O/T Cattle and electric fence how do you make them mind

Well replaced a bunch of fence put on a new fence charger,but the little ones are still getting out.What do I need to do to keep them in.I think I 'll try a bigger fence charger.Anyone out there got any thoughts on one?I have good ground on the charger the wire and charger are new.I'm at a loss I don't want to go thru the chasing and fence fixing all this summer like last year.Once they start getting out they seem to never stay in.Please some help on this subject would be great.

Do the cattle 'know' the fence is there? It might help to 'flag' the wire, 'til they're aware of it..............

Have you tested the fence to make sure it is working? Get a stem off of a big green weed a couple of feet long hold it and touh the fence with it or buy a fence tester.

What thurlow said is right just tie a flag every few feet. Cattle are curious and they"ll stick their nose to the flag. A couple of zaps on the nose and they"ll stay clear.

Flagging the fence sounds good , but this is another guys experience to one he knew was there.
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We have the standard 6ft. fence in our backyard, and a few months ago I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city.

To make sure this never happened to me; I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence.

Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground round, drove 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.

One day I'm mowing the back yard with my el cheapo Wal-Mart 6hp big wheel push mower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way. It seems as though I hadn't remembered to unplug it after all.

Now I'm standing there, I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 gigavolt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover. Time stood still. The first thing I notice is my b@lls trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain.

Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine. It seems as though the fence charger and the POS lawn mower was fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot crap, pee, and nut at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just crap your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point I'm about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can’t let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences... but Dad always had those POS chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kind of tickled. This I could not let go of.

The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the perm damp Ark-La-Tex River bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas.

'Damn!' I think, as I remember I just filled the tank! Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, semen, and with my balls on my chest I think 'Oh God please die... pleeeeze die'. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity standing in my own backyard, begging God to kill me. God did not take me that day he left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire... I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned. There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot were the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire. Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things.

1- Three of my teeth seem to have melted.

2- I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).

3- Poop, pee, and semen when all mixed together, do not smell as bad a you might think.

4- My left eye will not open.

5- My right eye will not close.

6- The lawnmower runs like a sumnabitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something because it was better than new after that.

7- My b@lls are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long

8- I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don't understand this?)


That day changed my life. I now have a newfound respect for things. I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.

I don't know if I'd do that. We had an electric fence along a neighbors for a while. She'd go out and tie rags on that one. I don't know if it was for the cows or to warn her kids where it was,but the wind would eventually blow the rags over against steel posts,then when it would rain,the wet rags would short out the fence. I don't know HOW many times I had to go down there and cut them off the fence. TOO MANY,I'll tell you that. I'd just string a ground wire about a foot below the hot wire.

Blaine,

I only have one electric fence on my whole farm. It's a little more than 1/4 mile long and is located WAY back on the farm, far away from a power source. I erected my fence with three wires. I have a hot wire about 14 inches from the ground, a ground wire about 26 inches from the ground, and a second hot wire about 36 inches from the ground.

My charger is a 12 volt unit. I bought a 12V car battery when I bought the charger. It is exactly like the battery in my Ranger pick-up. I swap out the battery between my fence charger and my truck every 6 weeks or so.

So far, I haven't had any cattle or calves get out.

Do you think that adding a second hot wire, closer the ground might help keep your little ones in?

Good luck,

Tom in TN

Ground Ground and more Ground to make a system work better. This is one place where American made is not the way to go! The better ones are built in New Zealand,Britian or Germany. You might try premier supplies in washington,iowa they are great to deal with. I build mainly 3 and 5 wire systems and deal with extemely dry conditions. I have about 5 miles in use. I have a good friend that has close to 70 miles, mostly solar powered.

I guess that would happen with smooth wire. I always used 15 1/2 ga barb wire for electric fence but as expensive as wire is now I guess that might be cost prohibitive.

A bigger charger isn't ncessarily the answer. Grounding is the most important thing. Did you ground according to the charger manufacturer's instructions? Make sure you do.

If your ground is very dry and you have a low impedance fence charger, you may not have a good enough circuit through the animals feet to the dry groundd to give the cattle/calves a shock. If that's the case, you can run two wires about 4 inches apart, the lower one being attaced to the ground rods and the upper one being the hot wire. This way the animals will touch both the ground and the hot wire and get a shock.

I use wide impedence solar chargers and, depending on the fence length and the ground condition carry abetween 5000-7100 volts on the fence.

How high are your wires? They need to be about 22 inches to hold in small calves

I have two 8 foot ground rods in about 6.5 feet and one old ground rod depth unknow.I put the rods right under the eves of the cat shed so the ground should be moist there.Also its been raining here as well.I used new barbed wire for fence line two strands one 24 inch off ground and second one about 36 inch.Thanks for all the replies anymore would be great because I'm stumped I thought I went by the book on this install.

Electric fence is about worthless when baby calves are involved. They are through it before they know what it is all about, then won't go back through it to come home.

I have two very good high impedance 110 volt chargers these can set a bull on the ground and turn him into a docile wimpy calf.

They cost more and take more care but will eat normal weeds right off the wire and keep itself pretty clean.

Walt
PS it will throw you down on the ground and zap you 3 times before you know what happened so stay clear.

Personally, what jumps out at me is the fence seems too high. My one wire fences with 600 pound heifers I keep at 30 inches. My two wire fences for cows and calves I have wires at 28 inches and 18 inches. Cows are more likely to push under than go over. If they know its there they wont try it because they dont know if its 10 feet tall or not. A few pieces of surveyors tape tied on a wire helps them see it until they learn what it is. Once they get educated its usually not a big deal. Knock on wood, I havent had cows out accross electric for 3-4 years.

What others have said about grounding correctly, is of value. I have found, also, that one little collie dog, on the outside of the fence will keep all the calves on the inside of the fence, and the dog will love you for letting it do what it loves to do!

I have the biggest fence charger they have at TSC (cheap brand) and have had to replace it a few times, it has some sort of warranty because I never had to pay full price each time I returned it and they were much stronger the newer they were. Now, if you buy a 26 mile fencer, is this 26 miles for 1 strand, 13 miles for 2 strand, 6.5 miles for 4 strand, etc? I have 5 strands hot on 1 pasture and 4 hot on the other, which both lines probably 2 miles long.

Calves, yeah, you need two wires. Both barbed. Both charged.

Well this maybe over kill here but my buddy and i are putting up fence and we are using four wire barbed one at 16 inches off the ground and every 14 inches after that all are hot and have no issue on calfs getting out .

How hot is your fence? New chargers don't make a hot fence.

If you only have one or two wires it is hard to keep lil'ns in. Best way I have found is when they start wandering out, I have 5 acres of pasture with water and 4 strand HT fence. I put all the cows and calves in there for a few days with hay if they need it. Go around it with a tester and get it over 3 KV, it will teach them to respect the wire. I try to keep my whole fence at 2 KV, cows won't get out at 1.5 and 2 will get calves attention pretty good too.

Most of my fence is a single strand of barbwire, but you can't get that hot enough to hold in 150lb caves. I have mostly 3 or 4 strand perimeter fence.

Good luck.

Dave
Best 100 you will spend in the fence world

Now thats a good fence.

My brother was have'n trouble with the neigbor's bull getting into his pasture. He got a charger and got it up to where it was holding 17kV! He put the heifers next to the neigbors place and went and got some beer to watch. Wish he had video'd it! Just as you said, bull did all three at once and his bean bag swung up close to his tail. Now he won't get with in 30' of the property line.

Dave

good gawd, man. damn.

I bought one of my chargers from Premeir1 and while they are pricey, they really work! The package it comes in is a bit clumsy but I like the wide impedence design and all the other features. Glad to know someone else thinks they have good products.

what works good is a little corn syrup on a piece of paper towel wrapped on the hot line

My cows are pretty well broke to a single smooth wire electric fence. The best thing I have tried is to tie throw away pies plates to the fence with wire. Curious calves will find them fast. I also keep it low enough they can't walk under. It doesn't take long for them to respect it.

The mommas are pretty easy to train to the fencer, they will leave the fence alone.

The little ones, good luck, never have had any that stay in an electric fence - they need woven wire.

--->Paul

Is the fence completely insulated?? Stupid question, but don't overlook a single spot. Kyplowboy's suggestion on the gallagher fence tester is a moneymaker. I got one and opened up a whole new world in fence fixing (my dogs like me better too, cause they ain't my testers anymore :shock: ). I read somewhere that aluminum or tin cans hung with a paperclip is better than the flags (I'd make sure there is a drain hole in the bottom). If you have good ground and the charger is putting out (disconnect it from the fence and test it there), either your fence is grounded somewhere or your calves/cows just don't know to respect it. I'd bet on a grounded fence somewhere.

Good Luck,

Dave

I use a zareba 100 mile low impedance AC charger for my horses. Max rating is 13.6 kv. I run 2 strands which probably totals less than two miles of wire. Bought the digital tester by zareba which maxes out at 9.9 kv. I've accidentally bumped it 3 times and each time it liked to stop my heart for a while.

On my clear wire, the tester shows the max of 9.9 kv. What i've noticed is that it may go down to 2.2 kv if it shorts up against the barbed wire or something. Something else I've noticed is that if it does short out cause of weeds or whatever, the tester will read the same voltage whether I'm checking it at the charger or a half mile away. I walked the wire to check this out. Now I just keep the tester in the barn by the charger and test it there every few days or so. I think with the other style you walked the fence and tested to find the problem.

With little calves, you may want to run an extra wire that is grounded every so often. Put it so that when a calf sticks his head between the wires, he contacts the hot and the ground and really gets zapped. That also helps during those hot dry summers when the earth/ground gets so dry that current doesn't flow very well to your ground rods. Normal current flow is from the hot wire, through the animal touching the wire, the hooves and earth/dirt where the animal is standing, and then through the earth/dirt to your ground rods attached to the charger.

You most likely are not getting the voltage you expect, as mentioned by others, you most likely have a short somewhere. Cows are easier to keep in then horses but you should have good quality charger, no TSC or Dare junk. I fence in whole 80 acre farms with two strands of polywire and tempoary Gallagher post and have no problems. I also have the Gallagher fence and short tester and test all the time. I also have a $600 15 Joule Gallagher fencer at one spot.

Yes you are correct on that.

I might add that those low impedance charges are not very good weed burners. Maybe a few but a fence line of weeds on wire will just end up cutting the voltage down to almost zip.

> Now he won't get with in 30' of the property line.

Might have put him off cows altogether!

i bought one of those zebra fencers and only got one shock out of it and it was done, then i hooked back up and a neighbor told me to run 3 pieces of 12" copper pipe about 6 ft long and space them 6 ft apart so i did that and hooked it up to my ground on the fence you talk about a arc its blue them cows are afraid to get 1 ft near it. its actually kind of funny the cows wont cross the wire gate

We got one strand of fence around all the fields, probably close to 80 acres.
That one strand is about 34 to 36 inches off the ground.
The brand of barb wire is Motto, really mean stuff.
Even with the charger off the cattle still don't like to mess with the fence.
At one time there were nearly 200 cattle (cows and calves and 2 bulls.)
Newborn calves will sometimes venture out, but they always come back to mama. The others might jump the fence if something spooks them. But otherwise they stay where they are supposed to.

As far as getting them to mind you, the best thing for that is to spend time with them every day. Get on the 4 wheeler and ride up in the field where they are all gathered around eating grass and check on them. Treat it as a visit and talk to them. You know, "How ya doing. Getting enough to eat. Feeling ok. Any problems, questions, or complaints?" Visit every single one of them. I know it sounds crazy but I think they get used to the sound of your voice and get used to being close to you. Then when it comes time to do anything with them they aren't nearly as much trouble. If they are used to being around you they stay calmer.
Gives me something to do too when I get aggravated about something or just need to get out of the house for a while. I can go visit with the cows.
Yes, I know. I'm crazy.

Pooh Bear (aka Fluff for Brains)

I used to bring rock salt,grain or apples to the cattle on pasture.they will follow you around when given treats on a regular basis.They have good memories, much better than we give them credit for.