Grounding Electric Fence

Does anyone have any experience with grounding electric fence in sandy ground? Our property is on very sandy soil and it is hard to keep it grounded right any suggestions would be helpful. We just put up new fence a week ago and they are already pushing on it ugh. Two sides of our property have nice corn fields so it is very appealing to them. We are just putting up the electric to keep them off the brand new fence. They aren't starving either they have pasture and hay out their. I guess the grass is greener on the other side lol. I know from having all hot wire fence before it was very hard to keep hot since our ground moisture is so far down.

Multiple 8 ft ground rods

you need to do a soil probe to determine the perminat water table, and then get atleast one ground rod into it, and I'm not talking about the temp seasonal water table.  Set 3 rods- atleast 10 feet deep for the charger, and one rod for the fence its self.

Then, you need to alternate hot and cold wires, and use them as a ground.  When it's really dry, the animal's hoof won't be moist to allow for the shock-- but the skin to skin contact will do the trick.

The more gound rods the better off you are, especially in drought conditions.

number of grounding rods depends on the length of your fence and the power of your charger and your soil. to be safe we put a minimum of 4 grounding rods 10' apart for every 50 acres we fence. We use a 2 joule charger for the 50 acres. with sandy soil you will want a ground wire running with your hot wires.

If it's not too unhandy for you to do, you could wet the area around your ground rods periodically. That will help a bunch.

Second the watering the ground rods.  Makes a world of difference.

shrek said:

Second the watering the ground rods.  Makes a world of difference.

Click to expand...

why not just drive it into the water table? and save the headache of watering your ground rods?

Go home depot buy a couple sticks copper pipe usually 10 ft joints, cut in half, drive in till you can't or till 3 in above ground. Would guess 2 in your sand.  Copper a heck of a lot better conductor,  if dry put a liter coke bottle on top,with the bottom cut out and fill  with water every time you think about it.  Use j b  weld to make it hold.