Bruce's Journal

[Bruce]

Have a weird one today, maybe someone familiar with electric fences like @greybeard has an idea.

Went for a 4 AM bathroom trip and could hear the fence snapping. Looked out the bathroom door and could see it flashing out near the garden or beyond. Couldn't tell in the dark. Pretty loud, bright blue snap. Went out at 6:30 to let the chickens out and snack the alpacas and chickens. First I went to the garden to see what plant had gotten too tall and the fence kindly snapped for me. Right at a T-post. I can't get REAL close to the fence from that side but clearly there was no plant anywhere near it. Heavy dew overnight and there was a spiderweb that went between the top hot wire, the ground wire below it and I THINK also connected some to the T-post. When I was done with the chickens I went around the other side of the fence. It was no longer snapping. Is it possible that the dew on the web could have been causing the hot wire to ground to the T-post?? The wire on the insulator was no where near the T-post.

 

[Bruce]

I'm getting a bit nervous about Oreo. 13 weeks, comb and wattles. Mint isn't nearly so far along from that POV. The Meyer catalog says Exchequer Leghorns mature "very early". I guess I have to hope Oreo is VERY early! I didn't need one rooster let alone two.



Alpacas and young chickens. No, I have not seen any chickens sitting on the boys I worry just a bit about the chickens. The boys don't seem to care that they have company but if the boys spook, like if I go in their area for whatever reason, they aren't looking at the ground to see if there is anything underfoot.


Trouble has started prepping for his first crow. He doesn't do it often enough to get it on film with sound. I've actually not SEEN him when he does it so I don't know if he postures and makes his new noise or it just comes out instead of his "old" voice. He is also walking more upright than in the past. He is with Trill, the other Barnevelder that IS a pullet. She's working on a juvenile moult, no more tail.

 

[CntryBoy777]

They seem to be coming right along....they do grow quickly. Have ya thought about selling the roos?

 

[Bruce]

That would depend on if we could find someone who would keep, not eat, the roos. And agree to do so without a behind the back. DD1 has an issue with ANYONE eating an animal that grew up here. In fact she would prefer no one eat animals. She doesn't give us static about eating animals raised by others because she knows that would be a lost cause.

 

[Bruce]

New start to an old line:
"Dumb Zorra is SO dumb"

She's sitting on infertile and plastic eggs for the second time this year. Shoved her in the broody buster in the "littles" coop this evening. I would guess she'll be there at least 3 days which means no more eggs from her for something over a week minimum. I was suspicious, she was doing some "Mrs Hyde" neck flaring the last couple of days and making the "I'm a broody hen" clucks.

Trouble is making more "teenage boy" sounds. No actual attempt yet to "cock-a-doodle-do", at least not that I've heard.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Here's another old line for ya...."It's not nice to Fool mother nature".....even fixed animals go into faux estrus....

 

[Bruce]

New start to an old line:
"Dumb Nuit is SO dumb"


She's sitting on infertile and plastic eggs, she didn't go broody last year. Shoved her in the broody buster with Zorra. Zorra is 5 Y/O, Nuit 2 Y/O.

That leaves me with 6 of 11 hens that might lay. The 2 Favs have quit and if Yue lays, it is a very thin shelled egg that is likely broken by the time I see it. Persephone is the only 5 Y/O still laying reliably though Zorra did start back up after kicking the kids to the curb.

Stopped at Advance Auto parts today. Did a double take on a license plate on a car there. Jalisco Mexico! Never have seen a Mexico plate up here. Probably way more common for you folks in TX though even then Jalisco is still are pretty distant place, 1K miles as the crow flies. We do OCCASIONALLY see AK and HI plates. REALLY long drive for those from HI

 

[greybeard]

I have very very rarely seen a Mexico licensed vehicle here in Texas, except in the border towns. Maybe 1 or 2 in my lifetime.

First I went to the garden to see what plant had gotten too tall and the fence kindly snapped for me. Right at a T-post. I can't get REAL close to the fence from that side but clearly there was no plant anywhere near it. Heavy dew overnight and there was a spiderweb that went between the top hot wire, the ground wire below it and I THINK also connected some to the T-post. When I was done with the chickens I went around the other side of the fence. It was no longer snapping. Is it possible that the dew on the web could have been causing the hot wire to ground to the T-post?? The wire on the insulator was no where near the T-post

It's more than possible, it's probable. Remember, electrons always travel on the exterior surface of any conductor, even copper and steel, but certainly on the outside of a water laden surface, including insulators and spider webs. This is important because it will explain something later on. *

10,000 volts will jump a dry air gap of about 1/8". Your fence is probably running somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 volts, so it normally wouldn't be able to bridge a dry air gap 1/8", but the humidity plays a big part in air gaps and voltage entanglements. So does the chemical and elemental makeup of the air. We think of air as being mostly oxygen and nitrogen, but there are all kinds of other elements and chemicals in it and many of them have free electrons in the outer orbits of their atoms that can be knocked out to the next atom..meaning they are conductive.Add water to that in the form of humidity and air becomes a good conductor, but only in a relatively and narrowly confined path.

Once it does travel along that tiny wet string one time, it does so more easily each successive pulse because the air around the web is now ionized. It's the current travelling thru that ionized air and along the tiny strand of web that you see making the 'spark'.

On a wet morning when dew is heavy and covers everything, or a rainy day, your fence is also bleeding voltage off at every insulator, down the wet tee post and along the damp ground to the ground rod.
Why don't you see it all along the fence and hear the snap-crackle-pop like you did at the spider web?

* A 12 ga wire is about 3/32" or 0.099". A spider's web is 1/10 the diameter of a human hair. Compared to the web strand diameter, the wire is quite large. The insulator, tho, is HUGE in comparison, and since electrons predominantly move along the outside of any conductor (or conductive surface) there is plenty of surface area on that wet conductor for the electrons to spread out and move to the tee post.
Because the web strand is so tiny tho, it offers very little surface area for the electrons to move along--they're concentrated in a very small area, and because they are, they are also able to ionize the air immediately surrounding the strand.

You are very lucky to have seen this. In a short period of time, the heat from the spark evaporates the moisture on the strand and it no longer is able to conduct, or it simply gets burned as the moisture evaporates. Once it does, the main pathway collapses and the air is no longer ionized either.

 

[babsbag]

I have my fence snap on cobwebs all of the time. I have also had it snap on a trail of ants. The ants were being killed and other ants were crawling right over them and making the connection and being electrocuted too. It was basically a chain of dead ants that live ants were using as a bridge. It was a strange site.

I use poly wire and when I need to splice it I just tie a knot and weave the ends together. I have found that at times even the knots will snap if they get dusty.

 

[greybeard]

Ants are notorious for getting electrocuted in any number of ways. They play havoc in many of the mechanical well pump switches. Dead dry ants build up between the contacts and won't let them close=no water.

(I've also seen big rafts of them in flood areas. You sure don't want to wade off into a raft of them if they are fire ants. They'll swarm up onto anything solid the raft bumps against.)