Elec. fence

EddieWalker · Jan 17, 2018

I have 11 acres fenced in with three rows of electric fence to keep my horses in, and the wild pigs, coyotes and racoons out. The deer just jump over it like it's not there.

If you go with electric, the number of ground rods you need will be based on your soil type and how much moisture it holds. Your wire is the positive, the soil is your ground. For the fence to work, the animal, or person, needs to be standing on the soil and connected the circuit by touching the wire. If there isn't enough current in the soil, nothing will happen. This might not be technically correct, but it's how I think of it.

If there isn't enough current going through your soil, you will need more ground rods. I have three ground rods that are ten feet apart and connected to each other with a bare copper wire to the tops of each ground rod, one after another. This works well for my red clay soil.

If you need more, then you have to run a ground wire to the half way point of your fence and install more ground rods there. You need to carry the current to the soil with the ground wire, and then into the soil with the ground rods.

TheMan419 · Jan 17, 2018

EddieWalker said:
I have 11 acres fenced in with three rows of electric fence to keep my horses in, and the wild pigs, coyotes and racoons out. The deer just jump over it like it's not there.

If you go with electric, the number of ground rods you need will be based on your soil type and how much moisture it holds. Your wire is the positive, the soil is your ground. For the fence to work, the animal, or person, needs to be standing on the soil and connected the circuit by touching the wire. If there isn't enough current in the soil, nothing will happen. This might not be technically correct, but it's how I think of it.

If there isn't enough current going through your soil, you will need more ground rods. I have three ground rods that are ten feet apart and connected to each other with a bare copper wire to the tops of each ground rod, one after another. This works well for my red clay soil.

If you need more, then you have to run a ground wire to the half way point of your fence and install more ground rods there. You need to carry the current to the soil with the ground wire, and then into the soil with the ground rods.

That is why you can also run a ground wire. We have 3 wire for the horses. The middle wire is ground. That way if the horse is touching top/bottom and middle wire they will complete the circuit and get a zap. Also if they are grounded to the actual ground they will get a zap. Having a ground wire helps the odds they will be grounded and get a zap.

Most companies that sell the wire and/or charger will tell you what you need for grounding wires. The drier the soil the more you need. You may need to put them at various places around the paddock if you are running a long long wire. We currently have 3 spaced about 10 feet apart as well and connected to each other via copper wire. The wire is insulated and then buried between the rods as is the wire that goes out from the charger to the fence and ground rods.

Deer go in and out of the fenced area at will. Other animals seem to stay away. The deer, at night, drink out of the water trough the horses use during the day. It is always full and heated during the winter.

Code54 · Jan 17, 2018

Wow - lots of info, thank you all.
I am concerned that the Deer are going to ignore the fence and that would be bad.....
We have a lot of deer problems but they seem dumb. My current garden fence is 4' of welded wire, then I stuck those cheap fiberglass push in posts into the top of my regular wooden fence and ran string (yes -string - colored survey string) between them. Did this when the garden was smaller for years and it worked, no more deer at all. I explained the garden this year and did the same thing again and it worked great again. Well now we are thinking of fencing in a bunch of trees and making an orchard - this is where we thought it maybe easier and less expensive to do an electric fence but now I am thinking it may not be. Again I am only looking at about 200 or less feet of fence so I am not wondering if I should just do it the same way and be done with it?
The night I started fencing in the new garden it got raided by deer. The fence was down for 20 hrs and they already figured it out and attacked my wife strawberries so I know I need something to keep them from Apple trees.
Here is the current fence system and the new one will be to the right