[animal mad]

Hi , i have set up 2 50m poultry netting to enclose my new chickens everything seemed to begoing oktill i noticed one of the chickens touching the fence with her back and did not  have any reaction, are chickens insulated against electric shock or have a got a problem with my fence. 

[Aunt Sally]

Have you touched it yourself to see if it's working ?

[animal mad]

no,

[Aunt Sally]

Well then, the answer is in your hands - or whatever part of your body you choose to touch it with 

[Sassy]

You can buy testers for the fence, cost upwards of £10. You should NOT touch it if you have any sort of heart condition. You can also use a blade of grass as this gives a lesser shock and often just a vibration if it is working.

[hillfooter]

Feathers are very good insulators through combs aren't.  Check your net isn't touching any wood,  overhanging trees or there's too much long grass touching it,  The bottom strand and verticals are insulators but the rest of the horizontals aren't.  A good idea is to ensure each end of the net is shorted together and I also usuallt add a couple of vertical shorting copper wires so any break doesn't isolate a large part of the net.  I use copper wire striped from old mains cable and twisted round each horizontal in a vertical line to short the horizontals.  The net is just a big single strand spiral shorted at each so each strand is a line.

Ensure all the insulating posts are plastic insulators and in particular the bottom LIVE strand of the net isn't wrapped round or touching the metal spike at the bottom of the insulator.

On  a dark night you can usually see touching shorts sparking so you can locate any problem.

Get a tester which indicates voltage, the beepers are useless or use the MIL..  A glass of Gin just over the net usually does the trick!
HF

[animal mad]

thanks for all your help, it is working fine, someone showed me how to test it with a plastic fence post. i can relax a bit now.