How to set up the electronic fence to prevent raccoon

[yook2000]

I lost two big hens this week by raccoons. So I buy an electronic fence to prevent them. The instruction said I need a metal ground rod to reach the permanent wet earth. However, my house is locating on the hill and there are lots of rocks under the earth. I don't think I can install the ground rod that deep. So I have to try the two-wire system. Can anyone tell me for the best prevention from raccoon, what is the height bewteen ground and the ground wire, and the height between ground wire and fence wire? Thank you.

Jay

 

[bryan99705]

If the fence is out and by itself I would put a strand at about 4 - 6 inches and the second about 6 -12 inches above it. That way they can't crawl over or under and any other visitors have to earn their passage

Just look at your predator and how it travels / overcomes obstacles and set your heights accordingly. Coon walk and runs low to the ground and either squeeze thru or climb over things

 

[Capvin]

The way I did our electric fence is a five wire. Three hot and two ground. The first wire is about 6-8" off the ground and is hot then each succeeding wire is about 8" from the other and the sequence is hot, ground, hot, ground, hot. As for the ground stake, get two of them and put them about 10 feet apart. If you are unable to pound them all the way in then try to do it a bit on an angle and that sometimes works, but use the ground stakes even if you cannot pound them in all the way. Hopefully you should be able to get in in a few feet. Then just attach the hot side of your unit to the hot wires and the ground side to the ground stakes and from the closest ground stake to the two ground wires. Doind that you would then have a deterance for a wide variety of predators.

 

[TommyM]

I put two ground rods and came off the second ground rod with a wire to the containment fence which made the whole fence a ground wire; three hot wires at 4, 8 and 24 inches,so if something hit the hot wires it more than likely will also be touching the grounded fence and should get a good zap.

 

[Keeter]

When setting up alternate wires, as Capvin suggested, no ground rod is necessary at all. If the coon touches both a positive and a negative connected wire, it will get the full effect of the shock. The only thing necessary is to complete the circuit of positive-to-negative connectors. With ground rods, that circuit is completed as "positive-to-wire-through-animal-to-ground-to-ground rod-to negative." But when using alternate wires, it is completed as "positive-to-wire-through-animal-to negative wire-to-negative." This is known as a no-ground set up. You simply have to be careful that some wires are connected to the positive terminal, and some wires are connected to the negative terminal, and that there is no connection between the separate sets of wires.

Second comment: You only need deep ground rods when your energizer is a long distance from where the animal might touch the fence. If you are setting it up with your energizer a very short distance from the protected wires, say less than a thousand feet, then you can normally depend upon surface movement of electrons, and a very shallow ground rod will work. If four of five inches deep doesn't give the desired results, go to eight inches deep; if that doesn't do it, then you can go progressively deeper. All instructions on all energizers will always have you set up for worst case scenario, two or three ground rods two or three feet apart and all tied together. But this is for extreme situations where the animal might be a mile or more from the energizer. Our portable horse pens are typically set up with ground rods only four to five inches deep.

--Bryan