electric fencers

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was wondering which is the best mains electric fencer and which is the best value for money

cheetah , gallagher , elephant or pel ?

also , i understand you have to space the earth rods 15 ft apart , what if you need to leave the cable further than 15 ft from the fencer itself to the first rod , if the mains is in a part of the shed which is more than 15 ft from any kind of ground which isnt concrete
 
was wondering which is the best mains electric fencer and which is the best value for money

cheetah , gallagher , elephant or pel ?

also , i understand you have to space the earth rods 15 ft apart , what if you need to leave the cable further than 15 ft from the fencer itself to the first rod , if the mains is in a part of the shed which is more than 15 ft from any kind of ground which isnt concrete

Don't know which is the best value, but the well known brands are certainly expensive, and in my experience the cheap ones are just as good, though you can't expect to get spares for them for more than a few years.

15 ft spacing for earthing rods is only a guide: the spacing really doesn't matter all that much, and on most damp soils a single rod may well suffice, though I wouldn't recommend it. Dry chalky soils in Eastern England where the annual rainfall is often less than 20" are the ones that give problems with earthing, but even then only after a longish dry spell. My knowledge of Irish conditions isn't great, but I doubt you get soils dry enough to give problems very often.

No problem at all siting the energiser more than 15 ft from the nearest spot for an earthing rod: just run a good thick bit of ordinary electrical wiring earthing wire for whatever distance you like within reason. 2.5 sq mm copper would probably be OK, but I'd tend to go for 4 sq mm because the individual strands are much thicker usually, as is the yellow/green insulation.
The consequences of the earthing wire being cut or coming loose are not nice, but to be honest that isn't a lot more likely with a longer length than a short one. I would do the first run with a single piece of wire though: no joins until the first stake.

The live feed to the fence from the energiser does need to be the pukka high voltage stuff, which isn't cheap, and I'd tend to go for the types with thicker wire and thicker insulation if it's for a permanent installation.
 
I'd use the proper double insulated 2.5 steel wire to the first rod. Came across a blown fencer once when it was replaced it and the new one blew as well turned out the 10 sq earth wire coating had melted into a live cable think it could of killed a cow a few months before as well so I'd stick to the proper cable the insulation is a lot tougher
 
on the earths I did a bit of reading up on it last year as I was re-doing ours. copper wire is a big no-no. unless you're putting it onto copper earth rods, with copper fixings.

if using galvanised rods the copper and galv react with each other making a far less effective join.

I'd imagine the galvanised wire is probably cheaper anyway?
 
gallagher or pel would be my choice, preferably pel tbh.
i take it we are talking about permanent fencing here?

energisers are a science all to themselves tbh and id suggest reading up on them, or if you give pel a call in stradbally services they are very helpfull.
as already said, only use the proper double insulated galvanised lead out cable for your earth and your supply, the heavy stuff, nothing else.
you can run the earth and supply a fair distance from your fencer but keep a common sense approach to it as well mind.
once you have reached the fence dig a channel under it and drive in 3x galvanised steaks about 10'+ apart, link each one together usinc u bolts, wrap denso tape around the connections and cover it over again.
simples.

if you google gallagher fencing they have tutorials as to how to do it right.
its a job you only want to do once so do it right imo.

one pole isnt enuf even in irish conditions, 2 isnt bad, but 3+ is king.
the better the earth the better the jag, and the better it will kill any vegitation that reaches it before you do.
 
Overkill at its finest.

Have an Elephant here that is doing most of the land down our lane so nearly 100 acres of grass with just two earth bars.

It shows 4 to 5 lights on a Gallagher tester too.

Have a Gallagher as well and it is pure junk.

Would buy a Cheetah next but touch wood that will be a long time away.
 
Overkill at its finest.

Have an Elephant here that is doing most of the land down our lane so nearly 100 acres of grass with just two earth bars.

It shows 4 to 5 lights on a Gallagher tester too.

Have a Gallagher as well and it is pure junk.

Would buy a Cheetah next but touch wood that will be a long time away.
the gallagher normally is good stuff, what do you find wrong with it?
 
can you put a name - brand to those cheaper ones

when i get down around out farms ill take note some pel and gallagher and another that was bought for 90euro at mart one day still works.

theres a solar gallagher here too,a waste of money! was left beside road in a field and it wasnt stole it so bad!!!!
 
been using a cheetah here for the last few years and have found it reliable for managing grazing regimes around the place for both sheep and cattle.
 
Just not the same kick out of it compared to the Elephant and it is well within its maximum distance.

would agree was an elephant on a farm we had rented and it would smash your arm with the power!!!! you could used some of the new ones to tickle some one
 
I can't find the fencing website but it had a discription on it on how to determine how much earthing you needed.
As far as i can remember this is what you do

-go out a hundred yds from fencer and drive a solid iorn bar(by hand) into the ground and then push it over onto the fence wire.

-go back to earth bar and use a digital tester to measure voltage in earth bar.

-i think if you could read 200 volts?? or less(might be 100) your earth was ok but if the reading was higher you needed more earths.

-i also think it said that fewer deep earth bars were better then a lot of shallower ones.

If i can find the website i will post a link
 
Overkill at its finest.


I assume you're talking about the earths?

how do you know it's overkill.

Have you tried adding a third or fourth earth? you may well get five lights every time, or six if your tester has em.


We've an elephant, upgraded from one to four earths last year. the original earth is a beast of a yoke, I think it's supposed to be the base of an esb stay wire.

Added three as our soil is quite thin and you cant drive the rods down through the stone so easy.


heard of an interesting suggestion on BFF, a length of crash barrier, driven in with a post driver, now that'd be an earth!
 
Getting between 9 and 10 kv on the fence here, it gives an awful crack, thing would shake your arm :eek:
 
have both a mains and a battery cheeta fencer and i find them very good, any time i had a problem with them i drove up to carlow to the factory and they fixed it while i was there, they are a good irish company and i would buy one again without hesitation
 
Getting between 9 and 10 kv on the fence here, it gives an awful crack, thing would shake your arm :eek:

A guy made a fencer for me here about 15 yrs ago, shes pushing out 25 kv, I'm sure there are some legality issues. There was a local farmer at the time that never fenced, fed, took care of or looked at his cattle. He was well known for driving past his cattle that would be lying on the road. We had to pull our bounds fences back a bit from our hedges so that when his cattle walked through our hedge, they'd have enough room to turn around when they got a crack from the wire. We watched in amazement one time to see a cow 'walk' through 5 strands of new tensioned barbed wire to get into another neighbour's silage pit, this neighbour also did the same as I did. That put manners on them until the same cattle done every lawn in the north side of the parish!!

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A guy made a fencer for me here about 15 yrs ago, shes pushing out 25 kv, I'm sure there are some legality issues. There was a local farmer at the time that never fenced, fed, took care of or looked at his cattle. He was well known for driving past his cattle that would be lying on the road. We had to pull our bounds fences back a bit from our hedges so that when his cattle walked through our hedge, they'd have enough room to turn around when they got a crack from the wire. We watched in amazement one time to see a cow 'walk' through 5 strands of new tensioned barbed wire to get into another neighbour's silage pit, this neighbour also did the same as I did. That put manners on them until the same cattle done every lawn in the north side of the parish!!

Sent from my LT22i using Forum Runner

That is some power, will certainly keep things in their place. Do you not find it too strong for calves? There is only one short earth bar at the moment so in theory I could make it a lot better. Anything more than 3-4kv keeps them in we find so happy enough to leave as is.
 
been using a cheetah here for the last few years and have found it reliable for managing grazing regimes around the place for both sheep and cattle.

rang cheetah and pel today , the cheetah is a good bit cheaper for what appears to be an equally strong fencer
 
That is some power, will certainly keep things in their place. Do you not find it too strong for calves? There is only one short earth bar at the moment so in theory I could make it a lot better. Anything more than 3-4kv keeps them in we find so happy enough to leave as is.

Realistically, 3-4 is plenty for calves. I got one shock ever from this fencer, and I make sure it'll be the only one! It does cover a lot of wire so this pulls down the power a bit.

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I have noticed, particularly in battery fencers, that there is a difference between one make and the next in the cycles per minute. You can have all the joules you want in a fencer but they're useless if all the fencer is going to do is slap the animal on the behind when he has had enough time to get that far without getting a dart. I have a PEL battery fencer for an out farm with no power and it's a slow bugger, my uncles battery cheetah is much faster.......makes a difference.
 
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