50 mile electric fence charger for 600ft of wire? Can it kill my cats?

[CrazyCatNChickenLady]

So I bought a new charger for my other goat pen. I've always read get the biggest you can afford and the 50 mile was on sale for $109. The 25mile was $99 so I just bought the bigger one. Well the others have rabbits, dogs, and chickens, etc pictured on the front. This one has red X's over those pets showing bulls, elk, coyotes, cows, horses, pigs and goats. Well the fence is for goats but I also have chickens in the pen and we have 11 indoor/outdoor cats that love the goats.

We only plan on wiring 6 strands on a small pen. (will be 600ft of wire total.) but I have also dabbled on the thought of fencing the 3 acre property, or just the acre behind the house. We have: Lots of dogs, bears, coyotes, and mt lions. We mainly get dogs but the latter do come around.


So my boyfriend is seriously worried about the cats. I'm pretty sure it wont kill a cat, but might give em one hell of a shock. I can ask the vet at work what he thinks but I'm not sure if this is a stupid question or not.

A friend of mine has a 12 mile and did the bottom strand so she could turn it off. Thats another option, but I'm pretty sure with one big shock they'd never go near it again. :/

This is the one I bought. It does say keeps skunks, racoons, and rabbits away!
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/zarebareg;-50-mile-ac-low-impedance-fence-charger?cm_vc=-10005

 

[JoePa]

Well it looks like nobody knows - so the only thing left to do is try it out - grab a cat and have it touch the wire - then you'll know - after all they say that cats have nine lives - it will have eight more -

 

[bonbean01]

I really don't know...but we've had squirrels killed on ours, and a large owl...talons still around the wire...felt so badly...just looking for a place to sit I guess.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I've seen large squirrels and rabbits caught and dead on hotwire, I don't know what wattage it was but I have no doubt it could kill a cat.

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

We have a 25 mile charger on about a 1/4 mile of fence all together. It's like a bug zapper for goats. The babies are ok if they get zapped but I'd hate to see a tangled one.

 

[bjjohns]

a large owl...talons still around the wire...felt so badly...just looking for a place to sit I guess.

I didn't think any bird could get hurt just landing on a wire? How did the owl find a path to ground?

Oh, and we have a 200 mile charger on about 10 miles of tape & wire. We've never had anything die from touching or even getting tangled in the wire. I could see a tangle eventually killing something, but usually they have to be moving pretty fast at the fence to get tangled. However animals are animals, you never know what they will do to them selves.

 

[bcnewe2]

I have a 32 mile charger on a small paddock, same deal as you best bang for my buck. I just didn't know how literal that statement was!
I don't see how an owl could die on a wire. Without the animal being on the ground it does not complete the circuit so your owl should have been OK. Same with other birds or chickens, if they aren't on the ground how does it complete the grounded circuit? Have to look into that one.

But let me tell you my 32 mile charger on a small amount of wire will send any dog or sheep running. It knocked me backwards. Don't ever want to touch it again, but that is then idea behind Electric fence. It's a mental thing. Other fencing keeps things out manually electric fence trains the brain.

My dogs have all hit my fence, they don't go near it, I don't gave cats but i have a feeling it would be the same. The way I understand it is the shock won't kill you but if an animal gets tangled it can go into shock and die from fear and pain but not the actual electric. It is a pulsing shock not continuing.

Since my sheep have hit that wire they don't test any wire. You could set it up, let the goats hit it then like you mentioned let the bottom wire be a dummy wire for your cats sake. But I bet if they hit it they wont go near it again.

 

[MDres]

We've had electric fencing since I was a child, as has my husband's family. Neither family has ever had an animal killed as a result of touching the wire. The shock from electric fencing isn't the type you see in movies, that grabs you and holds on to you as you quiver and shake. It is a pulse. So it is on - off - on - off at a set interval. The animals have plenty of opportunity to get away from the fence in between pulses.

The ONLY time we had an animal "injured" by electric fence was way back in 1984 or so. We had a low water tank that extended under the fence, so we could add water to it without having contact with the fence. I was standing next to it, filling it. My Dad's ~45lb bird dog was running around and decided to get a drink from the tank. He was hot, and was wide-mouth panting. He dove at the tank with his head, catching the wire in his mouth. His muzzle made contact with the water. He yelped, went stiff and fell over. He lay there for a few minutes, while I was freaking out, and then he got up and ran off. No lasting effects.

I really can't picture a scenario where a cat would have long-term contact with the fence wire. They may brush against it when they crawl under it, but that contact wouldn't be enough to kill them.

 

[bcnewe2]

Not my own but I saw a lamb get tangled in Electric fence wires. He died of shock but not electrical. He was twisted up and the continued pulsing shock was enough to send him into medically indused shock. He died but again it was not the electric fence pulsing shock. So Madres how could an owl die of shock if not touching the ground? And do birds get shocked if they do not make a ground?

 

[bonbean01]

Bjjohns...I wasn't there when it happened...but it had been raining that night and it still had the talons tightly around the top wire...it was beside the metal tpost...so that may have made a difference? Squirrels killed on the bottom line have also had their claws tightly around the wire...wasn't that easy getting them off. Occasionally we see a dead smaller bird lying beside the electric fence.

When we train lambs to the electric fence one of us are in there with them and the other by the charger to pull the cord quickly if someone gets tangled...several zaps and they don't forget it. None have tangled, but we do this every year just in case someone does get tangled.