When the Electric Fence No Longer Pops

It's about that time of year where I begin separating our 3 acre pasture into paddocks.  The paddocks are separated by step in posts and temporary poly wire electrified by a solar charger.  From time to time, however, I'm greeted by a cow who isn't where she is supposed to be.  They've all been popped by the electric fence (and so have I), and so they (and I) respect it.

When a cow or all of them are beyond the electric fence, I know that the fence is no longer "hot."  I have a little trouble shooting routine that I go through to find and fix the problem.  Most of the time a branch has fallen across the perimeter wire and is grounding it.  So to find that I walk the perimeter fence to locate where the grounding out is occurring.

On this particular day, I didn't have to walk very far.  The problem wasn't that a stick had grounded it out.  It is that the fence wasn't grounded at all.  The ground wire coming off of the solar charger had fallen off of the ground rod.  This is how I found it:

The culprit, as you might have guessed, was Astro, the bull.  The ground rod is in the "bull pen."  Astro is at that age that bulls get where they like rubbing their head on everything.  Feed buckets we put in the pen are pushed across the pasture.  Anything solid in the pasture he can find, he rubs his head against it.  If you aren't very careful, he'll break everything he can get his head next to.  Astro had rubbed his head on the ground rod and knocked the ground clip off of it, rendering the fence un-grounded and unable to carry current.

The solution, in this case was simple - shockingly simple.  (Ha ha)I simply pulled the ground rod out of the ground in the pasture and put it ON THE OTHER SIDE of the fence and put the ground clip back on the rod.

This photo clearly shows that he can't get his head on the other side of the fence to knock the clip off.

For the time being, all is well once again.  But that's the thing with livestock.  Just as soon as you fix one issue, another one arises.  One must always be vigilant, anticipating problems and then working quickly to find solutions.

The Electric Fence Grounded Out - Solved It!

As we drove into the driveway from church today, I looked out in the pasture and saw our two little bulls, Junior and Astro.  They were in the wrong paddock.  How in the world did they get through the electric fence?  Two strands of electric fence, actually.  The animals have been trained (by being shocked) to be fearful of the electric fence.  They normally keep their distance, but today, they went through the fence like a hot knife through butter.  Either the charger stopped working or the fence is grounded out somewhere.  I had to find it.  I went to the drawer that holds all my fencing materials and picked up my electric fence tester and headed out to the pasture.

My normal course of action is to walk out and trace the entire electric fence, looking for a place where I can find that the 'hot' wire is touching the fence wire, or a t-post, or maybe a limb has fallen across the hot wire, grounding it.  As I started walking toward the perimeter fence that runs north and sound and then east and west, I noticed that an oak tree in the neighbor's yard had fallen.  It is a water oak tree, one that is susceptible to borer beetles and rot.

This could be where the problem lies.  I walked closer to the downed tree.  You can begin to see the cross-fencing.  Oh, no!  Did I have a big fencing job today that I wasn't expecting?

Fortunately, the tree didn't fall across the fence, but fell against it.  The fence was still intact and standing, but we needed to investigate further.

As I surveyed the scene closer, I think I can spot the problem.  The treetops poking through the fence appears to be pushing through, perhaps touching the hot wire.

Here is a close-up shot of the problem.  This is just one of many places where both branches AND fence wire is touching the hot wire.  In these cases, the fence is "grounded out," and this results in the electrical charge going into the ground and not down the fencing.  This is precisely why the bull calves were bold enough to go through the electric fence.  No electric charge to pop them.

I had also brought an ax out with me and I began to chop all of the branches that were pushing against the fence, throwing them back across into the neighbor's yard.  With more chopping, the fence began to be free of all of the branches causing our problem.

At last the hot wire that runs along the perimeter fence was freed!

One last thing to do.  I hooked up my tester to see if the fence was conducting a charge.  Yes!  All five lights were flashing, letting me know that the problem was solved.

I put the bull calves back where they belonged.  They'll test out the fence soon enough and will be shocked (pardon the pun) to discover that the fence works again.  They'll once again build a healthy respect for the fence and stay where they are supposed to stay.

Wasted Energy

Our cows have a bad habit.  When I push the chicken tractor forward so that the chickens can eat fresh grass everyday, the cows see that as snack time.  They run to the spot where the chicken tractor was and look for spilled feed or rice to eat.  I DON'T like them doing that, because when cows eat close to the ground like that, they can pick up parasites.  That's why we use rotational grazing to constantly move them to fresh grass so that they don't eat close to ground level.

In order to stop that bad behavior, I enlisted Benjamin's help to run the electric poly wire fence around the chicken tractor so that the cows couldn't get to it.  It sounded like a good plan and we got busy.  We are always careful when reeling up the electric fence because the solar charger really packs a punch.  If you touch the poly wire, it will pop you and you will scream.  Invariably, I'll get a little careless and get popped.  Of course it would be less painful if I was to turn the charger off first, but I was in a rush - like usual.  As I was reeling up the poly-wire, it touched my arm and... didn't shock me.  There was no electricity running through it.

That can be caused by one of several things.  First, the charger could be off.  We checked it. Nope, it was on. Second, the charger battery could be dead or the charger broken, but I could distinctly hear it pulsing. So I knew what the problem was.  The hot wire that runs along the perimeter of two sides of our fence was grounding out somewhere.  I'm not an electrician, but I know that electricity seeks the path of least resistance and likes to go to the ground.  Somewhere, our hot wire was touching something (a conductor) that was carrying our electricity into the ground instead of through the perimeter wire, through our "jump wire" and into the poly-wire cross fences.

Now all we had to do was find it.  Easy enough.  Benjamin and I began walking on one end of the perimeter wire and hadn't walked twenty feed before we found it.  In the picture below, about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom, you can see a wire running almost horizontally.  That is the hot wire. We notice that it was touching the hog wire fence which was conducting all the electricity to the ground.

Grounded out!

The bull uses his head to bang things around in the pasture and had pushed an empty water trough into the hot wire.  The hot wire got wrapped around the hog wire in the process, causing the problem. All we had to do was unravel the wire. Benjamin said, "Isn't it going to shock you when it is off of the fence, Dad?"  I answered, "YES! It will." as it popped the fool out of me.  Then I got some tie wire and pulled the fence tight where the bull had bent it, so it wouldn't lean in and touch the hot wire and our job was done. We got the tester and tested the fence in numerous locations and all five lights on the tester lit up, letting us know that the charger was sending electricity through the fence just fine now.

A little tie wire keeps the fence from touching the hot wire

Sometimes I think God uses things in His Creation to speak to us and I began to realize that this was one of those times.  I struggle sometimes when I think about precious time and energy that I waste in doing things that I'm not passionate about.  As the head of my household, it is my responsibility to provide for my family and that requires going to a job Monday through Friday that keeps me away from my passion from 6:30 am to 5:30 pm every day, which is my family and our little farm.

That can be a source of discouragement for me and I'm sure others might struggle with that, too. Like the hot wire story above, there are times when my energy seems to be "wrapped around and/or tangled up" by this and it saps my energy, leaving me feeling lethargic, depressed, discouraged and sometimes feeling more deflated than Tom Brady's football. What to do?  Well, I think God was trying to tell me that I needed to "untangle my wires."

Let the power flow!

The Source of Power can give you power, if you ask.  Where were my wires tangled? Well, first I untwisted a wire off of selfishness.  And I found another wire that was ensnared with self pity and lack of a grateful spirit that was grounding me out. Once I got those off and a few more, I began to have more energy and got a 'pep back in my step.'  Trouble is, at least with me, is that I continually have to "walk my perimeter fence," looking for those areas in my life that sap my energy, drain my power, and ground me out.  It seems just as soon as I untangle one, another gets wrapped up somewhere else!

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. 29 He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power. 30 Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, 31 Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.  Isaiah 40: 28-31