that you spray them so they can only get things if they ask or they could ingest something that may really harm them. Who knows maybe daddy is drunk and don't feed them. I would much rather be known as the nice man at daddies house, you may be the only encouraging person in their lives. But that is just my opinion.