I bought the Selecta pet fence.
Each fence set comes with 1 gate piece and 7 fence pieces (8 pieces all up).
When set up the 8 pieces make a small circle shape about 2.5 metres in diameter. You can set up the fence to be any shape you want which is pretty handy.
I thought that one wasn’t big enough for two energetic bunnies, so I ended up purchasing three sets all up. That way I can make any shape and size I wanted with 24 fence sections.
Here are Cotton and Buttons enjoying their huge Selecta Pen.
About the fence
The latches on the gates are pathetic. They get stuck and become really hard to slide.
Get some jockey straps that are no less than 30cm long. Use them to keep the gates shut.
Would I get another set?
No. I don’t like how the hinge parts are falling off so easily. I would expect that the company who manufactures the fence sections would have welded the hinges on much better.
The fact that it is rusting so quickly is just poor quality.
I’m glad I have the fences, but I regret the fact I spent so much money on them and they are deteriorating so rapidly. At this point in time, I have had them for 2 months and they are only outside during the day while the bunnies are using them. They have not been left in the rain, I rush around packing everything up when it starts to rain. They are stored in the shed on a concrete floor. They simply should not be doing any of this within 2 months.
Rust!
The fence sections are not galvanised they are only painted in hammer-tone paint. So they rust. I recommend getting rust-killer and putting it on all of the welded joints.
Get some jockey straps that are no less than 30cm long. Use them to keep the gates shut.
The latches on the gates are pathetic. They get stuck and become really hard to slide.
A year later, we decided to remove the hammer-tone paint and paint the fence panels because they were just falling apart. More hinge parts had fallen off and most of the fence was held up by cable ties.
We scraped the paint of using a chisel, and as you can see in the video below, the paint was put over the rusted metal. This is the reason why the panels rust so quickly. The company used crappy metal and covered it with fancy paint.
Of course paint doesn’t stick on rust, so it peels off. The paint is harder to get off metal that isn’t rusted.
The video doesn’t have sound
This photo shows the rust already on the metal, under the paint.
We purchased rust protective paint, I wanted this brand (in a dark grey, satin) but the extremely non-helpful barely-20 year old at the paint counter couldn’t be bothered being there and supplied this one instead. The strange thing was, that particular brand metal paint is not on the hardware’s website.
I had looked into the different paints and I wanted one that dried quickly, washed out in water and I could use (because I’m allergic to paint), that’s why I wanted the first brand. It is water based enamel, and it is touch dry in 30 minutes. But the one we got is everything I didn’t want. It washes out in turps, is touch dry in 4 hours, and it’s gloss. It’s going to be a slow painful process painting the 24 fence panels and three gates.
We decided to do 3-4 panels a time, but to do that, we needed to remove all of the hammer-tone paint, knock off the remaining silly hinge parts, use paint stripper on the metal inner wire bits, use rust killer on everything, let all that dry and then a few days later start the painting process. Then 4 panels will be complete in a minimum of 3 days, because they need 2 coats of paint. And that paint takes a minimum of 12 hours to dry enough to put another coat on.
We can only do 4 panels at a time because the bunnies are still using the others. We need to cycle them around so that they still have a play area outside.