It’s been said time and again: Electricity and water don’t mix when it comes to chickens. If you listen to enough people talk about poultry, you’ll believe you has to separate electric fence from the coop altogether. Water carries electricity.
If it touches your charger, it will short out the system and make your fence a deathtrap for your flock. What they don’t tell you is that Electric Chicken excel in moist environments and this is exactly why it is effective (it was built with water in mind). Why is that?
Why Electric Chicken Works in Stained Water
Why Electric Fences Work in Wet Conditions
Learning the “how” alters your approach to grazing. You don’t battle nature anymore… you can keep rotating birds onto an actively growing pasture even in a wet spring. Because the system isn’t grounded to the earth, it doesn’t need dry conditions to operate.
In fact, the way it works is by making circuit around animal. Many folks who’ve witnessed the fence operating in a slick field have been stumped as to how it works. The secret’s in the design of the fence itself and the Energizer units.
How High Voltage Pulses Create Safety
The heart of electricity are that pulse. It’s not just electricity, it’s high voltage and low amperage. That’s key because low current but high voltage creates a sharp, memorable sting.
Instead you get something like this. Most home outlets gives off high current and low voltage, which is deadly. This can cause your body to go into cardiac arrest or suffer severe burns.
But the charger, like the one I use, the Energizer 9900 or the new 9100, give off thousands of volts but hardly any current. It’s enough to make you remember, sure, but not kill you. Muddy water, it turns out, assist with this.
The Role of Moisture in Circuit Completion
Without it, in dry dust, that charge leaks off or dissapears into the atmosphere before ever touching the bird. Moisture makes the soil a more efficient conductor; when the chicken’s body complete the circuit by touching both wire and ground at once, the loop closes and the bird recieve a warning shock. It learns not to try again and goes back to its food, which is actualy a safety device pretending to be a hazard.
Fence Construction and Grounding Design
So there’s a lot going into this with how netting is physically built. Wire, such as that used in Electric Chicken nets, have a coating that prevents it from corroding, but bare wire will rust and fail during rain. The ground posts has their insulators made to remain grounded whether they’re dry or wet.
This prevents a short to the ground that would drain battery instead of keeping it charged. Another consideration is battery life. Because of increased conductivity in the environment (i.e., rain and mud), there is an increased load on the charger.
Battery Load and Weather Impact
In a wet spring you may find that your Energizer unit cycle a little more quickly, which is nothing to be alarmed about. Just know it’s charging harder to ensure the pulse reach across the moist soil; it doesn’t signify that anything is amiss with the system. On the contrary: it means the fence is doing its job of grounding the circuit via moisture.
Vegetation Management and Fence Maintenance
No matter what it does on your side, you will want to maintain clearance around the fence from tall weeds that touches the fence and drain the charge, even in rainy weather. Keep the fence clear to work best as well. Again… it’s not the water, it’s the contact with vegetation on the ground that drains the charge.
Keep it clean, check the connections and let the system work. Bottom line, however: the reason the Electric Chicken works well in wet conditions is because it’s built for reality, not theory. Mud is going to happen when pastures is wet; they’re meant to be wet, and this thing takes that into account.
Moist ground doesn’t deter high-voltage pulses… Instead, those pulses makes a solid barrier, keeping your chickens safely inside and predators firmly outside. You forget about the rain and you begin to trust the fence.
The chickens figure it out pretty fast, too; you can sleep easy knowing that system will do exactly what it’s supposed to.
