When testing an electric fence...

[gritsar]

with a homemade fence tester, i.e., a pole that is wooden on one end and metal on the other, it is important that you hold the WOODEN end while you touch the pole to the fence! NOT the other way around!
When I went out to put the chickens up, I noticed that our neighbor has released the cows back up to this part of the farm. I plugged in the electric fence that keeps the cows away from the coop and went to test it.
*********************OUCH!!!!!!*********************

 

[wohneli]

Hahahahahaha

 

[debilorrah]

OMG I was laughing before I even opened the thread.

OOPS!!!

 

[chickenzoo]

When I was younger I was washing my horse. I put her up and was leaning on the metal gate, barefoot, in a puddle of water when my mom decided to test out the new fence tester she bought. She grounded it to the gate I was leaning on and touched it to the fence! Mind you this was a while ago, and the charger was a big, powerful cattle fence charger.......... I felt like my heart stopped and almost fell over. I still tease my mom to this day that she caused me to stop growing...hehe. I'm 5'one.

 

[CrazyChickMom]

If I put an electic fence around my garden will it kill my chickens if they touch it? Any advice on electric fences?

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Yeah. One of my not-so-bright students asked me one day if electric fences were AC power or DC power. I told him that it depended on the fence and why did he ask? He explained that he had once... ahem... "tinkled" on one and he was just wondering. Once the class settled down, I inquired as to why exactly it was he had thought that was a good idea. He said he had been dared to do it. Every single boy in the class nodded as if to say "Well, yes. Of course, he had to do it then." The girls were all dumbfounded. Sigh. Boys. What can you do with them?

 

[cherrychicken]

OMG the same thing happened to me last year. It really scared me and shook me up.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
The chickens have to be grounded in order for it to shock them. In other words, they have to have their feet (or another body part) on the ground when they touch the fence.
The electric fence we have around our coop is to keep the cows out, not the chickens in. One time of finding a cow INSIDE my coop eating their litter was enough for me.

My chickens have hit the fence before, but they were in mid-flight at the time, so it didn't shock them.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
According to my DH, the first thing a country boy learns is not to pee on the fence.

 

[Davaroo]

When I lived in WI years ago, it was my job to chase the large farm pigs back under the fence when they burrowed out of their paddock. Every now and then they just took it into their heads to get out and were very careful to dig under the fence when they escaped.

But on the return trip, with me yelling and smacking them with a stick, they simply lunged at the fence and bolted under the electric wires. The sparks and smoke that went up as their backs passed under were brutal. All of them had scars on their backs from the passage. It was literally a barbeque on the hoof.

I saw (and smelled) first hand what a livestock grade electric fence could do. I only had to experience it once, myself, to KNOW what it could do. I still remember that incident (I suppose it would be all the more vivid had I p-p'ed on that fence...

)

As funny as gritsar's experience is to read about, I would urge all of you to PLEASE be careful around these fences. They do us a great service in controlling predators and protecting our flocks, and I recommend them without hesitation. But they are live electrical appliances.

Safety first, friends... do your homework before you plug them in.