ELECTRIC FENCE PROBLEMS

[3 NH reds]

I have a small 110 powered electric fence for poultry. One side is the hot wire and the other is the ground. All the hot wire strand is on plastic insulators with nothing touching the chicken wire or anything else. The ground is good with 3 good earth grounds that never touch the hot side. I have one run of hot wire around the lower part of the coop and that works out fine, the fence test meter reads around 5.5. If I add one more layer of wire up higher I get a reading of 1.1 or .8. The second wire is run off the lower and never touches anything, and as I said before I use the plastic insulators to keep the hot wire away from anything.
And to add to this I discovered that if I touch the hot test lead from the meter to the electric fence unit I get 5.5 on the hot and .8 on the ground. Best part is the I don't have the test ground wire touching anything. For now I gave up and left it alone for the night

 

[ChickenCanoe]

How are you connecting the second run around the coop to the first run?

If you just connect a wire from the lower to the upper, the readings you are getting would make sense. You can make multiple runs around the building but you have to have a single continuous line from the power end to the ground. If you try to parallel by connecting the two runs without the second also going to ground it won't work.
So you have to start at the power source, go around the building but rather than dropping down to the ground there, go up and make your second run then from the end of that run down to the ground. Does that make sense?
If you just run 2 wires around the building and connect the two at one point, there will be no difference in potential at any point in your second run.
Posting pictures of your connections will make it easier to troubleshoot.