What is an electric fence ?

An electric fence is a metal wire fence that carries high voltage pulses, interfering with the movement of people and animals. Many electric fences are built to prevent animals from moving out of agricultural lands and to prevent wild animals from entering outside. But high security zones control the entry and exit of people to protected areas, such as prisons. Often such fences have higher lethal currents than agricultural electric fences.

Basically an electric fence has fence posts. These can be made of wood, plastic or metal. The poles are fitted with plastic or ceramic insulators. The wires are sent through the insulators. The posts are insulated to prevent electricity flowing through the fence posts and flowing to the ground. If the current flows in this way, the voltage of the electric fence will be much lower.

An electric fence energizer is mandatory for an electric fence. The short high-voltage pulses emitted by one terminal of it and flow along the wire that gone through the insulators. The other end of the energizer is connected to a grounded rod or pipe. When the animal touches the ground and the wire at the same time, the circuit is completed and a short electric current passes through his body. The resulting pain causes the animal to feel reluctant to go back to the fence.

Electric Fence although simply as mentioned above, many accessories are used for a standard electric fence.

Agricultural electric fences do not cause human or animal death as high voltage and very low current are pulsating. However, electric fences can cause fatal damage to young children, so it is strongly advised to keep small children away from electric fences.

local myths about electric fences

An electric fence with a very high voltage is safer.

This is a completely wrong idea. About 4500V-7000V pulses is enough to cause a painful electric shock. But in Asian and African countries, high power in the range of 8500V-12000V is used to restrict the movement of wild elephants. Apart from that it is quite sufficient to use a fence with less than 7000V electricity for other animals. But for locally made energizers, transformers can be replaced by vehicle ignition coils and TV flyback coils, used in televisions. The voltage emitted by them can be as high as 20,000V to 30,000V and such an electric shock can be fatal to animals as well as humans.