OT: Electric Fence Question

My electric fence looks like its working, I"ve walked the entire thing to make sure no weeds are up against it, no broken insulators and no broken or shorted tape (its the white ribbon kind) but my horse still sneaks through it. Question: is an electric fence less effective in dry weather? Would it help to wet down the area around my ground rods?

Normally, he respects the fence but today he got out three times. Three times I checked the fence over, can"t see anything wrong. Any ideas? Thanks.

Yes you should wet the ground around ground rods in very dry weather. If the horse is like most its jumping over or flipping the wire up with its nose and running underneath. The wire slides along their back giving them a mild shock. Buy a neon light tester with multiple bulbs that tests a range and power rating. Much better than the "Grab it and wince" model. More power IS better.

But in fact is it working, you need to check it to be sure. No I'm not saying gap hold of it ya that works but ouch. Take a blade of grass and lay it on the fence as far out as you can then slide it closer. As it gets closer you should feel a little zap. If you don't to the point you have your fingers on the fence guess what its not working and you need to figure it out. Now on a side note sounds like you horse it a knot head. My horses stay in and parts of my fence is just a strand of baling twine, ya I need to work on my fences
Hobby farm

In additon to what the others are saying (wet the ground rod well & is it actually working?) when it is very dry, the horse itself does not ground very well to earth, and so the animal feels less shock.

Add to that, likely the grass is greener on the other side because of a dry pasture, and now the critter has the idea that the little pain is worth the reward to get to the greener side.....

When my cattle get out, I put them in a different pasture for a couple days, so the 'forget' how they got out or why they bothered to get out. They get a new surroundings, so they don't have to go looking for one. If you have that option.

--->Paul

If you take a leak on it you can get a pretty good indication if it is working properly.

Old told me this works.


Gene

The best money you can spend if you have a hot fence is a Gallager Smart Check. Last time I looked (few weeks ago) they were still about $112, cheap. Don't get the little deal with 5 lights on it, it will tell you how hot it is and thats all. The smart check will tell you how hot it is to 100 volts, how many amps you have move'n, and where to start looking.

I use mine at least once a week and if I lost it tomarrow I would buy another in a heart beat.

If it shows you have very low voltage and apmrage, try water'n your ground rods. If that don't work, you got a problem. If it's a high end fencer you can get a new module for it cheaper than replace'n. If it's low end TSC/Rural King grade, get another one.

Good luck.

Dave
A little higher than the store here but still a deal

I did that one time not Knowing the fence was as close to a dark back road I was traveling on one night, Being in a hurry and all, Will tell you one thing I tasted copper for a couple days and ended My electrical inspector careerer on contact. I'll let you guys have a chuckle out of this one. I didn't think it was funny, because I was trying to be discreet in front of a very fine date and ended up with wet pants and ashamed to get into the car, and when I finely had to get in She wouldn't date me again.

How many miles of fence are you running and what size charger do you have? How many strands do you have and at what spacing? How far away from the charger are they getting out?

They can roll under wire and also have a way of laying on the wire and rolling over it. I made a temporary round pen with old snow fence and a top wire 3 1/2' tall. I've watched them stand next to it and hop right over without much effort at all. When fences get 5' and particularly 6' tall, they won't try to jump them.

This is a wet year in KC but sometimes for a dry year you may need up to 3 ground rods spaced 10' apart especially carrying a long distance. I use 2 but am ready to add another if necessary.

I have no trouble with 2 wires, one at 2' and one at 4'. All told about 2 miles worth of wire. Of course I bought the $200 200 mile fence charger. Puts out about 13 joules. The fence testers I've seen don't even test up to 13000 volts so I haven't bought one. Bumped it with my elbow a month ago and that jolt lingered in my arm for a day or two. Just left my elbow numb for a while. Get a piece of wire and stick one end in the ground and hold the other with some electrician's rubber handled pliers and touch it on the fence. It will arc real good when you have a good charge going through the fence. I try to rotate parts of the pasture every few weeks. When I switch sides and they go running down from the barn, they come to a screeching halt when they see the path they normally take blocked by the wire.

What you can do is run another wire (look at the High tensile wire book at TSC) as a ground wire. Tie it to the posts and ground it every so often. Then if they stick there head in between the hot wire and a ground wire, they get zapped. You can alternate the hots and grounds.

My horses have learned to really respect the fence so they don't get near it. You are close to training yours to ignore it. My horses are out by a state highway, I can't afford to buy a cheap 2 or 5 mile fence charger and have them get out. I don't trust all the advertising that says they work fine on horses. Then when the weeds grow into it or the deer come running through and knock down your wire, or it gets hot and dry out, you have to stay on top of it. Buy as much charger as you can afford. I use cheap old wire since I put the money in the charger and not the ribbon.

Ribbon type gets breaks in the fine wire.Get some steel wire.Ribbon wire can burn if used on old weed burner chargers.

I had a horse that the fence just pisssed off. She put her nose on it, got a jolt, ran back about 50 feet, wheeled around and charged the fence at a full gallop. I watched her take the wire right across the chest, rip about a dozen insulators off posts like popcorn, pulled the wire loose, and ran down the road. Horse was a misrable pos.

Really doubt if your fence has ever worked.

Once a horse has been "educated" on a hot fence, he won't EVER come near that spot again. That's why electric fences and horses just don't mix.

Further, you can take down all the fence, all the posts, haul 'em compltely off the farm and he still will not cross that area without one heck of a lot of proding.

Electric fences are just like rattlesnakes to a horse. He won't ever knowingly go anywhere close to 'em.

Honestly think you're trying to contain that animal with nothing more than a "ribbon".

Allan

You have taken a screw driver and shorted the ribbon to a steel post or other grounded object at the end of your run and gotton a good spark? Fencers can click and flash the light but throw little or no juice. I never have used ribbon but I would be concerned that it could easily have a break in the conductor. Try running a real wire above the ribbon and juice it with a good low impedence galliger fencer. With horses your going to need three wires, low medium and high to keep them from going under or over. Good Luck.

KENT:
get some of the electric rope ( a bit more horse freindly than bare wire) and run both hot and ground wires around your pen. I run hot on top and bottom, ground in the middle plus gound to earth. Your horse may not get a solid ground with his feet in the dirt, but when he touches both wires at the same time he'll get zapped!

FYI, I went with the electric rope after fussing with tape for many years, and could not be happier. Looks pretty decent too.

Electric fence(I use rope now) works like a charm on the three horses I have now. I had one several years back where I had one wire that would put his head under the wire and walk slow under the wire, you could see the sparks on his back, when the wire would drop off his tail would kick at the wire with both feet. He never wandered off far and caused a problem but I ended up building a wood fence. I had three other horses at the time and they did not try to get out thru the wire. That same horse would stand still all day with my kids playing on and under him. I showed him off many times by crawling between his legs/feet from front to back and from back to front, he did every thing you would ask of him that he had been taught to do, but when he wanted on the other side of the electric wire he just went.

The Gallagher smartfix reads up to 15kv. Highest reading I have had on mine is about 12.2kv, with only 2 amps. If you have 2 miles of hot wire, they are money well spent, will save many steps over time.

Dave

If she didn't see the humor in that, good riddance. Thinking back, if that had happened to me when the Mrs. and I were dating (38 years ago), she would have insisted on a second date, because she still needed to kid me some more about it.

Thanks everyone. I"ll soak my ground rod area and try rope instead of tape. I like the second ground strand idea too.

Thanks, guys!

Rope and tape have the same problem.The fine wires break from swaying in the wind.