Ground Rods and Clamps
Ground rods are an essential part of electric fences. In order to administer a significant shock, the current generated by the charger, sent out to the electric fence, and passed through a target animal into the ground, needs to complete the circuit by passing through moist ground to an electric fence ground rod, from whence it can follow a wire back to the ground terminal on the charger. Within this context, the electric fence will fail if the ground rod is not in reasonably good contact with moist soil, and indeed this is a leading cause of electric fence failure. Therefore, while a 2-foot ground rod (like product 06-01C) can be perfectly adequate for a short portable horse fence placed above reasonably moist soil, the usual practice is to install at least one 6 or 8-foot ground rod (products 06-02 thru 06-06) with any permanent electric horse fence, and for really large systems it is advisable to install several ground rods close together, or even to attach a neutral (uncharged) fence wire to the charger’s ground terminal, and then to string this wire along the fence, where it can serve as an attachment point for ground rods spaced out along the fence line at appropriate intervals of a quarter-mile or so. Also, when installing an electric horse fence, even a short one, that must cope with dry or frozen ground, it is advisable to alternate charged and uncharged conductors on the fence and to hook the uncharged elements into the ground system (by connecting them to the ground terminal on the charger or by connecting them to a ground rod that in turn is connected to the charger’s ground terminal). It is also advisable to install one or more new ground rods every couple of years, because ground rods are subject to corrosion, and corrosion can interfere with passage of the charge.