The ground rods are critical, especially if you have dry summers like we do in CA. We ran an irrigation line off our berries with a drip emitter for each ground rod. It keeps the soil damp and makes a big difference. It just comes on when the berries get watered. We have 3 ground rods, buried about 3 feet each. DH says that now that it is winter is is going to put them in deeper if possible. We have a 1 joule charger and the fence tester says we get about 7.9 which is pretty good, somtimes higher. We have a DC charger and run it off a car battery and a solar panel to keep the battery charged. In the winter we put it on the battery charger every few weeks, if it is cloudy. We are keeping goats in and coyotes out, along with the chickens. I can tell you that the fence HURTS when you hit it. My goats and dogs have complete respect for it Without the 3 ground rods it was useless. We tried it with 1, then 2, and finally 3.
