Electric Fence Problem

Find a long blade of grass - say eight or ten inches long. Hold the root end of it between your thumb and finger. Put the tip of the blade of grass over the hot wire. Slowly slide the blade of grass toward the wire. If the fence is working, you should feel a very slight tingling when the fence pulses. The closer your fingers get to the wire, the stronger the tingling. If you don't feel anything, then you have a short somewhere.

It's also possible that you simply have a goat problem. I was watching my girl run in and out of the cow pasture yesterday, ducking underneath the wires. I could here them SNAPPING on her back, but she acted like nothing was happening. I had the same problem with sheep -- couldn't keep them in with electric; I think they were insulated by their wool. LOL

The good news is that if your pasture is small, you may be able to remove the course of wire along the fence separating the two areas, and install cattle panels. Just wire them up to the T-posts and you should be good to go.


Domino ... impervious to pain!

__________________
"I love all of this mud," said no one, ever.

You can go alternate hot-ground-hot-ground wiring. I haven't seen any animal get past that yet.

That's what I installed. Nothing get's thru it. My main reason for going
that route was to keep feral dogs out when we were having a major
problem with them. I've had it up and running for 3 years now.

I still think the OP has something causing the voltage to drop.
With only 3000 ft of wire and a 50 mile charger, they should have at least
18,000 volts any place on the fence. We have a 50 mile charger also and
when I only had a mile or so of fence going we were getting readings over
19,000 and that was not a clean fence. There were lots of weeds, etc
growing in it.

Not all goats are bothered by being shocked. I've watched goats stand there in the electric fence, getting shocked (as in trembling with each pulse, or even getting knocked partially down with each pulse), and happily browsing. It's not all that uncommon. You may have some goats like this.

There is also the matter of the circuit. Grounding is not the end all, be all of current flow. The juice has to be in the wire, the electricity has to go through the animal. Any animal with thick hair, or tall hoofed, or light on their feet, or standing on rocks or dry soil prevent a circuit, and will not be shocked. This is why birds can land on electric wires and not be shocked by the way. There is no circuit for those birds.

It is also possible that they have learned how to short your fence. If you went with alternating strands, but they are loose, they may well have learned to lift the hot line up to the ground line, and short the fence as they go out.

Shave its head and install a j-hook on a helmet, saturated with a salt-water sponge. Goat hooks wire, pushing further will increase shock--and make the goat smarter, too.....

Thanks for all the ideas! Saturday or Sunday we will be installing an additional ground strand below the bottom hot wire.

Also, we may be adding two more ground rods as we only have one now. In searching the web for information this week, it seems almost all the information out there about electric fence installation shows a total of three ground rods 10' apart within 20' of the charger.

Angela

This is what I keep thinking - that I may not ever get the fence fixed well enough to keep them in! That would seriously change my plan for goats! I have to be able to keep them contained and the only feasible way to do that is electric. Field fencing won't work very well in most of the areas I had in mind for this summer and course it costs quite a bit more. Plus it is not moveable.

Let's back up and troubleshoot the fence a bit.

How deep did you put the ground rod in ?
How did you attach the ground wire from the charger to the ground rod ?
Did you check the voltage right at the charger ?
What kind of soil do you have ? Rocky, sandy, dirt or ?
What brand of charger is it ?

(1)Ground rod is 6' long - in the ground 5 1/2'
(2)Attached using a ground rod clamp and a 14 gauge bare wire galvanized - also wrapped the wire around the ground rod several times (below the ground clamp).
(3)Yes - reads 7000 volts on tester - which is the highest reading on the tester
(4)Dirt - not clay, not sandy, not rocky - just greyish/brownish dirt
(5)3 chargers - none of which is effective but all of which have been tested at the charger
- 15 mile southern states
- 30 mile parmak - model Mark 6
- 50 mile Zareba (new)

Put the ParMak back on, take some readings and then call ParMak.
Ask for Randy Wheeler. He's their troubleshooter and is great to work
with. He knows his stuff and will walk you thru everything until you find
and fix the problem. He helped me a few years ago and made it easy.

Or you can try emailing him at rwheeler@parmakusa.com

I would also get a digital tester. So much easier to get good readings.

Another quick thought - do you have a lightning arrestor on the charger? If so, remove it and test. Those are notorious for failing and reducing the voltage.

Thanks! The parmak is on it now - I am taking the Zareba back because the problem was obviously not the charger. I was wondering about the tester too. It was the only one available at the feed store and my DH thinks it is not a good one.

Nope - no lightning arrester.

Anything else anyone can think of would be wonderful. As I said we will be adding more ground this weekend and I will be walking the fence line again to check the insulators as suggested.

Thanks everyone for all the ideas and help! It is truly and greatly appreciated!

Angela

Farmmom - what type & brand of fence charger do you have? The ones I can find are only going up to 9,900 volts

Thanks,
Angela

add 2 more ground rods about 7 feet apart connect all three, then remove bottom wire and replace with electric barb wire, the smooth wire is not working though hair