The Short Answer for a Kunekune Pig
A Kunekune pig is contained by a low fence built at snout height, typically two to three feet of panel or a small set of electric strands with the lowest one close to the ground. This breed grazes more than it roots, stays closer to home than most pigs, and rarely challenges a boundary it understands. The fence still has to be honest: a Kunekune will walk through a single high strand it never felt, push under a panel floating above a dip, and follow a feed bucket through a gate left ajar, so low coverage and training do the real work.
How a Grazing Pig Differs From a Rooting Pig
A Kunekune approaches a fence differently from a large commercial breed. Its short snout is built for cropping grass rather than levering up wire, its temperament is settled, and a content Kunekune with enough grazing tends to drift along a boundary rather than attack it. That calm nature tempts owners to underbuild, yet piglets are small enough to slip under a bottom edge set for adults, and a whole herd pressing toward a person carrying feed can bow a weak panel. Boars also deserve more respect than pet sows, since a motivated boar tests a fence with a persistence the grazers never show. Build for the most determined animal in the group, not the average one.
Panels, Strands and Training a Kunekune
Choose panels where the Kunekune fence is permanent and strands where it rotates around pasture. Hog or stock panels around two to three feet high, pinned at dips and joined without gaps, suit a home paddock, while portable electric netting or two to three polywire strands suit grazing moves once the pigs are trained. Training is not optional with electric fence: set strands inside a solid pen, let each Kunekune meet the lowest strand at nose height in a calm moment, and only move trained pigs onto strand-only pasture. Keep strands visible, tensioned and clear of long grass that drains them, and follow the contour of the ground so no inviting crawl-under hollow opens beneath the lowest line on a slope.
Pasture Pressure and the Low Line
A Kunekune fence lasts longer when the pasture inside does its share of the work. Rotate grazing before the home side is cropped bare, because a pig standing in mud looking at green grass beyond the wire will test the line a fed pig ignores. Place water and shelter away from the boundary so daily traffic does not wear a muddy ramp at one corner. Watch the ground under gates, where hooves and weather lower the soil and quietly enlarge the gap beneath a gate that once closed tightly. After moving a fence line, walk it at Kunekune height, looking for the dip, loose pin or slack strand that sits exactly at this pig's eye level.
When a Kunekune Wanders Anyway
A wandering Kunekune usually walked through a gap rather than breaking out, so retrace the line before assuming the fence type failed. Check whether the strand was live, whether piglets could pass where adults could not, and whether a gate gap widened as the ground dried and shrank. Lead the pig home with feed, repair the specific opening, and re-check herd mates at the same spot over the next days, because Kunekunes follow each other's routes. Write down the strand layout for each grazing move and which pigs are fully electric-trained in KinsLe with Family Sharing, so nobody turns an untrained Kunekune onto a strand-only pasture by mistake.