How to prove an auto waterer is shocking horse? If it is?

[murphyluv]

lol! Thanks! I’m a bit hesitant to test it using just myself…I’ve been shocked pretty bad before! One memorable experience involved standing in a puddle of water, holding a metal gate, undoing chain, chain swinging around and touching HOT electric fence. Friend standing nearby said it sounded like someone cracked a whip. Reset my heart rhythm I’m sure, and I started screaming like a banshee. So, while funny, no thanks, lol!

Anyway, I will head to the hardware store sometime this weekend and pick up the appropriate tools. If nothing else, this is just interesting.
Yes, horses are used to auto waterers, and were not wearing blankets at that time. Who knows. Not unheard of, so worth checking. I hung a bucket next to it, they drank all of it, not touching auto waterer (which is currently not refilling- needs a new valve). I can innocently tell my landlord I tested it and it is indeed shocking them. Save future horses from not having anything to drink in the shed. It seems they are happy to go to water in the field, but when it snows, and they’re in the shed, they don’t want to go out that far in the field. When my horse is here, who definitely wouldn’t drink out of it and had never seen one before, I had a muck tub set up during the winter. He only drank out of it when it snowed.

[enjoytheride]

I am wondering about the strength of the charger on your fence if you touch it on a regular basis! The filings in my teeth hurt when I touch the fence at my barn, and boy howdy does it hurt even more when you touch it right where it comes out of the box.

[fordtraktor]

Well, I have the strongest charger on the market, I think! A 12 joule one. The “Cattleman”. But I have a very high pain tolerance in general so maybe I am not a good judge. I get chronic migraines, the kind that make me puke every five minutes for hours from pain, electric fences are not on my radar.

[enjoytheride]

Ahhh, that explains it. Because at my barn our charger makes me scream and spontaneously swear.

[draftdriver]

It doesn’t take much to shock horses. I had the same problem – horses would reach out for water, then jump back. I had the electricians out, and they couldn’t measure anything with their volt meters. The only way they got a tingle was for the Apprentice to kneel down in the dirt with one hand on the dirt and the other hand in the tank. He could feel a tingle in the raw parts of his chapped hands, pulsing in time with my electric fence.

We spent two hours trouble-shooting. I won’t enumerate what we did here – it would be a book chapter! The conclusion was that current from the electric fence was getting into the ground via cracked insulators or branches touching the wire, and then feeding back through the horses and into the barn electrical system. The suggested solution (and it seems to be working) was to put down a second layer of rubber mats around the tank, with the second layer covering the cracks between the mats in the pre-existing first layer.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=draftdriver;8509192]
It doesn’t take much to shock horses. I had the same problem – horses would reach out for water, then jump back. I had the electricians out, and they couldn’t measure anything with their volt meters. The only way they got a tingle was for the Apprentice to kneel down in the dirt with one hand on the dirt and the other hand in the tank. He could feel a tingle in the raw parts of his chapped hands, pulsing in time with my electric fence.

We spent two hours trouble-shooting. I won’t enumerate what we did here – it would be a book chapter! The conclusion was that current from the electric fence was getting into the ground via cracked insulators or branches touching the wire, and then feeding back through the horses and into the barn electrical system. The suggested solution (and it seems to be working) was to put down a second layer of rubber mats around the tank, with the second layer covering the cracks between the mats in the pre-existing first layer.[/QUOTE]

plastic/rubber tank or metal?

[draftdriver]

Rubbermaid tank. Hard plastic, I think.

[Finding_Serenity]

[QUOTE=fordtraktor;8499318]
Take your boots off and stick your hand in and see what happens. that’s usually how I test my electric fence if I can’t get it to shock me with my boots on.[/QUOTE]

That’s how I found out the one at our current place was… except I WAS in my riding boots at the time :lol: They have two waterers so it took a long time to notice the one wasn’t being used.

There was a short in the one wire under the ground. Too much water in the ground and it became a zapper

[murphyluv]

Hmm, I wonder if it shocks if the ground is too wet, and doesn’t if its dry? Maybe that’s a possibility.

[Skip_s_Rider]

The barn where I used to board had heated automatic waterers. There was a problem with the electric fence grounding, and it was causing the horses to get shocked through the waterers. We put our hands in the water but couldn’t feel a thing. However, the horses clearly were being shocked (put lips on water – jump back). They all drank when we gave them water in buckets. When in doubt, it never hurts to give them a source of water that has no electrical connection.

[murphyluv]

Well, as it turns out, the horses were drinking out of it the other day. Its possible that what I saw was not the horse getting shocked, OR as the ground was wet then and not now, its only shocking them if the ground is wet. Still not sure if I want to go through the effort of proving it, when they DO have water elsewhere, but its irritating that the landlord immediately blew it off.

[elizabeth.harzinski]

Ok so I did the foot to the ground thing to check n the waterer and it worked. Freaks me out but my horses have to drink lol. I don’t recommend trying this lol for safety reasons.

[Chall]

@gumtree

The are lots of good Samaritan internet sites that go into great detail about lots of stuff in laymen’s languish.
.

Best Freudian slip ever: languish, anguish and language, all possibilities covered.
THere are a few Cother’s here that should get together and write a book each contributing different chapters. “How to survive on a farm with Horses.”

[HungarianHippo]

@Chall

Best Freudian slip ever: languish, anguish and language, all possibilities covered.
THere are a few Cother’s here that should get together and write a book each contributing different chapters. “How to survive on a farm with Horses.”

After I tested the electric fence with no shoes on, I languished on the ground in anguish while uttering very bad language.

[CL_Moonriver]

I wouldn’t do that with an automatic waterer if there is concern it might be shocking the horses. If the waterer itself is faulty, you could expose yourself to a 120 volt 15 amp AC jolt instead of the puny current from the fence. Such a jolt could easily kill you. It could also kill the horses, of course.

A multimeter might work for testing it. If the waterer itself is actually faulty and the AC mains are electrifying it, sticking the red lead of the multimeter in the water and the black lead in the ground might show voltage on the meter. If it does, you have a serious problem There should be no voltage and no current in the water. There should also be no voltage or current on the meter when you touch the red lead to any metal part of the waterer.

P.S. This test is NOT fool proof. If you see voltage or current on the meter, the waterer is DEFINITELY dangerous needs to be unplugged immediately, However, if you do not see voltage or current on the meter, it does not guarantee that the waterer is not giving shocks.

@fordtraktor

Take your boots off and stick your hand in and see what happens. that’s usually how I test my electric fence if I can’t get it to shock me with my boots on.

[CL_Moonriver]

@murphyluv

I’m a bit hesitant to test it using just myself.

I wouldn’t do it if you are concerned the automatic waterer is somehow giving shocks. If the waterer itself is defective, you aren’t going to expose yourself to an electric fence jolt. You are going to expose yourself to 120 volt AC main current, which could easily kill you. It could also kill the horses if they touch it. (You didn’t mention if the waterer was still plugged in despite being broken.)

One way to check the waterer for faulty wiring might be to use a multimeter. If the waterer itself is actually faulty and the AC mains are electrifying it, sticking the red lead of the multimeter in the water and the black lead in the ground might show voltage on the meter. Also, try touching the bowl or any metal parts with the red lead. If any of these tests show current or voltage on the multimeter then the waterer needs to be unplugged immediately. Again, it could potentially kill a person or a horse. However, this test is NOT fool proof. If you see voltage or current on the meter, the waterer is DEFINITELY dangerous needs to be unplugged immediately, However, if you do not see voltage or current on the meter, it does not guarantee that the waterer is not giving shocks.

Also, is the waterer on a GFCI outlet? If not, it should be. Anything where your horses or a person might be potentially exposed to electric current should be on a GFCI outlet. That includes waterers, tank heaters, and electric fence chargers. A GFCI outlet is designed to trip in less than 1/40th of a second if it detects that current is going to ground through anything other than the normal grounding path in the electrical system itself.

P.S. If touching the red lead to any part of the waterer and putting the black lead in the ground trips the GFCI outlet, this also indicates that current is flowing from the waterer to the ground in a dangerous way, even if the meter doesn’t register anything. The GFCI might trip before the meter has a change to register anything.

[TMares]

Two year old zombie post.