Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

(Be sure to click both the Facebook "like" and "follow" buttons to not miss any posts.)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

On Farm Science Experiments

We now have our cows and bull in an electric fence and our calves in another electric fence. Every once in a while I check to make sure the fencer is working and the fence is charged. To do this, I grab a piece of grass and touch it to the wire. If it is on, I can feel a small shock at the tip of my fingers.

The other day I was a bit curious when doing this, so I licked my fingers to wet them and then touched the wire with the grass. A slightly bigger shock. Not much, but noticeable. Just what I expected.

Last night Ethan put up a bit more electric fence. This was by my request (from having lost count of how many times I've had to put the bull and cows in by myself), and it is on the inside of the cattle panels that keep getting broken through.

After the kids went to bed I did a few things outside, and before coming in I decided to see if the new fence was working. So I reached through the cattle panel with my piece of grass. Without thinking, I also held on to the cattle panel while touching the wire with the grass. I quickly found out that a cattle panel makes a very nice ground as I felt the electric current enter one hand, travel through my arms, and then go out the other hand - just by touching it with a piece of grass.

Hmmm. . . I wonder what would happen if I do it again and lick my fingers first . . .

8 comments:

Nance said...

Oh man. I have been shocked big time . . . so don't experiment! Don't try that, licking your finger. You'll end up on your behind!

Anonymous said...

Had to giggle at this,I missed the "try it with the grass part".Works yup it's working;)

Julia Morrill said...

I know you have no idea who I am but I've been reading your blog for a few months...thanks for writing. My husband and I own an alpaca ranch and one day we were moving cattle panels. We had to toss them over a fence that has an electric wire about 2 feet from the ground (to keep one of our alpacas from putting her head through). It wasn't a hard job but one panel took extra effort so I stepped forward and my leg touched the wire before I let go of the panel. YOUCH! I thought for sure I would at least have a bruise to show for it but, nope...just a story to share. :) We really enjoy both your blog and your husbands. Keep it up. We're at www.silkcreekalpacas.com/blog or /juliasblog if you ever want to check it out. -Julia

Kendra at New Life On A Homestead said...

That's so funny. Sounds like something I'd be curious to try!

Yeoman said...

I agree with Nance. Don't do it.

I've purposely tested my electric fence by touching it with dry hands on one occasion. I was in bear country, and I wanted to make sure it was going to keep the bears out.

Ouch! It hurt. It's a stout charging fence. It made my heart race a bit too. I frankly would not be inclined to do it again, nor have anyone else to it. It would worry me, quite frankly, and would scare me with young people or those who were weak, as to what the effect might be.

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Don't worry, although I am curious, I don't plan on touching it with anything other than grass (which just feels like a slight flick - my dad could hardly feel it himself). I think the main reason I am so curious all of the sudden is because we have young kids and I want to know just how powerful it is. I think the best thing though is to just not touch it, teach them to also, and make a barrier to it in our yard.

Julia- Glad you enjoy my blog. Thanks for sharing yours and your story. :)

Anonymous said...

Hi,

We have just added your latest post "The Beginning Farmer's Wife" to our Directory of Science . You can check the inclusion of the post here . We are delighted to invite you to submit all your future posts to the directory and get a huge base of visitors to your website.


Warm Regards

Scienz.info Team

http://www.scienz.info

Anonymous said...

hi i am here to warn you be aware of your fense system it's a machine not living thing that you can trust blindly.ok.


peter

out sourcing BPO& call center solution

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...