electric fences and ground rods

[Bizzybirdy]

I just banged in a 4' piece of rebar about 2 ft. into the ground here. Of course am only running one strand of wire, 6" high, around a 12' square chain link with metal around the bottom. I may just put another strand up tomorrow though as I saw a possum poking around earlier. Am not so worried about it as I am racoons. Have shot alot of them and not seen any lately...just a matter of time though.

Wonder if my Great Pyrenees puppy will be able to tell the difference between a racoon and one of my cats at night?? I really HOPE so! She is trained not to "bother" the cats.

 

[twentynine]

You can run a seperate conductor for a ground. Seperated by a few inches from the live conductor. When the predator comes in contact across both wires he'll get the business. This is often done in places where it is dry and it would be hard to get conductance to ground.

Or-----

You can hook your ground to the pen fencing. In other words run the positve conductor through your insulators as normal. Then run your ground out to the pen and hook it to the poultry netting or 4x2. Then the predator touches the positive conductor and the net wire he gets a jolt, or maybe even the net wire would give you a good groung through the post and the predator standing on earth would ge a shock. That is how I do it for my tractor. The fence charger rides around on the tractor covered with a bucket.

 

[ctjim]

you def need the ground rod. depending on how far the fence is from the house you may encounter interference w/ your catv/sattv or telephone equipment w/out a properly grounded electric fence or proper ground on your homes electric system. depending on your soil driving the rod in can be a pain in the butt, as said earlier t-post driver will work well, small 3lb sledge hammer works good too, just becareful of the rod bouncing when you start pounding it in. also make sure you plce the rod in an area you know has no underground utility lines ie gas/electric/water/sewer ect. even if you own the underground line they can be a pain to fix if hit.

 

[gabby3535]

Well, we did our electric fence a totally different way...... using the wire fencing itself as the 'ground'......and it works great!
If you use a ground 'rod'.....then the animal you are intending to shock must be standing on the ground 'and' touching the hot wire at the same time, in order to complete the circuit. This is great for horses/cows/goats, etc; but also why a bird can actually sit on the hotwire 'without' being shocked!
Our run has 2" x 2" woven wire fencing as it's 'walls', with hardware cloth running 3 feet up the 'wall', from the ground......and also 3 feet 'out' from the bottom, as an anti-dig 'apron'. Our ground wire is attached to the wire fencing itself, and the hotwires are held away from the fencing, approx. 2 inches, with plastic insulators.........so the whole system is grounded 'without' the use of ground rods! (You can touch the wire fencing itself, and NOT get shocked.) And we have a total of 4 strands of hotwire running (placed at approx. 8 inches, 16 inches, 42 inches, and at the very top of the run 'wall').....
This way, if a creative racoon scenses the 2 bottom wires are hot, and decides to 'jump' onto the fencing, to land 'between' the 16 inch hotwire and the 42 inch wire......he will still get shocked, even though his feet are actually not touching the earth! (Think....bird can sit 'on' hotwire with no shock.) This would not be the case if one only uses ground rods!
So you actually can have a more effective anti-predator set-up 'without' using ground rods!
p.s.
I always, always unplug my system when the chickens are free-ranging outside the run.
I know the electric fence folks say it would be safe if a chicken were to get zapped.............but I can't even think of that...........so it's disabled when they'll have access!
Believe me, I have touched the hot wire by mistake a number of times in my life, and it is NOT a pleasant experience!!! Esp. when you are bending over to pick something up, and the zap hits your BUTT!!!

 

[darkmatter]

Quote:
Hard ground-----do it the easy way, start the hole, then fill it with water. Tap the ground rod, wiggle it some, and keep tapping it in. No need to pound hard. I've used this method for ground rods and T-posts.

 

[Bizzybirdy]

>>This way, if a creative racoon scenses the 2 bottom wires are hot, and decides to 'jump' onto the fencing, to land 'between' the 16 inch hotwire and the 42 inch wire......he will still get shocked, even though his feet are actually not touching the earth! (Think....bird can sit 'on' hotwire with no shock.) This would not be the case if one only uses ground rods! <<

Hmmmmmmm...so I might try this. Are ya sure I won't light up if I touch the fence that the ground is wired to?

Seems like when I touched the ground wire going to the ground rod on my horse fence I got shocked. Don't want my chickies to get shocked if they run into the chain link fence but I like the idea.

 

[fhdogs]

I have 2 four foot ground rods. (an eight cut in half) but I still did what gabby3535. I tied my welded wired fence directly to the system. If anything touches both the hot wire, and the fence the get shocked. Even if they have gotten over the low wire and climb the fence they'll get hit near the top.

 

[fhdogs]

Hmmmmmmm...so I might try this. Are ya sure I won't light up if I touch the fence that the ground is wired to?

Seems like when I touched the ground wire going to the ground rod on my horse fence I got shocked. Don't want my chickies to get shocked if they run into the chain link fence but I like the idea.

You definitely should not get shocked by the grounded fence. If you got a shock from a ground then there is a short someplace. Could be weeds touching a hot wire, or the ground/hot are reversed.​

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
You definitely should not get shocked by the grounded fence. If you got a shock from a ground then there is a short someplace. Could be weeds touching a hot wire, or the ground/hot are reversed.

Or the fence is not properly grounded.

Just because someone hooks the "ground" wire from the fence controller to the fence does not mean that the fence is grounded.


The "hot" and "ground" wire on some fence controllers can be reversed and work fine. It all depends on the fence controller, if it's grounded through it's plug, and if that plug ground is good.

We used to make stun guns in high school electronic classes. It was fun.

 

[Bizzybirdy]

>>Just because someone hooks the "ground" wire from the fence controller to the fence does not mean that the fence is grounded.<<

How do I know if the fence is properly grounded? Sorry, just want to do it right. I have a piece of rebar as the ground now with a ground wire running from the box to it and the perimeter wire is on push in posts with insulators and I know it is hot... My puppy flipped over when she touched it and one of my cats ran around the field in a circle at warp speed about 14 times.