Running electric across top of gate

[Libby2563]

Google is failing me. What are the best ways to add a strand of electric across the top of a 10’ wide pasture gate?

I like how those spring gates retract out of the way when not in use but I had a bad experience with one once. (Horse swished her tail at a horsefly, got it caught in the spring gate, got zapped, freaked out, jumped the pipe gate but didn’t clear it so she knocked it over and flipped head over heels, scrambled up, then went galloping around the backyard with no halter on and 50 feet of uncoiled spring trailing from her tail. Don’t want a repeat of that one.)

Here’s a bungee one but at its shortest it would only be 8 feet.

Or should I just use a length of Horseguard tape with a handle, since that’s what all my cross-fencing is?

[jherold]

I just rigged regular braided rope to the top of the gate using PVC as an insulator to extend it above the metal on one end. The other end is on the wooden post with a screw in post insulator. I don’t have it hooked up to the electric, since it was done to keep the cribber off the gate and he is extrememly electric fence broke. (He thinks it’s hot and won’t test it). If I want to hook it to the fence to make it hot, I’d ust use a gate handle with a jump wire.

[Bluey]

We have several places we run electric wire up and back down on the other side.

We attach a PVC pipe as tall as we want it, with a slit on the top of it, to the posts on each side of the gate.
I think we have some at 10-12’, others maybe taller? Machinery fits under there.
We come to one side of the gate along the fence, then tape with black electric tape the wire here and there going up the pipe, set it in that slit we cut at the top, tape it in there good, run it across to the other side, tape it on that slit and then run it down, taping it a few times, on the other side of the gate, where it attaches to the electric fence there.

Our pasture gates are 16’ wide and the wire across the top stays tight and safe up there.
Has been like that in some fences for decades and still works fine.

If something were to hit that wire up there, all it will do is break loose, maybe break a PVC pipe, but nothing ever did.

[Libby2563]

Thanks Bluey, but let me clarify, I do want to have a strand of hot tape or wire across the top of the gate that I can unhook when going in and out. The gate is just a little low for my taste because of how the dry lot was constructed. I’ve seen them standing with their heads over the top which they don’t do with any of the other gates, and I don’t want them to get the bright idea of leaning on it.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Libby2563;8905192]
Thanks Bluey, but let me clarify, I do want to have a strand of hot tape or wire across the top of the gate that I can unhook when going in and out. The gate is just a little low for my taste because of how the dry lot was constructed. I’ve seen them standing with their heads over the top which they don’t do with any of the other gates, and I don’t want them to get the bright idea of leaning on it.[/QUOTE]

Oh, you want to run a hot wire to keep the horses off the top of the gate.

I understood you wanted to run the wire at least 10’ high up there, to drive thru the gate.

Completely different situations that.

You could affix an insulator to the gate side and bring a wire from the fence side, across the post to that second insulator, then across the gate to another insulator you can hook the gate post to.

If coming around the post may cause a short, add a third insulator there to go across the post.

[Texarkana]

I use a gate handle and PVC pipe as well. I think my gate is 16’. I ran a strand of electric wire through 2 8’ pieces of PVC I bought pre-cut at Lowes and have them joined with a coupler in the middle.

I run mine on the outside of the gate, but it could go over top. I unhook it when the horses go in and out the gate, but otherwise I just duck under it. I like that the PVC keeps it insulated (no shocking myself or the horse!) and rigid so it doesn’t fold on itself. I also like that it makes a visible barrier so the horses don’t see an open gate and think, “FREEDOM!”

[horsepoor]

I don’t think the PVC pipe is what the OP is looking for as she seems to want something to zap them so they will stay off the gate. At my place, I just ran the same electric twine that I have going around the top of my perimeter fencing across the gates, using electric gate handle for opening and closing. With these on each side of the gate to attach it to. Works for me. Seems a line of Horseguard would do the same thing.

[Mallard]

[QUOTE=Libby2563;8904994]

Or should I just use a length of Horseguard tape with a handle, since that’s what all my cross-fencing is?[/QUOTE]

This. I have this setup on a couple of gates.
You may have to rig up something on the post at each end of the gate so the tape goes high enough and doesn’t sag down and touch the fence.
Make sure the end you put the handle on is not the ‘live’ end…that way when you unhook it, it won’t be live and it won’t matter if it touches the gate when you open it.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Mallard;8905599]
This. I have this setup on a couple of gates.
You may have to rig up something on the post at each end of the gate so the tape goes high enough and doesn’t sag down and touch the fence.
Make sure the end you put the handle on is not the ‘live’ end…that way when you unhook it, it won’t be live and it won’t matter if it touches the gate when you open it.[/QUOTE]

Smart thinking that!

[horsepoor]

[QUOTE=Mallard;8905599]

Make sure the end you put the handle on is not the ‘live’ end…that way when you unhook it, it won’t be live and it won’t matter if it touches the gate when you open it.[/QUOTE]

Yes, forgot to say that. Helps if things are set up so that side where the new electric handle goes is also where you latch the gate. But doesn’t always work out that way (just had new gates put in at our place and they hung them on the opposite side as what I wanted, so I have to decide whether to change that or reverse my electric runs).

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=horsepoor;8905744]
Yes, forgot to say that. Helps if things are set up so that side where the new electric handle goes is also where you latch the gate. But doesn’t always work out that way (just had new gates put in at our place and they hung them on the opposite side as what I wanted, so I have to decide whether to change that or reverse my electric runs).[/QUOTE]

Yes, would not work where you have gates that the wire is continuing down the fence after the gate, if you want to keep it hot when the gate wire is disconnected, which should not be that often.

[arlosmine]

I’ve used both tape and rope for this purpose. It’s very easy to have a “dead end” attachment to an insulator of your choice on the hinge side post for the gate, and a “live” gate handle that hooks into the fence (lots of ways to do this) on the post on the latch side of the gate.
That way you can unhook the gate handle, hang it on the gate and operate the gate as usual. Close gate, reattach hook and done deal.

[trubandloki]

Hopefully I can explain the set-up that a friend has. It allows them to have something hot along the top of their metal gate with out having to latch/unlatch the electric part separate from the metal gate.

The electric for the fence, to continue on past the gate, is run under ground and then back up the pole to the fencing on the other side of the gate. That allows the fence to stay hot no matter what position the gate is in.

For the hot wire on the gate they build vertical stand supports using PVC that puts the hot wire (actually tape in this case) far enough above the top bar of the gate that you can fit your hand in there. The hot wire is connected to the hot fencing on the hinge side.

[hosspuller]

To attach plastic insulators to the top pipe of a gate use hose clamps. They will open completely to encircle the pipe, yet clamp the base of the insulator tightly against the pipe.

Or you could just purchase these …

https://www.equestriancollections.com/horse-barn-stable-supplies-equipment/horse-arena-supplies/horse-fencing/dare-tube-post-insulator?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PLA&scid=scbplp15085493&sc_intid=203-155450

[Libby2563]

Thank you everyone!

[QUOTE=trubandloki;8905944]
Hopefully I can explain the set-up that a friend has. It allows them to have something hot along the top of their metal gate with out having to latch/unlatch the electric part separate from the metal gate.

The electric for the fence, to continue on past the gate, is run under ground and then back up the pole to the fencing on the other side of the gate. That allows the fence to stay hot no matter what position the gate is in.

For the hot wire on the gate they build vertical stand supports using PVC that puts the hot wire (actually tape in this case) far enough above the top bar of the gate that you can fit your hand in there. The hot wire is connected to the hot fencing on the hinge side.[/QUOTE]

I really like this idea! One less thing to hook and unhook sounds good. Something like hosspuller suggested would be useful for that, although it’s hard to tell if tape would fit in there. Maybe folded in half it would? Hard to tell! I’ll have to look into it.

[PNWjumper]

Here is a picture of a gate that I wanted to have hot to fix a gelding who was the “dinner bell” (well, breakfast bell, really) type at 4am every morning. We made the gate hot rather than trying to put an electric wire across the top.

There’s an insulator you can connect or disconnect to the right side up high to the right so I can disconnect the gate while keeping the rest of the fence hot. And then the wire itself is wrapped around the gate to make the whole gate hot whenever it’s connected. It’s much more effective than my other gates where I have a regular wire with a connector across the top. Though with that being said, this was the only gate that horses were banging on regularly and thus the only one that needed to be hot.