Hi Tim.  I don't know what sort of problems you've had with electric fence but it is a very important part of rotational grazing.

I also rented a pasture a few years ago with terrible old fences. I mowed around the inside of the pasture as close to the old fence as I could safely.  I then pounded in 5 ft steel tee posts by hand maybe every 20 ft or so then put a single hot wire about 32" above the ground on Dare T post insulators. it worked very well until I bought the small pasture and put in a new perimeter fence.

For perimeter fence I like a 5 wire fence with the top two and bottom two Red Brand barb wire and the center wire 12 or 14 gage smooth steel. The center smooth wire only is electrified more as a place to tap power for cross fences than to hold cattle. for Perimeter fences I use wood posts every 60 or 70 ft depending on terrain with 4 or 5 steel T posts at 10 ft spacing in between the wood posts.

For interior fences I use a single 14 gage aluminum wire on Gallagher reels (you can see part of the reel hanging on a large screw eye in pic #2 above off the wood post) for dividers that will be moved.  These frequently moved dividers are usually held up by pigtail step in posts as you also see in pic 2 above.

For semi permanent interior fences such as a lane to water etc I usually use a single 14 ga steel wire with Dare insulators 32" above the ground on 5 ft steel t posts .   I had some extra 5" x 8 ft wood posts left from my perimeter fence so used them with my Shaver pounder for some curved interior semi permanent fences as shown in pic #2.

I would NEVER electrify barb wire. That will cause a lot of arcing problems and safety issues. I do use a lot of slinky type gates with both conducting and insulating (all plastic) handles. I tried two wires and found that one wire pulled taut at 32" above the ground (cow nose height) worked well.  Calves will go under it but they come right back to mama at meal time.

I don't see a need for two hot wires in an interior fence as the bottom one gets overgrown with weeds and is tough to mow and bleeds off some of your shocking power and doubles the work. I don't use polywire because it seems to stretch a lot and sag. 14 ga aluminum is lighter than steel, smooth (no slivers like poly), and can be pulled tight and not stretch much nor sag.

I use a 6 joule 120 volt Gallagher 600 charger and have had very good luck with them. I use at least (4) 8ft long galvanized ground rods directly under the fence each with a bronze wire clamp and continuous wire back to the charger for each charger.  I have no experience with solar chargers but would urge you to go with a 120v 6 joule model.  Best is to mount a 120v charger inside a building then bury good insulated wires out to the fence and to the ground rods which are in a line under the fence.

Buy also a Gallagher or similar fence voltmeter/fault finder. These are invaluable, in my experience.

Ben on here likes fiberglass posts. I tried fiberglass and maybe had the wrong type but couldn't get them into my hard ground and didn't like the little wire clips to hold the hot wire. Fence posts used are dependent on the terrain.

Your cattle don't seem wild.  I think once they are trained to the electric wire you would have no problems keeping them in a paddock with electric wire in most cases.  As suggested by John, maybe tie some bright pieces of plastic ribbon to the fence so the cows can see it before running into it.

A single electric fence is not going to keep a cow in if she doesn't have enough to eat on her side, nor a bull if there is a cow in heat on the other side...but that is to be expected.  With a Gallagher 600 charger you should read anywhere from 5,000 to 9,000 volts on the test meter which is a range which will keep most cattle inside.  If they go through that they need to go to the sale barn, imho. And one wild fence crasher can mess up the whole herd.

I hope this helps. What sort of problems did you have with electric fencing?

Jim