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Discussion on No respect for a hot wire
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 1:15 pm:
I have the style of electric fence that requires a ground wire and a battery.
It has worked well in the past, my mare greatly respects a hot wire.
However, my two 2yr olds don't.
They have access to a round bale 24/7 but still feel the need to occasionally go through the hot wire to the hay stack.
Last time they went through I put the two strands of hot wire back up, and took another wire and laced it back and forth between the two strands to make it more solid.
This morning it is ripped apart and the two monsters are happily munching the stack. (The mare won't even cross a downed wire.)
Would an electric hot wire deliver a bit more zap?
I suspect they are getting through because they have such heavy winter coats they simply don't feel the zap. In the summer I shaved the back of the mini girl and that fixed her crawling the fence but of course in this temp I can't do that.
How about adding an extra battery?? Would that boost the zap or burn out the transformer?
thanks for your ideas.
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Member:
hollyw
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 1:42 pm:
Lori, do you have a fence tester? It may be that the charge is really weak.
I ran temporary electric off batteries for the first couple of years we were here in KS. The horses did really well with it. Once, when I couldn't get a charge, I changed the battery, bought all new wire, restrung all three pastures . . . and then found out that it was the charger that was bad . . . not the fence itself or the battery.
I have ElectroBraid that was run for over a year by a Marine Deep Cycle battery. The charge was really strong . . . 8-10 on a scale of 1-10.
It packed a ZAP!
Now, I am finally able to run it with an electric charger, and it is still very strong. I can hear the "ZAP" if a horse touches it . . . LOL . . . or if a person bumps it  .
My guess is that the winter coats are insulating them from the fence or that the fence isn't packing a strong enough ZAP.
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Member:
ekaufman
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 1:54 pm:
Hi Lori,
Get a voltage tester; their coats shouldn't make that much difference if the fence is hot enough.
I assume the fence runs on 110 AC? Sometimes smart horses figure out that they can hear the "off" cycle of the fence. You'd have to watch to see if that's the case. I've also seen horses (ok, evil Shetland ponies) that learn to take out the posts and avoid the wire. If you can figure how they get through, you can outsmart them.
And you may need to manipulate them into a nice close encounter of the shocking variety, by hanging a treat or something on the wire such that they get re-sensitized to it. Of course, this is a last resort, but fences are for their safety as well as you convenience, and these babies need to respect them!
Don't worry about hurting them. As we say out here "it's the amps that kill you, not the volts." I had a young stallion grab a 12,000 volt hot tape in his mouth (he was mad it "bit" him)-- flipped him over and laid him out, but he walked away and respected the fence afterwards.
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Member:
imogen
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 6:23 pm:
Lori, my sympathies. I'm suffering at the moment with a blasted Houdini who breaks out of every field and takes the rest of the herd with him. I've had to bring them all down to the house where they are making a mudbath of one of the pastures in order to stop this. My fences are not weak - this horse has just discovered if he backs into them fast enough they will break before he gets a shock!!
All the best
Imogen
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Member:
dres
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 7:06 pm:
Lori , i had a colt that was not fazed by the electric fence.. he has since developed a respect , but it still does effect him like the others.. the others will rear at it / buck at once zapped.. HE just backs off it.. but he did grow to somewhat respect it being there..
Can't really help ya...
On the first day God created horses, on the second day he painted them with spots..
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Member:
paul303
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Posted on Monday, Jan 26, 2009 - 10:23 pm:
Make sure that you don't have more fence than the battery can handle. Batteries didn't work out for us, and we had to run a line underground to the barn.
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Member:
cheryl
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 9:43 am:
Lori - I have a solar fencer - don't use it anymore because the length of time between the pulse of electricity is too long - It's at least three seconds - Don't know if that is the problem with yours or not - There are fence testers that measure the amount of amps going through the wire - If your's is low that is probably your problem. If I understand correctly - you have an electric fence around the hay bale ? If so they may be grounding out the fence with hay. My fencer is 32 years old - paid somewhere around 30-40$ - we replaced a fuse in it once - Right now it is powering a two strand fence around ten acres and still registers to the top on the fence tester. Hope some of this is helpful.
Cheryl
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Member:
ekaufman
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 9:55 am:
One correction-- raise VOLTAGE, not amps. The fence tester is almost certainly measuring voltage. Amps are what kill and cause fires. If the watts are assumed to be constant, high voltage is low amps and vice versa (amps x volts=watts).
Here is a reference I found that describes basically how electrical fences work. There are some concepts in here that are helpful for troubleshooting as well:
https://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:BQBUN63DiAYJ:www.uwrf.edu/grazing/energizer .pdf+electric+fence+amps+or+volts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a
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Member:
alden
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 11:30 am:
Many people get good chargers, fencing, etc. but skimp on grounding. An old water pipe driven 2-3 feet may not provide much grounding at all.
Grounding can vary depending on soil types and moisture content. In poor soils you may need 6-9 feet of good copper clad rod to get a good ground. In good moist soil much less may do the job, but I still go with at least 6'. In Saudi Arabia the soil was so crummy that to get a good ground for our electronics we had to use a circular pattern of 6-8 10' rods and then mix salt and charcoal into the soil in and around the pattern. Even then it was just marginal.
I find a six foot copper clad rod works in most cases. The best charger will be weak if the grounding is weak.
Good day,
Alden
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Member:
leslie1
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 12:12 pm:
My all time favorite electric fence is the "horseguard bi-polar tape" that has the ground in the tape itself. It requires no ground rod! Our solar charger is a 6 volt/10 amp . My hubby periodically tests the tape with his voltage meter and its always at the correct voltage I really love it. Is so easy to use as I rotate pasture. I cant say enough good things about it.
When we lived in Az we used regullar electric fence with the copper ground rods and we occasionally had to soak the ground with water where the gground rod was sunk. (as per manufaturers instruction) It was a pain in the rear of my behind.
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Member:
maggienm
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 12:36 pm:
thanks E. that article is just what I need. Has anyone ever heard that the material the ground rod is made of, brass-iron, makes a difference in the zap delivered?
If my ground rod is the problem, it is a u-bolt that has been driven into the ground, it is quite rusty, but i have wrapped the ground wire around it several times quite tightly, any thoughts on what to use for a ground rod in the winter? Ground will be frozen for another 4 months.
I use a test light to make sure the wire is hot but I don't have a volt tester. Will have to look for one of those.
when I test the wire with the test light I can hear the zap. But does hearing it mean it is strong? So many variables.
I think one thing that may be happening is when the battery starts to get low it simply doesn't deliver much zap, but how do they know???
12000 volts, thats what I need to teach the little monster some respect.
The thing is it is pure nasty on their part, the hay under the tarp is the same as the hay in their feeder.
thanks for your ideas.
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Member:
ekaufman
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 12:43 pm:
Now c'mon Lori-- everyone knows that the only way to test an electric fence is to grab hold of it.
If you say, hmmm, is that on? It isn't hot enough.
If you yell AHHH! and pull your hand away, it isn't hot enough.
If your arm locks up to your ear and you punch yourself involuntarily in the teeth, it isn't hot enough.
If you fly backwards fifteen feet, wet your pants, forget your name, and can't see straight for 12 hours... now that's hot enough!
As for your ground-- as Alden says, it matters a lot. Getting a ground rod into frozen northern soil is hard-- even super-heating the rod just doesn't help much. Call around and see if any of your local tool jocks or hardware stores have any ideas, but you may need to improvise until spring.
The hay is always better on the other side of the fence.
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Member:
hollyw
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 1:03 pm:
LOL . . . yep, you're right, Elizabeth. That's how it is. Once when I was fixing regular aluminum wire fence in Vermont, I hit my head on the upper wire . . . bit through both sides of my tongue and it took me several minutes to remember where I was and who I was.
Ryan, who helped me put so much of this place together last year, told me of a time he went to visit a friend and tried to get the friend's horse to come up to him while he reached over the gate. Ryan woke up on the ground, and couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. As he righted himself, he saw all the horses WAY across the pasture hugging the opposite fence.
When Ryan looked up over the gate, he saw the electric wire . . . just at his head height. He had a baseball cap on, and the wire had touched that little button on top of the cap . . . Really scrambled his brain and knocked him flat.
When we put up our first paddock of ElectroBraid, I put the digital tester on it, and it registered "HI" (which was 10 on the scale of 1-10). Mark grabbed hold of it with his gloves on and said, "Gee, it doesn't feel very strong. I can feel it, but it doesn't hurt."
All I could tell him was that the tester said the fence was delivering its highest jolt, so it must be strong enough for the sensitive horses.
A few days later, I was at work, and Mark called. He was laughing on the phone. When I asked him what was up, he answered, "Well, the fence works!"
"What happened?" I asked.
In between raspy chuckles he told me the story. He had been on his hands and knees (NOTE: 4 points of ground contact) next to the fence when he reached out to grab it. He said that it flipped him over backwards and "I fried my left nut." LOL . . . sorry . . . that's what he said . . . LOL
When he had grabbed onto the line the first time, he had been standing in rubber boots, plus had thick gloves on . . . but we've learned that if the tester says "HI," then it's not a good idea to touch the fence . . . and the horses know that, too.
We have three ground rods, copper-coated, driven 6 feet into the ground (just driven in with a hammer), 6 -10 feet apart and all connected with insulated copper wire. We have very dry soil here, but the fence remains strong.
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Member:
warthog
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Posted on Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009 - 1:19 pm:
we also have a couple who will tear down electric on rare occasion and one that only electric will keep in. some tips we've discovered.
1. Always run two wire, a hot and a ground, and be sure the ground is REALLY grounded to an 8 foot copper if you can. this way even if it's desert dry they WILL get zapped when they touch both wires.
2. Use 17 gauge galvanized wire. If you need to you can inset inch or inch and one half white electric tape but the tape doesn't pack the PUNCH the wire does. I use the tape for foals and use four strands a visual barrier but I also have the 17 gauge wire on plastic step in posts a few feet behind the electric tape in chase they go through the tape.
3. For horses who blow electric get a CONTINUOUS charger, not one that pulses. The voltage is lower on the continuous (they are cheap though)but they pack much more of a punch than the pulsing, especially with a good ground wire below the hot wire so the horses get the full voltage.
4. Be sure you don't use a charger on too large an area. We use three chargers for 4 large paddocks.
5. A great way to start hot wire respect is to put a hot wire and a ground on plastic stepins about 5 feet inside a board fence. This way until they have figured out that they will get zapped if they touch the fence, they are still contained in a safe area.
Our goat lady guru friend told us to get 4 "hog panels - wood framed field fence panels" and put a single hot wire and ground inside the hog panels and put goats in the enclosure. She said before long they won't get near ANY wire and will not blow any electric fences. This does work.
One could do this with a round pen and a young horse using stepins just inside the round pen pipes stuck in the ground with the one hot and one ground wire to teach a young horse to respect a hot wire if the horse is inexperienced.
The main thing is to test your fences and check them regularly because they will figure out if the power is off after a few days although most of ours will NOT blow a hot wire. We do always back up hot wire with a second fence though about five or more feet away.
The reason we use 17 gauge galvanized is not only because it zaps really well but because IF they blow it it will break and not injure them which is what we want to happen. In fact we use five twists at each end for attachment to a step in plastic post which will pull loose if it is blown in panic. If our horses blow an electric fence in panic they have good reason like a dog attack and we don't want them injured by the fencing while trying to protect themselves.
Hope this helps
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