Trouble with electric fencing.

[kasha]

To start, I have never felt like I grasp how an electric fence works. My dh set ours up many years ago, and I just keep adding wire and posts when I want to set up new areas.

The problem is, I can not consistently keep the fence going at full power. It is often low on power for no apparent reason. My dh says we should get a more powerful fencer, but after reading about it, it seems like other factors are just as important. (Like the grounding rod system)

1) So, we have three grounding rods, three feet apart. I was reading they should be 10 feet apart. Could that be our issue?

2) We have a fencer rated for 10 acres or twenty miles. We are fencing approximately 5 acres but with lots of cross fencing for paddocks. There are several places where we have insulated wire going under gates. The fencer is probably ten years old, but it shows a full charge when nothing is hooked up to it.

3) at this time of year there are no weeds touching the fence, but later we struggle to keep weeds down. My dh thinks a more powerful fencer will just burn through weeds. ??

4) I noticed there are three wires coming from fencer. One is the grounding wire and two are hot wires that head out of the barn in opposite directions, hooking to different fences that eventually meet up, so they are all connected. Could that be causing an issue? I don't understand if all the electricity should be coming from one point only.

5) The way it's set up right now I can unhook different sections and get a pretty good charge right by the barn, but as soon as everything is connected (all the fences at once) I lose the charge. Even right at the fencer the power is almost nothing. I cannot find an obvious short anywhere. When I disconnect the third wire from the fencer, there is more power at the fencer immediately even though all the other fences are still connected.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[sdmilkmaid]

Your insulated wires under the gates are probably getting cracked, and losing voltage.
Do you have a tester that shows amperage draw? Or just voltage readings?

Every splice/connection has a little bit of amperage draw, and if you have lots of them, it really adds up!
A bigger fencer and the ground rods spread out might help some, too.
Rachel

[suzorse]

you do not want 2 wires coming off your hot on the fencer , if 1 of the wires is attached to the second it will bring currant back to the fencer so a big no no I believe , I use a fence tester to check for problems , and any under ground wires could also be a problem , I have overhead wires where I have to bridge a gap , or run the insulated underground threw a PVC pipe , easier to replace if need be and also protects the wire , and a lot of mine is in squares and attached to my perimeter hot wire , that dead ends , and the perimeter is the only 1 attached to my fencer
Suzanne
also mine is a 30 mile on 2 acres

[blaithin]

Water your grounds. If I have a sudden drop in voltage and can’t find anything on the line, it’s nearly always a ground issue. I was really struggling because it gets dry here so I think I have double the recommended ground rods of varying lengths and material spaces at various distances and I always water them.

A quick way to tell if the grounding isn’t working great is if you have voltage going down the grounding wire.

[kasha]

May 16, 2019 10:50:11 GMT -5 suzorse said:

you do not want 2 wires coming off your hot on the fencer , if 1 of the wires is attached to the second it will bring currant back to the fencer so a big no no I believe , I use a fence tester to check for problems , and any under ground wires could also be a problem , I have overhead wires where I have to bridge a gap , or run the insulated underground threw a PVC pipe , easier to replace if need be and also protects the wire , and a lot of mine is in squares and attached to my perimeter hot wire , that dead ends , and the perimeter is the only 1 attached to my fencer
Suzanne
also mine is a 30 mile on 2 acres

Is it okay to have the perimeter run a full circle or do you need it to dead end?

[kasha]

May 16, 2019 10:37:44 GMT -5 sdmilkmaid said:

Your insulated wires under the gates are probably getting cracked, and losing voltage.
Do you have a tester that shows amperage draw? Or just voltage readings?

Every splice/connection has a little bit of amperage draw, and if you have lots of them, it really adds up!
A bigger fencer and the ground rods spread out might help some, too.
Rachel

Grrr...I have many, many connections and splices from over the years. My tester only shows voltage.

[Meadow Creek Mama]

Yes ^^^^^^^ is it dry by you? We get much less charge in the dry season when the grounding rods don't have moist ground.

And a big charger is never a bad idea. Even if you don't need the distance, you'll get a good zap which will be a good teacher to the animals. Most chargers are in volt or distance ratings I believe. But, an electrical engineer told us to look for one with a minimum 9 joules instead and I'm glad we did. I don't remember the difference in ratings, but that joule rating packs a bigger punch. We cover a lot of distance with it not only in perimeter fencing but it powers all the lines that break up the paddocks too.

[simplynaturalfarm]

If you can Afford it, a good tester that showed where you area losing power is worth the investment.

One wire comming from fencer and then you can branch off. Disconnect all your extras and test up to first connection ( under gates?) And see if you are losing lots there. If so, you might need to replace underground wire - not uncommon. Also, how you connect each wire makes a big difference on the draw.

Disconnect ones you don't need.

Do not get overpowered fence or you will have more problems. Running a huge fencer on small fence is like tying to put fire hydrant pressure in a skinny Hose that cant handle the water pressure. The electric has to go somewhere and tends to leak on corners which means you will LOSE voltage on ends, corners etc and it will give yippy no end of headaches - Kencive one year told me that their biggest number of calls come from people who got too big of fence r AND thought it would burn through weeds

Twines lose more than wire. Looping wire losses more than proper connections. Alligator clips lose some. Those gate handles can really cause issues - I've ended up throwing mine away as connections are always poor - I'll have 10000, put on am electric gate handle and drop to 6.

Sorry for typos but my phone is auto correcting...

[dexterfarm]

when a fencer is rated for x acres that is totally meaningless they always say more they can power. what matters is joules and volts. and those numbers can also be deceiving based on how they choose to measure. I would say you are way under powered. At a 10 acre rating I bet it is under 1 joule. is this a 110 or battery/solor power unit. give us the model and that would be helpful so we know what you are dealing with.

[ksfam]

To start, I have never felt like I grasp how an electric fence works. My dh set ours up many years ago, and I just keep adding wire and posts when I want to set up new areas.

The problem is, I can not consistently keep the fence going at full power. It is often low on power for no apparent reason. My dh says we should get a more powerful fencer, but after reading about it, it seems like other factors are just as important. (Like the grounding rod system)

1) So, we have three grounding rods, three feet apart. I was reading they should be 10 feet apart. Could that be our issue?

Yes, this could be contributing, but I doubt this is your issue. Depth and soil moisture are the most important factors.

2) We have a fencer rated for 10 acres or twenty miles. We are fencing approximately 5 acres but with lots of cross fencing for paddocks. There are several places where we have insulated wire going under gates. The fencer is probably ten years old, but it shows a full charge when nothing is hooked up to it.

The insulated wire under the gates is almost certainly your problem. Most wire is not made to handle the thousands of volts put out by a fence charger. The insulation will get microcracks that will short out. Your fence charger is probably fine.

3) at this time of year there are no weeds touching the fence, but later we struggle to keep weeds down. My dh thinks a more powerful fencer will just burn through weeds. ??

Yes, a powerful fence charger can absolutely kill small weeds that touch it. They used to sell "weed burner" fence chargers, and they did what they advertised. I once found a bird that had landed on a corner with one foot on the hot wire and one leg on the wire attaching the insulator to the corner. The bird was dead, hanging by one leg from the hot wire. The other leg had been burned in two just above the foot. Given your relatively small pasture, I don't think you need a terribly powerful charger though.

4) I noticed there are three wires coming from fencer. One is the grounding wire and two are hot wires that head out of the barn in opposite directions, hooking to different fences that eventually meet up, so they are all connected. Could that be causing an issue? I don't understand if all the electricity should be coming from one point only.

I have never seen a fence charger with three connections. Normally there is just a ground connection and a hot. Post a pic of the charger and someone may be able to help.

5) The way it's set up right now I can unhook different sections and get a pretty good charge right by the barn, but as soon as everything is connected (all the fences at once) I lose the charge. Even right at the fencer the power is almost nothing. I cannot find an obvious short anywhere. When I disconnect the third wire from the fencer, there is more power at the fencer immediately even though all the other fences are still connected.

Two suggestions:
1-Get a tester that shows voltage and amps. There are two kinds of electric fence problems, shorts and bad connections. Both will show up as low voltage. If you have a short, it will be drawing amps. Based on the fact that you lose voltage, even at the charger, it is pretty much guaranteed that you have shorts, which lower the voltage in the whole system, and the most likely place for the short(s) is the underground sections.

2-Avoid the undergrounds at all cost, in my opinion. If they don't short out when installed, they will eventually.

In conclusion, If you have bad connections, due to gate handles, splices, etc., you will show good charge at the charger and down the line up to the point where you have a bad connection. Think of the fence like a water hose. The charger puts pressure (voltage) in the hose. A bad connection is like a blockage in the hose. You will still have pressure upstream of the blockage, but you won't downstream. If you have a big hole in the hose somewhere (a short), your charger can't maintain pressure in the hose, and the pressure (voltage) will drop throughout the circuit.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[/quote][/p]

[bigredcow]

Walking the fence with it plugged in oh, you might notice something that you otherwise wouldn't have. Do you have any glass insulators that might be cracked?

[bigredcow]

Another thing we do is we have places where we can disconnect different loops of hot fence, station one person at the charger and one person on the fence and we walk around and disconnect and reconnect the different Loops until we find where the voltage drops and then you at least know where to look

[suzorse]

the perimeter fence can run in a circle but needs to attach back to itself , not back to the fencer is what I am trying to say , 1 line from fencer to fence only
Suzanne

[rosalind]

1) We are bad fence people, we only have one ground rod... and it works fine, as long as the ground is moist. In summer, we'll water around it if the fencer starts to lose strength. The other issue there is if the soil is super dry where the animal touches it, they won't "ground" well. I've had the same issue with snow - if you're on a big snow berm, you can touch a hot fence and not get shocked (maybe just take my word for it, no need to try - lol)

2) Our fencer is a similar strength and even older than yours. Like bigredcow mentioned, check the strength as you go around to see where it fades. If the strength is weak at the fencer, maybe you do have a fencer issue.

3) NO! Too much power is a good way to catch your field on fire. :/ Mow under the fences as best you can or look for other ways to keep the fences clean. Can you post a photo of your field? Maybe we could give some suggestions.

4) Yes, remove all the wires and then get fresh wire (the more expensive aluminum wire, like Gallagher, conducts electricity the best). Tightly fit one hot and one ground wire and attach to their respective slots. Remove #2 from the hot line.

5) Try everyone's suggestions and you'll probably fix the issue. A way that we've made our fence a little more reliable is to double up on connections. For example, when I hook in our sheep netting to the main electric fence, we're connecting at two locations instead of one. Check at all gates - my dad is very anti-gate (super annoying, since you have to crawl under all the fences...) but he has a point, gates are very likely a source of power loss.

One last thought, worst case scenario.... New wire? What kind are you using? My dad uses a heavy duty steel to avoid stretching and his conductivity is less than our thinner but aluminum wire. We replaced any sections where he had steel wire and we put in the aluminum and that's helped!

[throwback]

I would get rid of the underground areas and go overhead, and redesign your hotwires so you can unhook everything you are not using. I know gate handles lose some power, but if they aren't in use, they aren't losing any power;) It's exhausting to go around and check the entire fence all the time. Most of your fence does not need to be electrified unless you are using it.

I rotate stock every day of the grazing season, and I've done this for over 2 decades now, I don't own a fault finder. Keeping my fence simple allows me to put eyes on all of it every day when I move the cows. Most of my lines dead end, and there is no need to circle back and connect unless that application works best for that particular paddock.

Polywire, and tape are less effective than wire. Aluminum wire is better than steel wire. Energizers are stronger than chargers. Fault finders don't correct a hard-to-work-with fence design. So many choices and soooo frustrating when it doesn't work.

[kasha]

May 16, 2019 15:32:45 GMT -5 ksfam said:

To start, I have never felt like I grasp how an electric fence works. My dh set ours up many years ago, and I just keep adding wire and posts when I want to set up new areas.

The problem is, I can not consistently keep the fence going at full power. It is often low on power for no apparent reason. My dh says we should get a more powerful fencer, but after reading about it, it seems like other factors are just as important. (Like the grounding rod system)

1) So, we have three grounding rods, three feet apart. I was reading they should be 10 feet apart. Could that be our issue?

Yes, this could be contributing, but I doubt this is your issue. Depth and soil moisture are the most important factors.

2) We have a fencer rated for 10 acres or twenty miles. We are fencing approximately 5 acres but with lots of cross fencing for paddocks. There are several places where we have insulated wire going under gates. The fencer is probably ten years old, but it shows a full charge when nothing is hooked up to it.

The insulated wire under the gates is almost certainly your problem. Most wire is not made to handle the thousands of volts put out by a fence charger. The insulation will get microcracks that will short out. Your fence charger is probably fine.

3) at this time of year there are no weeds touching the fence, but later we struggle to keep weeds down. My dh thinks a more powerful fencer will just burn through weeds. ??

Yes, a powerful fence charger can absolutely kill small weeds that touch it. They used to sell "weed burner" fence chargers, and they did what they advertised. I once found a bird that had landed on a corner with one foot on the hot wire and one leg on the wire attaching the insulator to the corner. The bird was dead, hanging by one leg from the hot wire. The other leg had been burned in two just above the foot. Given your relatively small pasture, I don't think you need a terribly powerful charger though.

4) I noticed there are three wires coming from fencer. One is the grounding wire and two are hot wires that head out of the barn in opposite directions, hooking to different fences that eventually meet up, so they are all connected. Could that be causing an issue? I don't understand if all the electricity should be coming from one point only.

I have never seen a fence charger with three connections. Normally there is just a ground connection and a hot. Post a pic of the charger and someone may be able to help.

5) The way it's set up right now I can unhook different sections and get a pretty good charge right by the barn, but as soon as everything is connected (all the fences at once) I lose the charge. Even right at the fencer the power is almost nothing. I cannot find an obvious short anywhere. When I disconnect the third wire from the fencer, there is more power at the fencer immediately even though all the other fences are still connected.

Two suggestions:
1-Get a tester that shows voltage and amps. There are two kinds of electric fence problems, shorts and bad connections. Both will show up as low voltage. If you have a short, it will be drawing amps. Based on the fact that you lose voltage, even at the charger, it is pretty much guaranteed that you have shorts, which lower the voltage in the whole system, and the most likely place for the short(s) is the underground sections.

2-Avoid the undergrounds at all cost, in my opinion. If they don't short out when installed, they will eventually.

In conclusion, If you have bad connections, due to gate handles, splices, etc., you will show good charge at the charger and down the line up to the point where you have a bad connection. Think of the fence like a water hose. The charger puts pressure (voltage) in the hose. A bad connection is like a blockage in the hose. You will still have pressure upstream of the blockage, but you won't downstream. If you have a big hole in the hose somewhere (a short), your charger can't maintain pressure in the hose, and the pressure (voltage) will drop throughout the circuit.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[/p][/quote]That is a really helpful explanation! Thank you! My dh just read through this and got some good ideas.

[lew92]

Thanks for starting this thread, kasha! We've been having some issues with our fencing and think we've tracked it down to the coated wire going overhead from the fencer to the fence. Its been there for 7 years and has one connection in the center. Either the connection is bad, the coating is breaking down, or a combination of the two

[ksfam]

kasha ,
I'm glad if I could help. I don't know much of anything about dairy cows (although I am learning a lot here), I do know electric fencing pretty well.

[kasha]

May 16, 2019 14:12:02 GMT -5 dexterfarm said:

when a fencer is rated for x acres that is totally meaningless they always say more they can power. what matters is joules and volts. and those numbers can also be deceiving based on how they choose to measure. I would say you are way under powered. At a 10 acre rating I bet it is under 1 joule. is this a 110 or battery/solor power unit. give us the model and that would be helpful so we know what you are dealing with.

I did check the joule rating after reading an explanation about it. I can't remember now what it was but it was okay I thought. It's the brand from FF that starts with a z.
It is plugged into the electric in our pole barn.

[kasha]

May 16, 2019 16:26:21 GMT -5 bigredcow said:

Walking the fence with it plugged in oh, you might notice something that you otherwise wouldn't have. Do you have any glass insulators that might be cracked?

I've walked and walked. I'm thinking because there is not much power even at the fencer that it is being grounded somewhere.