Electric fence...Your opinion/experience solar vs main

I think I may be confused or misunderstanding the more recent responses. I *THOUGHT* that what I needed to do for grounding was to drive 3 or 4 eight foot rods at the beginning of the fence line and ground to those. Am I misunderstanding this? I need to drive rods every couple hundred feet of fence?

............There is a very simple method too test how effective your ground(s) , Are ! Build All your electric fence , then Drive one 8 foot ground rod as close to the Charger as possible . Purchase a Voltage tester , then , Check the voltage close too the ground rod , then check the voltage at the END of the electric wire . The difference in the two readings is How much voltage LOSS you are experiencing due too the natural resistance in the wire . Your highest voltage will occur close too the ground , and Your lowest will occur at the END of the fence .
.............Now , IF you're happy with the lowest reading and it keeps your animals in check , then nothing further is required . I'm assuming your fence will be several thousand feet long ! Realize , also , that the voltage readings you take in April when the soil is moist , will be Higher than they will be in August after an extended period of 90+ degree days . Your fence may work just fine in April , and maybe less effective in August when the soil is very dry . , fordy

Only thing to add to Fordy's good explination is that you need a tester that can deal with the high voltage of a fencer, not just a regular type of multi meter - you will fry most of those.

Start with a ground rod as he says, and if that doesn't work, add more. Also as he mentioned, you can use an unisulated wire on your fence as the ground also, tie it into ground, and it will help esp in dry soils to get the critter to notice the fence.

Start simple, and work your way up as you need to.

--->Paul

Just wanted to give an update to all the great people who helped me with this project. I'm still not done~ but I've actually got it started finally. I got the Parmak SE4~ am using Galvanised 14g hot wire. I put the parmak in my garage~ used undergate wire rated for 40,000 from jeffers as the lead out for the hot an ground wires. Ran it over the rafters and out the sofit on the house~ down the brick house along the side of my turkey pen (came up over ground here so if we ever decide to electrify the turkey pen the wires are there and ready for it) back under the mouse house, under the drive way in PVC (Someone could have told me how hard it was to thread that wire through PVC elbows!!) and finally to the fence~ aprox 110ft lead out counting all the up the garage, down the house, across the turkey pen, under the mouse house under the gravel drive way) I've only done ONE of the three pastures~ used three hot wires, put in one 6ft ground rod and also grounded to the existing feild fence.

Seemed to work~ but then we discovered one of the gates was hot. Can not for the live of us find where or how the gate is getting any charge~ but a neighbor told us to put in more ground rods over by our septic system (about 30 ft from where we came up with the lead out cable and put in the first ground rod but it always stays wetter over there) and attach them to the fence, and then go under that gate back to the fence that is attached to the ground that goes back to the parmak. Solved the problem. I have no idea how, but it did.

So~ we are starting. The fence is HOT. The parmak is showing a 19.5 to 19.9 right now. I touched the fence because I thought my dogs were being wimps when the had touched it (and flat refused to go back in that pasture without being forced....so they've not been OUT of that pasture since!) After all~ I had touched the hot gate and got a shock.....okay~ the shock from the "hot gate" was a wussie little buzz in your fingers~ that hot wire is a too your toes in every joint of your body screaming for you mommy shock!!! Maybe I can see why the dogs were afraid of that pasture.......I think the Anatolian had been chewing on the insulators before we electrified the fence......

That reminds me of this story. Our fence had gotten grounded over the winter. That silly filly of mine decided to have fun pulling on the insulators.

We finally got out and started fixing up the fence. We got all the way around and the horses had followed us, curious as always. We got done and plugged the fence in, and watched as that filly went up to an insulator to take a bite.

The real funny part is the two older geldings were watching her intently too. I think they knew we had made the fence hot again.

Cathy

Yeah~ we had seen a couple insulators with teeth marks on them~ and we wondered if it was the dog or the pigs. Put the dog in that pen~ for several hours in the day~ she was fine......about 30 min after dark the dog started to screaming like the world was ending.....we think she tried to chew an insulator with a hot wire in it. Next day after I let her out to eat breakfast I had to force her back in that pasture.