Drought and electric fence

[greybeard]

No need to go jouleistic!

A new Leeism!!

 

[MurraysMutts]

Murray, No need to go jouleistic! Unless you are fencing cape buffalo or bison or something of that nature 64 joules
might be overkill. I see Cyclops has 'Brute' (8 joule) listed in mid $350's no shipping. If well grounded you will hear the
hallelujah choir if get into it. If that is not enough the Cyclops 'Super' (12 joule) will run you in the 5's and is more than
adequate. I know from experience a Cyclops Brute will kill a turkey if they try to hop a fence and get a wing hung up on
the wire. /////// Note of caution////// When you do get a fencer be sure to install a lightning arrester to protect your
investment. Also if you do not have one a directional fault finder is a good investment, It will show not only the joules in
the line but the direction of source of short or resistance. Wet weeds are hell on voltage! Good luck whatever way you go.

Love that!

My neighbors 5 plus joule will jump a half inch air gap he says. I don't need 64 for sure!
I'm liking the idea of a 12 joule. Parma I think it is has a built in arrestor. Been thinking...

O. I'm pretty diligent about keeping forage off my hot wire. I like a nice clean fence row

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

The troublesome calves give them a hair cut. Then the wire will be on skin.

Hair cut and/or pour oil down the back. Oil makes the contact better, and they get one heck of a shock (like pour on for flies).

 

[shaz]

Measure between your two outputs and compare that to what you're seeing at the end of the fence. 6KV is not much in a drought. If your charger can put out 10KV you can light calves up good enough.

Also, measure between earth ground and your ground output on the charger. That will tell you how much of the problem is grounding.

 

[MurraysMutts]

We have FINALLY gotten a bit of rain over the past week or so. Over 2 inches total.

Fence is working great again!!

Voltage is up over 6500v with as much as 8k everyone is staying put again

 

[birdog]

When I built my electric fence I have the bottom and second from the top a ground wire, the other three are hot. I have also read somewhere on the net that you should have 1 joule per mile of fence.

Maybe put a aluminum can on one of your hot wires, they will be curious and bump it with their nose and hopefully get a good shock, and will respect the fence more. Other than that I'm out of ideas.

We always mark the hot wire with flagging tape about 5-6 ft apart. You want the calves to see it and stick their nose to it. Usually only takes once.

 

[sunnyblueskies]

So with a handful of green grass and my new work shoes on, if I touch the grass to the fence all I get is a tingle....

So you tried it after all, did ya....... hahahahahahahaha

 

[MurraysMutts]

So you tried it after all, did ya....... hahahahahahahaha

I did!!
Since this rain we have had tho, things are really popping now.

I moved Eleanor and her 4 kids to my south acre today. 3 of the 4 decided to test it for me. Ran right thru 5 strands and made one HE77 of a noise!!
I think I made more noise gathering the little turds back up.

They ain't went near that fence again tho!

 

[debbiea]

Hopefully some of you's guys can help. My fence is kicking out 6k about like normal. No shorts. I went along with my fence checker and did find a couple minor ones and fixed em.

However!
I got a couple calves that seem immune to a hot wire. Is it really just so dang dry that their hooves are acting as insulation? I've literally watched them go under and rub their back the entire time and never seem to get hit!

I even ran a second strand along the side they seem to prefer escaping from. Couldn't believe it, but yep, they even went UNDER the second strand!! And it was tight! So I know they made good hard solid contact the entire length of their back...

Or do I just have a charger that gave up?
Possibly putting out voltage but no amperage that makes it bite?

Just can't help myself Your answer is invest in a real woven wire cattle fence, you will be amazed at how great it works, and the cattle can't escape. Problem solved!!

 

[farmerjan]

At twice the price for woven wire right now, it is a tough decision to put it up.... and electric fence is very workable if you can deal with the things like dry weather, and other things. We don't use it much here due to the deer running through it like it wasn't there.... I am not made of money and just buying this small place, still cannot find the extra to pay for the woven wire fence I want here.... but am going to have to deal with electric to keep the deer out of the fruit trees next year.... and to keep a few calves in here. I don't think that @MurraysMutts is in a position to put out big bucks right now to put up woven wire.... plus the flexibility of electric fencing to graze places that having a permanent fence would not work.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

There are some cases where ww would work, but generally cattle ruin it unless you put electric fence on top and or on the inside.

 

[greybeard]

There are some cases where ww would work, but generally cattle ruin it unless you put electric fence on top and or on the inside.

Depends, on the number of posts, how deep and how TIGHT you tension it. I've seen some that held up to 10' of flood water running over and thru it with lots of flotsam piled up against the wire. I do agree tho, on a top strand of good barbed wire, maybe 2.

 

[MurraysMutts]

I can agree on the woven wire!
Had I won that dang ol lottery......

😆
I do have a rather unique situation here. There's 8 acres next door that divides this place. Those folks let me run my cows across it to get access to the other side. One of these days there may have to be a permanent fence of some sort. But for now, this is what we got.

The 2nd strand helped a lot. What really helped tho, was selling the offending heifer!!
Then the rain came for a bit and everyone is staying put again. Cows never did get out. Just the smaller calves. After the one offending heifer showed em how. We fixed that tho. Shame too. I wanted to keep that heifer.

The 5 wire fence has electric run down the middle as well. Keeps em off the fence. It's old. But still decent.

 

[Dusty Britches]

I wished I had seen this when you originally posted it, MM. I was having the same problem and my fence charger normally would knock you off your feet.

With the drought, the ground was not strong enough to complete the connection for a shock. So I read the Gallagher manual.

Run your ground wire from the charger to the rods. And from the charger to the fence as the bottom strand at 16-18". Run the hot strand at 24-28" inches. Connect the bottom strand directly to every metal post you can. I already had 2 strands connected to each other so I only had to disconnect the bottom one and at each end, it T'd into a barb wire fence, which I tied into. Shazam! That lit everything up! Now, every time the calves tried to walk through the fence they would hit both the ground and hot at the same time and it would create a great shock. I switched all of my electric fences over to this method. I can even run it off battery or A/C.

It gets dry every year and this new method will remove some worry for me.

 

[greybeard]

Well, Dusty, you shouldn't have to worry about dry grounds now. The 1st real cool front of the year just came howling in here wet. It was as warm at 6:30 this morning as it's going to get all day long. Not bad but headed for the low 30s by dawn tomorrow morning. Already got about 1".
20 minutes ago:

 

[EasTex]

I wished I had seen this when you originally posted it, MM. I was having the same problem and my fence charger normally would knock you off your feet.

With the drought, the ground was not strong enough to complete the connection for a shock. So I read the Gallagher manual.

Run your ground wire from the charger to the rods. And from the charger to the fence as the bottom strand at 16-18". Run the hot strand at 24-28" inches. Connect the bottom strand directly to every metal post you can. I already had 2 strands connected to each other so I only had to disconnect the bottom one and at each end, it T'd into a barb wire fence, which I tied into. Shazam! That lit everything up! Now, every time the calves tried to walk through the fence they would hit both the ground and hot at the same time and it would create a great shock. I switched all of my electric fences over to this method. I can even run it off battery or A/C.

It gets dry every year and this new method will remove some worry for me.

Good to know, I am going to give this a try. Thanks for posting!

 

[CowboyRam]

I have not had one calf crawl through the fence; I have two ground wires on my fence, one at the bottom and second from the top. The only problem I had was last year the cows broke the chain on the gates; used a heavier chain, and that fixed that problem. This year I had some jump over my wire panels where the post got pushed over, the water table is fairly high and the ground is very soft. I plan on putting in a couple of those self-standing cattle panels next summer.

 

[branxchar&charx]

Im a bit late to this thread as well but my grandpa always says if you want them to respect the hotwire, they have to touch their noses to it. Hits em anywhere else, it really doesnt bother them.
I ran into a similar situation earlier this year, hotwire was barely working it seemed. And little sweet Ms Chloe completely ignored the fence, walked right through to get to some $100 hay bales. So i penned her and the other F1s i had in this pasture back up for about a week and made a "training" hotwire fence for them, double wired, no issue after that! No pic of the setup tho.

I tried training them this way. Didnt work. Panels were only temporary as had to pull em from elsewhere.

Ms. Chloe in her enclosure.
Next, shows training was successful.lol i lowered the fence to get a hay bale.