[Caretaker]

I've got to tell you this, visited my sister the weekend and around her pond is a small wire fence it has been there for some years.
She tells me it is for keeping cats away from the fish, I asked her how dose that work then.
She reply s I just turn on the mains switch, ouch.


Please don't tell my sister I told you.

[sawnee]

:shock:  :shock:  :shock:

[Teen76]

Some people would love that system on their garden from some of the posts I've read to stop them pooping.  Mind you if I were sapped with electricity it might make me leave a deposit in my pants  

[peggyprice]

Some people would love that system on their garden from some of the posts I've read to stop them pooping.  

Haven't most of the people round here got the hang of toilets, then  :shock:  :?:  :shock:

[woodburner]

I doubt very much that it's direct mains. Electric fencing is elctrified by means of an energiser that sends out a brief pulse of electricity at regualr intervals.

[Teen76]

That's no fun is it?!

[DeadlyNightshade]

It still works for cats, we used to see them unsuspectingly climbing through electric sheep wire.... and then squealing and jumping with hair standing

My sheep don't mind it though: they've at my sheep fence quite happily... that's 120 quid down a sheeps throat  (well 2 shepp's throats )

[lincspoacher]

I think she's on very dodgy ground. legally. What if a small child comes along and gets a sever shock from it, she could find herself hit for a personal injury claim, or even a charge of actual or grievous bodily harm or assault. Remember this is the compensation culture, and there plent of sharks like Claims-4-u that  will happily make toast of her in a civil court. Also remember that the law has be strengthened regarding the powers of the RSPCA, and I think if they get wind of it they might have something to say about it.

[vegmandan]

I think she's taking the p@@s out of you.

If you rigged it upto the mains you'd just blow the fuse in your house or get a £1000000 electricity bill.

[iwantanallotment]

I'm sure it's just a battery-powered one - as used to keep larger animals in their enclosures.
All they get is a sharp sting, which is enough to terrify & deter a cat, but horses etc just tend to plough right through them regardless  
Just reminded me of an owl I saw once, electrocuted by lightning - he lit up the whole street  :cry:
(but I'm sure your sister hasn't gone to those lengths   )

[donald.cape]

Electric fences are normally battery powered, you don't get many 13 amp socket outlets in the middle of a field. They work by charging up a capacitor to a high voltage. This capacitor then tries to discharge through the fence wire to the ground. If anything happens to be touching the fence and the ground the discharge travel through the object. The voltage quite high but it is only delivered for milliseconds and the current flow is minimal. If was connected to the mains the time the current would flow before the fuse melted or the circuit breaker tripped would depend on the design of the installation.

With an electric fence you can normally hear the capacitor making a  whining noise  as it chages up in the battery box, it's a bit like the older type of flashguns used in photography.

Some farmers used to use a battery powered device that worked on a similar system to control cows etc. It was like a three foot long torch but with two metal prongs sticking out of the end, anything shorting out the prongs would receive an electric shock similar to that delivered by an electric fence. As you can imagine this applied to the appropriate part of a cows rear would soon make it move as required. It  could be worse if you were a bull I suppose.

[dereklane]

"Some farmers used to use a battery powered device that worked on a similar system to control cows etc. "

They still use cattle prods - when I was young me and my brothers were indiscriminate with it with one another, if they were being annoying In reality, I found a slap on the bum was more effective in moving a cow, because the noise moves them. The cattle prod, through the fur, was often not even felt (or at least reacted to) by the animals. Electric fences at high voltage hurt (they feel like someone has just kicked you really hard), but they're by no means dangerous (well, maybe, if they're defective). I would rather a kid got a boot from a fence than drowned in a pond...

The electric fences (solar or mains converted) have quite high voltages - I seem to recall up to 40 000 V (apparently even static electricity can be close to this - its not the voltage but the means in which it travels that causes muscle convulsions). Anyway, maybe she has a mains converted electric fence...

cheers,

Derek

[woodburner]

You can get mains powered ones but they don't supply mains to the fence just a pulse, exactly the same as the battery powered ones.

[lincspoacher]

however, if you zapped someone it woudl still be an assault in common law.

The parallel is if you set up a device to electric shock a burglar. It is been shown by case law that to try and deter burglars by this means constitutes unreasonable force, and you can be prosecuted - the extreme case was Tony Martin, the farmer who defended himself against two burglars with a gun. Simply because the burglar was feeling and he shot, made his actions  'beyond reasonable'.

Setting up such a fence, unmarked is a hazard, and  since there are other methods to deter cats, puts the operator into a vulnerable position legally.

In the case of a farmer, the electric fence is a reasonable form of boundary,  because it has a clear, reasonable use in a farming context, and provided it was clearly signed then anyone straying onto the field and getting a shock wouldn't have grounds for action. In the scenario where a friends child touched it and was shocked there would clearly be grounds for  action. A garden may be accessible to innocent members of the public,  and it would be classed as 'unreasonable and excessive force' and she wouldn't have a leg to stand on if something went wrong

(PS - personal observation: I think the only mistake Tony Martin made was to let one get away free. I would have pursued the other one and killed  him, and then buried them, after all he was a farmer, and had land and a JCB. Who was going to come looking for them - "Excuse me, have you seen my boyfriend, he came to burgle you about two weeks ago?".

I dont think so.)

[kezlou]

I personally love cats so i'm biased, but those zappers are awful.
I have seen what they do to birds and cats alike, one time a robin sat on one at my friends house. All you could see was robin sizzling away as it was attempting to fly. Unfortunately the birds flight/ tail feathers were badly burnt and the robin could not fly again and nearly died. I have seen and tended to too many animals who have victims of man made hazards. Its so sad to them burnt, in agony and pain.

Burglars deserve to be shot but a zapper fence for a cat is just wrong, you can buy lots of anti-cats stuff from any vets/pet shop or even use organic means. I have two cats all i do is put lemon or lime rinds all over cats can't stand strong acid smells.