Ok I have tried and tried to get my fencing hot but can’t. I have a 50 mile charger so its big enough, nothing impeding and 3, 6 ft ground rods. I even moved my charger to a wet area of my property to keep the ground rods wet.
What am I doing wrong, it seems like it should be simple.
I DO have high voltage power lines running over my fields, would that influence it?
Do you have a fence tester so you can see if the fence energizer/charger is working? Are there weeds or any other things touching the wires?
Its working, what happens is within about 50 feet (totally clear) I lose all zap. I even bought a new one in case and same issue
At both my previous and current homes, the soil is really sandy in many places and it just won’t carry enough current to complete the circuit and provide a zap. I did an internet search and found a suggestion to run two wires in an arrangement where the horse will touch both at the same time. One wire connects to the live wire terminal on the charger and one to the ground terminal. It worked well.
In between houses, I briefly rented a place that was almost swamp. The water table was very close to the surface. I put up the same fence charger I had used at the old place and hooked it to a temporary fence made from electrical tape fencing on step-in fiberglass rods with the conventional one charged wire-ground rod configuration. The young mule nearly levitated when he touched the tape for the first time. The old mule said, "Unh unh, I’ve seen that shit before, I’m not coming within 3 feet of it. 
OK, I googled and found an explanation of what I was talking about with the 2 wire system.
Two Wire System
A two wire ground system should be used if there are more than three strands of wire on the fence. The two strand system allows the animal to complete the circuit by touching a charged wire and a ground wire at the same time. The strands on the fence must alternate between a ground wire and a charged wire: one charged, one ground, and then charged, etc.
If you have a large area that needs to be fenced in, this system is ideal. It is also great to contain animals with long hair, or wool, and areas with sandy or rocky soil. Grounding this system is simple. The wires that are grounded will connect directly to the grounding rod or grounding terminal on the charger. The charged wires are connected to the terminal on the charger.
http://www.zarebasystems.com/learning-center/installation-guide/ground-rod-installation
Make sure your grounding rods are over 50ft from any other grounding, like your house, electrical poles, ect.
And add 3 or more 6ft grounding rods 10ft apart from each other.
I THINK YOUR CHARGER IS MALFUNCTIONING…RETURN IT FOR A REPLACEMENT
What are you using for grounding rods?? they need to be copper. If your losing zapping it’s not properly grounded. It needs to be ground like the link another poster posted.
My fence is grounded that way and it’s hot.I also use a lead out wire like shown in link.
You’ve tried two chargers so the chargers are likely okay. Therefore… you have either a grounding issue or a short on your fence. I would bet on a fence short. You only have a charge within several feet of the fencer connection (right?) A short will seem to drain the charge as measured the further from the fence connection. If you can’t find the short, disconnect portions of the fence to isolation the problem area. Gallagher makes a nifty fault finder. It can show the direction of current flow on a fence.
No, your ground rods don’t need to be copper. For the love of all things holy, Tazycat, stop commenting on things you don’t know beans about.
It’s likely you are shorting out at your posts. Even in pretty poor soil conditions you should be getting more than 50’ of charge. Keep all vegetation clear of the fence and maybe try a different charger?
Make sure any wire splices are tight. Try pouring a bucket of water around the grounding rods because it may not be as wet as you think. Good luck.
gypsymare~~~i was told copper ground rods my fence is HOT!!! so must work.Guess i must know something about hot fences because i’m not posting for help. And my fence is hot… got over 100 plus acres of hot fence all hot.
So dont tell me I know nothing about hot fence.
[QUOTE=tazycat;9024835]
gypsymare~~~i was told copper ground rods my fence is HOT!!! so must work.Guess i must know something about hot fences because i’m not posting for help. And my fence is hot…[/QUOTE]
We’ve used the zinc-metal rods (don’t know their actual composition) that they sell at the co-op for decades with plug in and solar chargers. They work just fine. Copper is a relatively soft metal. I’m trying to imagine how you would drive a copper rod 6’ into clay soil. 
To the OP:
First, check ALL your connections and ensure that they are tight. This includes grounding rods.
Second, I presume your fence has more than one wire? Disconnect all wires EXCEPT for one wire (usually the top wire) and designate that as your “carrier wire.” Now test it. If it works then connect each other wire, one at a time, to the carrier wire. Test as each wire is added. If the carrier is good but the second wire shorts out the fence the “walk” second wire and find out what’s shorting it out. Continue with each additional wire.
Third, if the problem persists on the carrier wire ensure that you’re not shorting the fence out with fence posts, vegetation, etc.
If you’ve done all of this and the problem continues then post some picture because there is no way to do more in “diagnosis” without a lot more data.
Good luck in your program.
G.
Guilherme~~~ We don’t have clay soil, doesn’t take much to drive any post in the ground here.
Also a small far as connections, you might try buffing the contact surface between the ground pole and clamp and any wires and terminal with some fine sand paper to remove any corrosion or dullness that can impeded a good contact.
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