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Central PA | I got two steers at the auction the other night. (I know, that's probably the first problem) I parked the trailer inside the fence to let them calm down over night then let them out in the morning. They calmly walked out of the trailer, followed The fence line a little ways, stopped and butted heads with one of the other steers for a couple seconds and eventually calmly walked right through the fence without flinching. One eventually came back and made a half hearted effort to jump the fence but landed right on it, once again with no sign of being shocked. once in he smelled it once and got nailed. He stayed in all day then in the evening he went back out under it when he heard his buddy bawling in the corn across the road. He had his back pressed against the wires whole way through. If I touch the fence, it's a memorable experience. It's two strands of polywire. Fencer is a stafix three Joule with three 36 inch ground rods. There is a good bit of weed pressure on the fence but there's only a half mile of wire and the fencer is rated for 25 miles. I have a zareba tester that lights all the way up anywhere I check it. The highest light is 7000 volts. The six and seven lights do get a little dimmer though. I'm puzzled how they can feel it sometimes, but not other times. If the weeds were taking that much off it, I would think they could walk through anytime, I also wouldn't think it would light up the tester the way it does. This all makes me wonder if the cattle aren't very well grounded themselves. We haven't had a significant rain here in over three weeks so the ground is very dry. Any advice would be appreciated. On a side note, the one did wind up with a neighbor's heifers this morning, the other is still on the loose. I moved the lower strand higher to get it out of some of the weeds (actually it's in a cover crop). I also took the heat off the lower wire and hooked it to the ground. All the lights light up bright when I connect the 2 with the tester now. If I test the bottom wire alone it faintly lights up the 600 volt light (the lowest one) on the tester so there is some sorghum or something touching both yet but not a whole lot. Last question, I'm terrible with electricity, so what do you actually feel when you touch the fence? Volts, amps, watts or joules?
Edited by ady5008 9/18/2016 10:17
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Steers getting out
