Electric Fence

[Peggy Hogan]

This might be a long shot but what the heck. I know my fence becomes ineffective when it's dry. Is it possible the cold has made the ground drier than normal? I wonder if your ground poles would need to have water poured near the base. That's what I have to do for mine. I also use more than one ground rod, each connected by wire.

Finally, I know the thickness of the ground wire definitely makes a difference.

Just thinking out loud....

 

[Peggy Hogan]

(If a kangaroo starts oozing up out of the hole you have gone to far....)

LOL Jane....I'll remember that one....

 

[Minimor]

Is it possible the cold has made the ground drier than normal? I wonder if your ground poles would need to have water poured near the base.

Peggy, the thing is, when the ground is frozen, you can't pour water down along the ground rod--it won't soak down to the base of the rod, all it will do is run along the surface of the frozen ground and make a nice skating rink around the ground rod!

 

[LittleLottie]

I now use mains powered electric fencing and never have a problem. I also have an extremly good energiser which will do miles of fencing.

One of the things I've always been told is that the earth plays a very important role and if you don't look after it then don't bother. If you run a good distance of fencing then you'll need to add extra earths. This ensures a good and balanced voltage all round. This should be done with battery electrics as well as mains.

With battery fencing the batteries go pretty poor when out in very cold conditions and should really be stood on a thick piece of rubber as well as having some kind of covering. Normal car batteries shouldn't really be used as the energisers put a pulse pattern into them meaning they never take a full charge thereafter. Leisure batteries are far better, but more expensive.

Here in the UK we constantly seem to get people stealing the energisers, hence my move to mains.

My little ones have a huge respect for the fence.

 

[Peggy Hogan]

Is it possible the cold has made the ground drier than normal? I wonder if your ground poles would need to have water poured near the base.

Peggy, the thing is, when the ground is frozen, you can't pour water down along the ground rod--it won't soak down to the base of the rod, all it will do is run along the surface of the frozen ground and make a nice skating rink around the ground rod!

OK...I know I'm ignorant about living in snow climates....LOL....still...a skating rink might be entertaining!

 

[mylilgirls]

I have a zebra 3 mile solar fence charge with 3 - 3 foot ground rods I am in Tn so we only have a little frozen ground. If the ground is frozen that is why they are not getting a good zap. Depending on how deep your ground is frozen, you might want to go with deeper ground rods or even more rods. My 2 wont even test it they went from a wood & wire fenced pasture to a solar 1.5 polytape 3 strands, the colt touched it before I had the ground hooked up & thats all it took, the 1st time I tried to walk him through the gate he had a fit, They stay at least a foot from it at all times, So I love the solar fence, I have 2 others in the wood & wire and one got out - Dont know how, so the I ran a strand of barb wire around the out side incase she was pushing the wire down, she got out again I still dont know how she got out... So I have a solar charger on its way, I am going to run 1 strand around the top, & remove the barb wire. Oh & I love Ebay you can get the best deals..

Good luck & hope it gets worked out for you