Fun with electric fences!

An electric fence surrounds our horse field. I don’t know why, but visitors, and especially visitors from urban areas find that the fence holds a strange and compelling fascination for them.

This is not a wimpy little dog fence either, but a livestock type fence good enough for a couple of thousand acres. We fence in about ten.

So my friends from NY are over, as well as some of my wife’s family. There’s some kids, too, and they’re all looking at the horses.

“Is that an electric fence?” I get asked.

“Yup.”

“Does it hurt?” is always the inevitable next question.

“Yup.”

“Is it on now?”

Here I always smile disingenuously. “Oh no, it’s not on (the fence is always on.”) I lie.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

The rest is written in stone. They walk over to the fence, and put their hand real close to it, but they just can’t seem to bring themselves to touch it. They look at me nervously, adults and kids alike, but they don’t touch the fence. I smile predatorily which doesn’t really help.

Suddenly somebody gets the bright idea “If it’s not on, why don’t you touch it and show us?” Now they think they have me dead to rights.

“Ok. Sure.” I reply.

Now anybody that has an electric fence knows that it’s not continuous. The charge comes out in pulses. Sometimes and in certain places you can pick up the cues as to the fences pulses. In this case we were near the barn, and by listening carefully I could hear the innocuous and faint on-off clicking of the fence charge box in the barn.

I walk up to the fence casually, listening carefully, and place my hand on the fence, leaving it there for the large part of a second.

“See?” I say removing my hand a split second before a gazillion volts would have had me jerking on the ground (we call this “doing the chicken”)

"Oh, at this point everybody loses interest. Nobody bothers to touch the fence. It’s no fun anymore now that it’s not dangerous. But my mission is accomplished. Now they’re not wary.

“Want to feed the horses some carrots?” I ask.

“Sure?” everybody responds.

I whistle for the horses who coming running up, and give everybody a carrot. I show them how to do it, handing a carrot over the fence to a horse, who promptly swallows it after one bite.

“Go ahead,” I say.

They start handing carrots over the fence. It’s only a matter of time.

My wife’s uncle Sam taps the fence to make sure it’s off and happens to catch it in between pulses. Thus reassured, he leans into it to offer a carrot to Jasper, our bay quarterhorse.

“Look at the nice horsey, isn’t he BZZZZAAAPPPP! Ahhhh! Ug-ug-ug-ug-ug-ug!” Sam’s doing the chicken.

Screams. Terror. Panic. Mayhem.

Sam’s Ok, but… ummmm, slightly stunned. The fence has lots of volts, but few amps. It’s pretty safe. Nobody’s died or gotten hurt, yet.

I apologize profusely, and calm everybody down.

“I thought it was off,” I say.

Oddly, this is how I train the horses to respect the fence. When we get a new horse I offer it a carrot. It walks into the wire. You need to do this exactly once, and the horse will never touch the fence again. People though aren’t that smart.

“It looks like that thing was on!” Somebody’ll say.

“Oops,” I’ll confirm.

They all gather around Sam. “Did it hurt?” they all want to know.

Truth be told, it doesn’t hurt, not that that matters. Being electrocuted doesn’t elicit a pain response. It’s something else. Like every nerve firing at once. Something very unpleasant, so it might as well be pain. Nobody likes it.

Sam tries to explain, and they all think he’s lying when he says it didn’t really hurt. They all saw him scream. They all saw him do the chicken.

I wait for the moment. It will only come once, and I have to be perfect to get them to fall for it.

“If you want to know what it feels like without getting hurt,” I say. “All you have to do is all hold hands and let one person touch the fence. If there’s ten of you, you’ll only get 1/10th the shock.”

This is of course a despicable lie.

They’re fascinated. They want to try it. But, what if I’m lying?

“I’m surprised you’d impugn my integrity,” I say a little huffily, not actually surprised at all. I have no honor when perpetrating a practical joke. I’ll prove it, though. “Everybody link hands and grab my hand, and then I’ll touch the fence. Just don’t let anybody let go and leave me taking the whole shock, ok.”

Everybody finally agrees that this a good plan. How could I lie? It must be ok, if I’m going to be the one grabbing the fence, right?

So they all link up and grab my hand. I hold on tight and grit my teeth. I know what’s coming, but you have to be willing to suffer for your art, don’t you?

Still, I do have a trick, an ace of sorts. We get near the Horse fence, and right before I grab it I step up onto the concrete slab. It’s something of an insulator and protects me from the full force of the shock.

Everybody else, all 8 of them are standing on the ground. You will note dear reader that “ground” has a very special meaning as far as electricity is concerned. They are all about to learn this meaning.

I grab the fence and grit my teeth. There’s a pause.
BBZZZZAAAAAP! My teeth hum. I grunt. I let go, and breathe deep.

Three people are doing the chicken. One fourteen year old boy is crying. Everybody else is hopping around in a painful panic. Looks like Brandon peed himself.

There’ll be a moment when they all recover when they try to blame me, or wonder if I did it on purpose.

I’ll just say that was the spread out shock, what are they pussies? and that’ll protect me.
Perfect. My art. Days when I get to do this are all too rare, but they’re what life’s all about.

That is absolutely despicable.

[sub]So why am I giggling like a maniac?[/sub]

Ah. I love the electric fence. I get to rerun ours this weekend to make it a little more pony-proof (our horses would be afraid of clothesline, but the new pony considers our existing fence a challenge). We use a solar charger which doesn’t quite deliver chicken-dance voltage, but it’s a rude reminder still. I have to admit it was amusing watching the dogs learn that they should put their tails down before they under the wire (who knew dogs could jump that high?).

Oh man, I’m doing the chicken in my office after reading this.

Now that I’ve cleaned the coffee off my monitor and have stopped hyperventilating, I can share my much less humorous electric fence story.

The location: rural Upstate South Carolina

The area: my garden.

The reason: lovable but incorrigible black lab is eating the vegetables. Green peppers? Yep. Squash? Yep. Tomatoes? Check. Silver Queen Corn? Ditto. Of course, while labs are loyal beasts, they can be headstrong and mine, at least, loves sweet corn. Those of you who grow your own sweet corn can understand that no dog that loves sweet corn can stop eating it of his own free will. I tried catching him in the act and doing “corrective” behavior. I tried repellents - - liquid and powdered. I tried a courtesy fence. Nothing stopped the dog.

So… I borrowed what must be the same unit as yours, Scylla and set it up around the garden. My father-in-law said it would be more effective if it was well grounded, so I put the grounding wire on the copper-coated rod that the TV antenna was attached to. I left a low spot in the wire so that I could step over it and access the garden w/o turning off the fence.

Dog sees me in the garden. Dog wonders why I’m not shooing him away. Dog decides I must have come to my senses and realized that this is really his sweet corn. Dog tries to crawl under the fence. ZAP!! A black blur is now racing round the perimeter of the yard, yelping, taking the route that puts the maximum possible distance between the garden and his house, where he holes up and glares at me. I tried - - really tried - - not to laugh, but I failed. Don’t know why the dog still likes me.

I never needed the fence again. The dog never went near the garden. In fact, the dog would go to the far extreme of the yard rather than just giving the wire a 2’ or 3’ clearance.

Scylla you are evil, vile, diabolical, demonic and just plain mean! Can I be your friend? These are most of the qualities I like in a friend. I especially like the everyone hold hands and one person touch the fence routine. It takes a truly twisted mind to create a routine like that.

I have a game like that with my youngest daughter. She is 20 months old, and loves a sippy cup full of water and ice (gotta have ice that she can shake). I’ll hold the cup out and say “Do you want some wa-wa?” Hold my hands out for a hug. When she comes, I’ll take the thin hardcover book behind my back and smack her on the head with it. Hard enough to make her fall down. Then, just to keep things interesting, I sometimes smack her with the book when she doesn’t come to get the water.

Haven’t made her pee herself yet though. Maybe a bigger book.

Umm Abe Babe. Ever heard of a concept called hyperbole? Betcha, just betcha, our pal Scylla was using it. It’s a bit more fun that sarcastic satire, in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.

Hyperbole? Why I would never ever ever do that. This is a verbatim account, that is strictly factual. Trust me in all things.

Never piss on an electric fence.

After a story like that? Not bloody likely, friend.

Just wait till you piss on one. Now that’s interesting. An exquisite pain. And you want to talk about shrinking…:eek:

::throws away joybuzzer::

::adds “electric fence” to Christmas list::

::bows in Scylla’s general direction::

Thanks for the plan, oh Evil Supreme Leader. I hear and obey. [sub]Hee hee hee hee snork giggle chortle hee![/sub]

after running about 10 miles of freakin’ 'lectric fence, i discovered the wife’s sheep seem to be immune to it, unless they happen to have thier tounge wrapped around the T-post when they touch it. thouroughly depressing.

i managed to Ted Bundy myself, however, but im not talking about yet.

for a glimps of the wife’s shock-proof sheep, click the little home-page thingy. (it makes her think someone actually is interested in her little “project”)

The other thing that’s fun to tell the kiddies about the electric fence is that if they jump really high, and touch it while they’re in the air, they won’t get shocked.

The Rykid was about 3 years old when I took him to visit a farm. We rode around the farm in a 4-wheeler and eventually came to where the property ended. There was an electric fence there. Holstein cattle were on the other side of the fence, munching contentedly.

Now, the grass on this side of the fence was real long. The grass on the cow’s side was real short. I grab a big handful of grass and ask my son if he’d like to feed the cows. I also warn him not to touch the fence.

Being a smart kid, he declines. I figure I’ll show him that it’s OK as long as you’re careful. I hold out the handful of grass toward the nearest cow. It ambles over and begins to nibble. I’m holding the handful too tightly. I’m also too close to the fence.

The cow give a sideways jerk of her head to tear off a chunk. This yanks my arm and causes my chest to come into contact with the fence.

Now, just like Scylla says, it isn’t really painful. It’s more like an internal Bang!.

When sensibility returned, I see my son sitting on the 4-wheeler with a very concerned look on his face. The cattle by now are at least 50 yards away.

That wasn’t the last time that I’ve warned my son that something was dangerous…and then proceeded to prove it.

Wait, are you saying that somehow the kids are the easiest path to ground if their in the air? How are they getting shocked if they are?

Or are you just telling them that to watch them do it over and over, getting off on the fact that they’ve “beaten” the fence?

Kids are the easiest path to ground for electricity, period.

The great thing about this, is that it not a lie. Remianing airborne though usually presents shocking difficulties.

My grandfather had/has? an electric fence around his garden because they live right near the woods and he would get the deer coming in and eating stuff. (I don’t know if he STILL has it).

Well, naturally, when he first put it in, my cousins and I are all gathered around the garden, (which is HUGE btw), all daring each other to touch it. Only trouble is, we don’t know where the current is. We try touching an old metal gate near edge of the garden. Nope, nothing. We look for awhile, then give up in boredom.

A couple hours later, I’m taking my dog out to do her business, and I wander near the edge of the garden again. I see a white WIRE. I touch it, expecting a quick little tickle-like static electricity (which, btw-I HATE!!! OUCH!)

ZAP!!!

It stings, and sends this ACHE through my arm. The dog yelps and almost pulls the leash out of my hand. (I don’t know if it passed to her-:frowning:

I’m an idiot.

Later, we convince my cousin Josh to touch it. Heh. :stuck_out_tongue:

I actually got addicted to our electric fence growing up. I loved it. I used to go out each day before school and get zapped. It was better than coffee. I never had the courage/stupidity to piss on it, but I did make my younger cousin do it. “I’ll bet you can’t be a real man and keep a stream on that there wire”… “Oh yeah”?.. “Yeah”… It was worth the buck to watch the “superchicken”… hehehehhe…