I’m Shocked

…that Home Depot charges $125 for an electric fence kit that just runs on two D-cell batteries.

Zareba DC Electric Fence Kit

My garden has a circumference of ~100 Ft and I need enough voltage to cook squirrels well done but leave girls rare as I’ve got two of them.

The Zareba unit in the link above is rated at 7,500 volts but several of the reviews report that it’s underpowered so I’m thinking 25K to 30K volts.

Any DIY on this would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll thank you, my remaining corn / tomatoes will thank you and my pumpkin / squash would thank you if they hadn’t already been murdered to death.

And yes, of course I’ll post a YouTube video of me testing the system on myself first to make sure it’s safe for my kids.

Volts only affect how painful the shock is, amps affect how damaging the shock is. Your average static zap can be over 100K volts.

A pet-oriented electric fence kit like this will do the job:

https://www.amazon.com/Zareba-KGPAC-Z-Protector-AC-Powered-Electric/dp/B0079GHC86/

Now this probably won't kill a squirrel, much less leave it well-done, but it will teach the squirrel a lesson and is safe for pets and humans.

Thanks Gameboy,

I don’t know Watt I’m talking about when it comes to electrical stuff…I just know I want to Hertz some squirrels.

Cheap fence chargers are like $30 or so today. Shop at tractor supply. You just need the little one that plugs into the wall. I've used them for decades to keep dogs in the yard.

RX Reven' wrote: ...I need enough voltage to cook squirrels well done but leave girls rare as I’ve got two of them.

Do NOT buy one of the cheapie constant current chargers! Those are the stupid dangerous ones. And they're tempting because you can buy them for as little as $20. A little girl grabs the wire and cannot let go. The charger slowly cooks her arm, if it does not kill her.

Get a pulsing type. They will hurt and will not kill (usually), and can even knock a person off. Though don't count on that. My son when he was a toddler grabbed the wire and held on, crying and then screaming. Oh, maybe it was all of 5 seconds, but I was pretty appalled at the event. And this was a heavy predator charger. His hands were burned.

Make no mistake, any fence charger can kill, even large animals, if things go wrong, or just right. I cooked a duck to death on a steady current charger. Father in law killed a goat trapped overnight in a pulsing predator fence.

Personally, with kids, especially if they are little kids, I won't run an electric fence charger where they can get into it.

So you're pretty amped up about the squirrel situation?

Thank you very much Foxtrapper,

They are eight and eleven and don’t have a history of doing dumb stuff.

Additionally, I’ve already got a four foot high perimeter fence in place that fully encloses the garden.

However, the garden is six feet away from a pool and my wife runs two Girl Scout troops so we’ve frequently got a dozen plus random girls running around and math sez’ exactly 50% of them are less bright than average.

RX Reven' wrote: Thanks Gameboy, I don’t know Watt I’m talking about when it comes to electrical stuff…I just know I want to Hertz some squirrels.

You could always unplug it when the scouts are about, then plug it back in after the party.

In decades of using one very similar to this: http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/zareba-2-mile-ac-low-impedance-fence-charger?cm_vc=-10005 ,

I might have killed one or two birds, an occasional mouse or other small vermin. After about the second hit, the dogs won't go near it.

Hate to admit that I dared a kid growing up to piss on one; pulsing isn't as bad as solid. Pretty sure he didn't like me much after that.

I have two fence "chargers" one is for a small yard, the other is for a small field. You get the other stuff and I can make you a heckuva deal on these.

Saying that, you will know if you hit a big one, but its fine. I grew up on a farm and we had one that would cover 4 miles of wire. You got to know where it was and not to touch it. No harm from it though other than the occasional learning of new words at a young age.

As kids, my cousin and I usually had at least tennis shoes, if not rubber boots on while out checking the cows with grandpa. We'd always ask grandpa if the electric fence was hot, he'd always tell us no, whether it was or wasn't, because he knew we'd always touch it. Inevitably, one or both of us would touch it, even if it was hot, we weren't grounded thanks to our shoes, so no shock, and we were too dumb to know better. Grandpa would then put his hand on one of our shoulders, and touch the ground with his other hand. We'd all get shocked then, him too, but based on his maniacal laughter, it must have hurt us much more than him.

I miss that old coot.

Dr. Hess wrote: You could always unplug it when the scouts are about, then plug it back in after the party. In decades of using one very similar to this: http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/zareba-2-mile-ac-low-impedance-fence-charger?cm_vc=-10005 , I might have killed one or two birds, an occasional mouse or other small vermin. After about the second hit, the dogs won't go near it.

Thank you Dr. Hess,

I read the specs from you link and it indicated “one second pulsed intervals” so it passes the must have feature FoxTrapper mentioned.

Back in the day, I designed a assembled a tight wire fence alarm for a grower in South Dade. Pull, push or cut the wire, the alarm would sound. To make it more effective, I connected a medium fence charger to the alarm wire. I had touched it on purpose and it would give a good jolt, but nothing dangerous happened. I wanted to see what would happen if an unsuspecting person grabbed it, so I called my wife to come out. She just did what I told her to do and wrapped her hand around the wire. Oh, she was barefoot, perfect ground. Things were tense in the Hanlon house for a while.

It's not the watts that get you, it's the amps.

I'm just here for the puns and twisted stories--I have nothing to add.

Margie

Neither one of those fences will work for squirrels (BTDT). The squirrels will just jump up on the wire and then into the garden. Since they are not touching the fence and ground at the same time nothing happens. The only way it will bother them is if they try to crawl under the bottom wire and rub against it.

RX Reven' wrote: Thanks Gameboy, I don’t know Watt I’m talking about when it comes to electrical stuff…I just know I want to Hertz some squirrels.

And today's Winner of the Internet is? RX Revin!

WildScotsRacing wrote:

RX Reven' wrote: Thanks Gameboy, I don’t know Watt I’m talking about when it comes to electrical stuff…I just know I want to Hertz some squirrels.

And today's Winner of the Internet is? RX Revin!

Naaa it is a bad Ohm-en that he is so Amp-ed up over Watt May be needed to hertz some squirrels.

I doubt an electric fence will have much effect on squirrels.

Ever watch them jump from limb to limb ?

I suppose you could hang a ground wire right beside the hot one. They'd have to be fairly taut so they didn't touch, but a squirrel would close the circuit.

Keith Tanner wrote: I suppose you could hang a ground wire right beside the hot one. They'd have to be fairly taut so they didn't touch, but a squirrel would close the circuit.

Hi Keith,

That’s what I have in mind.

Basically, place nonconductive vertical posts (say PVC) about four feet apart with four holes drilled in each about three inches apart starting three inches above ground level and run the wires like this:

^ Sky

Negative Wire

Positive Wire

Negative Wire

Positive Wire

V Earth

This should give me a one foot high wall of squirrel cooking mayhem.

Thoughts???

I'm voting that up just for the "^Sky".

As long as the squirrel won't just jump over it. I don't know enough about squirrels to know when they'll crawl through something instead of just ricocheting around over top. I was thinking more of the typical hot top wire in a fence with a ground wire beside it 1" or less away. The squirrel hops on top and yowza.

RX Reven' wrote: Basically, place nonconductive vertical posts (say PVC) about four feet apart with four holes drilled in each about three inches apart starting three inches above ground level and run the wires like this:

That might work. You will have to try it to see. I can tell you that electrifying 24" chicken wire fencing around the whole garden did not work. They just jumped up on it and then down the other side.

Keith Tanner wrote: I was thinking more of the typical hot top wire in a fence with a ground wire beside it 1" or less away. The squirrel hops on top and yowza.

I like this idea. Use some plastic(pvc) 1x3's for the posts and drill holes for the wire parallel to each other about 1" apart. Hot wire and ground wire that close together may get them to touch both wires at the same time.

And putting the ground wire to the outside of the enclosure might reduce the risk for children as they would brush against the fence.