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CoyoteMagic, if that was you I replied to the other day about setting up an electric fence, I did not mean to scare you off of the idea
You can put the ground rods at some distance from the charger if necessary, so you can pick somewhere you *know* is far enough away from buried utilities.
Or if this is just a very small fence and you don't need
too-serious predator protection you could just go with less of a ground, like a piece of rebar pushed 1' into the soil (you'd still need to stay well away from buried utilities, to avoid radio reception problems, and away from utility ground rods to avoid a small risk of giant electrocution in the event of a lightning hit to the utility line).
If your ground is way
way too rocky for a ground rod, then you might consider a "positive-negative" fence, which is not *quite* as good as a normal electric fence but can still be useful against predators or to contain large livestock, and does not require a ground at all. To wire the fence this way, you string multiple wires, about 10" apart, and alternate which ones are connected to the ground vs the fence terminal of the charger. (So like if you have four wires, the odd numbered ones would go to the fence terminal and the even numbered ones would go to the ground terminal). This means that in order to get a shock the animal must touch BOTH kinds of wires SIMULTANEOUSLY (ie. touch one wire that goes to the fence terminal plus one wire that goes to the ground terminal). The fact it must touch both at once is what makes the fence slightly less effective, BUT you can be on solid rock or a foot of rubber or hovering in midair, it doesn't matter, no ground rod is needed. Does that make sense?
If you want the automatic door opener I do not think anyone except Foy's has them and I do not think any plans are available, although presumably a handy person could work something out eventually
Good luck,
Pat
