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Electric fence

Barneybdb

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
  • Dec 2, 2011
    27,029
    348,328
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    Adelaide, South Australia
    THE ELECTRIC FENCE & THE LAWNMOWER


    This was sent by a retired dentist.

    We have the standard 6 ft. fence in the backyard, and a few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city. To make sure this never happened to me, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence.

    Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground rod, and drove it 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.

    One day I'm mowing the back yard with my cheapo Wal-Mart 6 hp big wheel push mower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way.

    It seems as though I hadn't remembered to unplug it after all.

    Now I'm standing there, I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 giga-volt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover.

    Time stood still.

    The first thing I notice is my xxxx trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine.

    It seems as though the fence charger and the piece of shit lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

    Science says you cannot crap, pee, and vomit at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just crap your pants 3 times. It seemed like
    there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

    At this point I'm about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can't let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences ... but Dad always had those piece of shit chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled.

    This one I could not let go of. The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas.

    'Dang!,' I think, as I remember I just filled the tank!

    Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, and with my vomit on my chest I think 'Oh God please die .... Pleeeeaze die'. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

    So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard, begging God to kill me. God did not take me that day .... he left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

    I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire ....

    I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned.

    There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot where the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire.

    Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things:

    1 - Three of my teeth seem to have melted.

    2 - I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).

    3 - Poop, pee, and vomit when all mixed together, do not smell as bad as you might think.

    4 - My left eye will not open.

    5 - My right eye will not close.

    6 - The lawnmower runs like a sumbitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that.

    7 - My nuts are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long.

    8 - I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don't understand this???).

    That day changed my life. I now have a new found respect for things. I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

    The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.
     
    Re: Electric fence

    seen it a couple of times... and i laugh my ass off every damn time.. good stuff righ there.

    I was working with my uncle on the farm a number of years ago moving steel "hog" panels. I backed my leg against one of those high powered fences. left a burn on my leg, went through me & the panel & left my uncle knocked out on the other end.
    Last man on the totem pole get's hit the hardest.
    it's been 18 or so years & the jackass still won't let me forget it.
     
    I was crossing an electric fence between two strands after setting out targets for my .22. I was maybe 13 and was going commando in my sweatpants with no shirt on. My back was too high making contact with the top wire and sending an arc out of my scrotom to the bottom wire. I shit you not it burnt the crotch of my plants. I puked from the pain. Worst day ever.
     
    Made me remember when I was 18 and having a good time in Tijuana (yes, I too find it hard to believe that statement could be true). More than once I paid a buck or two to some guy walking around the bars with two electrodes wired to a box with a dial, attached to a battery, for the privilege of holding on to said electrodes whilst he ran electricity up my arms and across my scalp. Luckily he was a responsible chap who knew drinking young gringos would rather stroke out or snap something before crying uncle and would dial it down before it was too late. Your muscles would be clamped down so hard and your arms in a knot that the part about not being able to let go is probably quite true. But don't think for a minute that's the dumbest thing I ever did in Tijuana. I also ate a habanero whole, on a dare, after eating a bacon wrapped hot dog from a guy selling them from a push cart. Today you couldn't pay me to risk eating a bacon wrapped anything from a Tijuana pushcart. The girls, the bar fights; good times. Thanks for a post that brought back memories I haven't thought of in almost 30 years.
     
    I've done the horse fence.
    I've been poisoned in Tijuana.

    Thankfully not on the same day.
     
    I installed an electric fence at my moms house. After completing the project I stuck the back of my hand to the wire - Nothing. I traced the wires back around again, and found everything was in its place. I knelt on the ground wondering what could be wrong. My buddy stood behind me wondering the same. I reached up to the wire and grasped it in the palm of my hand. About that time I began to shake. Well, it was more like I vibrated. I turned around to tell my buddy it wasn't funny (I thought he had grabbed my shoulders and shook the shit out of me). As I turned my head I noticed my buddy was 10 ft or so away.. thats when It hit me. By kneeling down I had completed the circuit. My sneakers had prevented the circuit from being grounded when I was standing. Boy did I feel like an ass.

    TC
     
    Have a 20mi Green box(non pulse) fence around the back yard to keep the dogs in and others out. Customer at my Motorcycle shop walks off to take a conference (he is a V.P. for a software company) and sees the wire around the top of the fence which he He taps with his finger while talking on his cell. Nothing happens(no ground do to his riding boots) he assumes the wire is harmless. Shortly there after he props his elbow on the chain link fence (grounded) and his bicep contacts the hot wire. Ever see a grown man try to conduct a conference call while being zapped PRICELESS.When his Knees give out he breaks contact but finishes call mostly listening with a few yes or no responses. Hard to charge a guy for a minor adjustment that has just pissed himself.
     
    Back when I was a lineman for SWBell, I had to install a down guy on a pole near a corral at a ranch. So, the "shortest" route was crossing a knee-high electric fence. Everything went fine carrying all my gear to the site. On the return trip as I was crossing the fence, the chain from the chain hoist slipped from my arms onto the wire. It did not take me too long to figure out to drop everything! I never wanted to "cross" an electric fence again, and never have. My co-workers laughed their ass off when I told the story.
     
    Many years ago I was on an exercise on Salisbury Plain Training Area in the UK. Like many training areas there the whole area is civilian farmland and villages and the military use it for their fun and games. It was a dewy dawn and we were carrying out a recce patrol carrying our trusty SLR, (British made FN FAL's), rifles. We are out in the middle of a fairly open area between two woods when point sends back the "obstacle" signal followed by the "fence/wire" signal. We went into our well rehearsed fence crossing routine that provided us with all around defense while each man helps the next to traverse the obstacle. I reach the fence to find it is a single wire cattle fence about 3' off the floor. Being the smart cookie I am I knelt down and used the plastic hand guard of my rifle to push the wire down to about 1' off the floor for my mate to step over. My mate wasn't known for clumsiness.... until that day. In the half light and with the wire being pretty thin he didn't clear it and dragged it forwards so it slipped off the handguard. Within a couple of seconds I received a jolt designed to scare farmer Giles' biggest cattle. F$ck... I thought... That hurt... Unperturbed I simply raised my rifle high to get it off the wire before the next jolt arrived.

    It sounds funny now but we never used to sling our weapons, we weren't allowed. This meant that the front sling swivel was entirely unused. When the second jolt arrived, the one that shouldn't have because I had now lifted my rifle off the wire, I let out a hissed "F$ck" which drew the attention of my mates. I'm kneeling there in the wet grass utterly confused as to why I was still getting shocked when the third jolt arrived... The hiss became a barely disguised whisper. It was about now that I realized that the wire was caught in my front sling swivel... It was also about the same time as my training kicked in. You know, the bit about never dropping your weapon... jolts four and five came and went and the sling swivel had a serious grip in that wire. Looking around for assistance from my mates I am confronted with seven quivering masses that can barely conceal their laughter. By the sixth jolt I was becoming physically tired and the importance of stealth while on patrol was completely lost on me, even the cattle the fence was designed to contain had begun to amble over for a look.

    I was laid on the floor when the seventh jolt hit and by now I knew I was going to die there. In true Airborne fashion I continued to struggle to free the sling swivel from the wire. The eighth jolt arrived and I was getting wet with both dew and sweat as I writhed, groaning on the floor to the sound of uncontrolled giggling from my unsympathetic audience. It was about now I lost count of the hits I took and, while it seemed like an eternity, I spent another 15 or 20 seconds in mind numbing agony until the sling swivel suddenly decided I'd had enough and showed mercy.

    I was convinced the pain had gone because I'd simply died but then a camouflaged face with tears running down it's cheeks appeared out of the half darkness. "You done?" it said while vainly trying to suppress it's laughter. I managed to squeeze out a "I think so"... "Good," he replied "because you were beginning to look like some spastic recreating Saturday Night Fever"...

    Scarred I am, scarred... :(