Electric Fence Basics

[Howard E]

Thanks for the tutorial, very informative.

I've had a fox problem lately, but I have extremely rocky soil ..... Gravel to refrigerator sized rocks, with pockets of actual soil, and pretty shallow (in places) bedrock. Assuming I could get a ground rod deep enough, would the rocks and dirt still complete the circuit ?

Or would I have to go with alternating ground / hot wires on the posts ?

Any other solutions that you are aware of ?

I have never had to deal with such adverse conditions. But if you can get a piece of rebar in the ground.....even if buried a few inches deep but horizontal.......it should work. (rebar shown is only in the ground about 15 to 18 inches). Because we are only using short runs of fence, and often temporary at that, we can get creative. It is mostly about surface area. Attach your ground to steel fence post in the ground? Bury a small square of chicken wire attached to your earth ground? Take a few feet of fence wire and make a coil and bury that in a hole? If you hook up your fencer and it dishes out some good zap, that is what we are after. And also keep in mind the animal is not hooked to a ground rod and the fence. Animals only contact with the soil is the few square inches of paw print on the surface........and that is enough to connect them to the soil, the ground rod and fence charger.

DO NOT hook these up to the same ground rod used to ground your home or building's electrical service panel. Never ever do that.

 

[svh]

Cool, thanks for the tips.

 

[svh]

@Howard E
Just curious, what corner of Missouri are you in ?

 

[Howard E]

Dead smack in the middle.

 

[svh]

Nice .... I must be just east of you !

 

[hayley3]

The short jumper wire I used has small alligator clips (hardware or auto parts store) on both ends. I have it for something else, but used it for this too.

Where you get your E fence supplies, they also sell a black plastic insulating jacket that can be used with wire.....just run the wire through it...... then attach it on both ends. I often use a spring loaded gate handle for those.....which has the added benefit of working like a switch if you need one. Disconnect the handle and what is downstream of that then goes dead so you can work on it or something else without fear of getting zapped.

I'll have to look for them. Thanks!

 

[cmom]

I have a large area with wires. I use the poly rope wire. It works well for me. I have all types of posts to hold the wire up. In some places I have step in posts and in other places the insulators that attach to the fence posts. In some places I have rebar with insulators on them to hold up the wire. It may not be too pretty but it works.

 

[hayley3]

I have a large area with wires. I use the poly rope wire. It works well for me. I have all types of posts to hold the wire up. In some places I have step in posts and in other places the insulators that attach to the fence posts. In some places I have rebar with insulators on them to hold up the wire. It may not be too pretty but it works.
View attachment 2258778View attachment 2258785

Is that a shade shelter in the bottom image?

 

[nao57]

Can the animals get shocked also by touching the grounding rod?

And can you use any car battery, or does it need to have a certain minimum number of amp hours in it? Or do you hook up a battery bank, and not just one battery?

*How many hours of fencing does a typical battery give you? Is it enough to last through a whole night?* (Or does the fence only deplete charging when its bumped into?)

You know this is so cool that you posted this. Just the last few days I had been thinking I needed to look up and learn about this but didn't know where to look for it. And then just now I saw this post! Yes! This thread helped a lot. And its giving me a chance to ask about it.

Thank you very much.

 

[nao57]

Also be aware that with these fences being in such close proximity to the soil.....only an inch or two.....it will be critical to keep the grass and weed growth down. For this, I will just use roundup under the wire.

One of those quick hedge clippers or fast trimmer things could work this out fast. And it seems that a lot of people also move these portable electric fences around also, so for some people an alternative to roundup might be better.