About Mr. McGregor's Fence
Mr. McGregor's Fence® is named for the gentleman gardener in Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit." McGregor's frustration immortalized the problem faced by millions of vegetable gardeners who see their crops damaged or destroyed by critters like rabbits, woodchucks, skunks, dogs, cats, and other small animals. Mr. McGregor's Fence® puts an end to this annoyance safely and affordably. The fence is harmless to small animals, pets, and children. It is also simple to set up, requires no gate or door (you simply step over it) and requires no below-ground digging.
The fence's key element is a charged wire -- part of an established system for controlling pets and other small animals in a way that startles but does not harm them. This wire runs twice around an uncharged barrier fence at heights where any exploring creature will find it. Invariably, the critter investigates the fence, finds the wire, gets startled, and moves out.
For centuries, efforts to fence out small critters have often failed. That's because most fences are passive barriers. They give invaders lots of time to figure out an attack plan - to dig under or climb over. So these barrier fences tend to be large, expensive, hard to install and still failure-prone. Other types of fences formed by actively charged wires alone are too porous. Creatures figure out how to go over or under single or even paired wires. Worse, since the wires are nearly invisible, people tend to trip over or uproot them. Mr. McGregor's Fence® creatively combines these two elements in a way that puts the wire next to a visible landmark (the low barrier fence), adds an active side to the old passive barrier, and ensures that incoming animals connect with the active element.
Jonathan Leonard, the fence's inventor, has decades of professional nursery and gardening experience. Leonard installed the first prototype of this fence 20 years ago and has used it to protect his home vegetable garden ever since. He found the fence highly effective against the woodchucks, rabbits, skunks, and squirrels that roamed his nearby woods. "It was 100% effective" said Leonard, "except for a threeweek period one year when I disconnected the fence, neglected to reconnect it, and found that most of my vegetables disappeared." He was so happy with the results of his invention that he decided to make it available to others and thus Mr. McGregor's Fence® was born in 1997.
By being very affordable, installer-friendly, user-friendly, nature-friendly and safe, Leonard hoped that Mr. McGregor's Fence® would revolutionize home vegetable gardening-and so it has.
