Testing fence

[dun]

Hortman-My $100 tester is the best tool in my kit. If you depend on electric fence, like me, it is a huge help. With experience, I have learned to link each voltage reading with a condition, eg old (non electric) fence wire resting on the hot wire. That, and a lot of switches keep the home fires burning.
The 5 light testers were short-lived, at least in my hands. If you can swallow the $ difference, you will be well pleased with the higher end testers.

And, if you have a weak short/ground the good wones will tell you which side of the tester the problems is. Takes me no time at all to find problems where it used to take hours sometimes

 

[Horticattleman]

We have some galvanized wire that got some round-up drift on it and it ate the galvanize and its now rusted wire. Will that decrease my voltage alot?

 

[iowafarmer]

Shouldn't as we don't replace rusty wires every year and they work fine.

 

[somn]

Get yourself one holstien steer he will check it everyday with his tounge. I can have a pen of 200 of those things and one of them will lick it first thing every morning the rest of the herd hears that god awfull beller they make after touching it and they won't go near it the rest of the day. But they almost fight for the opportunity to check it each morning.

 

[somn]

We have some galvanized wire that got some round-up drift on it and it ate the galvanize and its now rusted wire. Will that decrease my voltage alot?

Is it rusty at the connection of the fencer unit itself and the wire? Or at any splices along the line?

 

[larryshoat]

We use a Gallagher smart fix tester' shows the load on the fence and the direction of fault . Big time saver we used to look for some of that stuff for days . I used to go out at night and walk the fences, sometimes you can see the spark jump in the dark .

Larry

 

[GMN]

I replaced about 75% of my electric fence about a month ago with new wire, becasue it was rusty, weak and some of it was quite old, some got damaged from the last icestorm we had, and the difference is unbeleievable. The fence is hotter than it has been in 5 years, and I intend to replace the rest of the old, when time allows. I would say rusty fence is definetely a voltage diminisher.

GMN