This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

electric slug fence


Deer have caused me so much problems in the past
that I went to all the trouble to buy and install an
electric fence.  It works perfectly.
     If slugs cause you that much trouble, I don't see
why someone couldn't put up an electric  barrier for
them. 
     I don't know much about slugs, but if you were
considering putting a copper strip around your
veggies to stop them from crossing the line, how about
this:
     My electric fence "charger" cost me about $50.00 US.
It plugs into a 110 volt extension cord. (They also make
solar powered ones and battery powered ones.)  It has
a negative terminal that you hook up a wire to and run it to
a copper grounding rod. (basically a copper coated steel
rod that you have driven into the ground as deep as possible.)
(I used 1/2inch copper water pipe.  It was cheaper and
should actually do a better job making contact with the 
damp soil),
     To the positive terminal, you hook up your fence wire.
No need to use copper.  More on this later.  You then
string your fence wire using plastic insulators to keep it from
coming in contact with anything that would have contact with
the ground.  You just end the wire anywhere.  (You don't
connect this end of the wire to anything.)
     When the charger is turned on, it tries to send a pulse of high
voltage,
low amperage, electricity through the positive terminal and thus through
the wire.  It can't do that as long as nothing is completing the circuit
between the fence wire and the ground.  When something touches
the wire and is standing on the ground, the circuit is completed and
an electric charge goes all the way from the positive terminal through
the fence wire, through the "animal", through the ground (soil), through
the grounding rod, through the grounding wire, to the negative terminal.
     There are probably an endless number ways to accomplish this
to stop ground hugging creatures.  
     The normal fence wire I use is 17 gauge galvanized steel wire.
This is what is sold by the 1/4 mile for electric fences.  Any wire
will do.  They also make a finely stranded wire imbedded in a 1/2 inch
wide yellow nylon tape that accomplishes the same thing.  This tape
could be glued or electrical taped to the top of a long insulator(perhaps
an old garden hose?) and strung along the ground around anything
you want to protect.  The hose should provide enough insulation
and distance from the ground to keep the circuit "open" until
some ground dweller tries to cross it.  It seems that the slime
on a slug would be a perfect conductor to set the charge off.
     Hey, since my electric fence is already set up, it should
be easy for me to run a additional line to test this out.  I won't
be able to test it on slugs or snails or rats or snakes or anything fun,
but
at least I can find out if this system is viable.  
     In the meantime, try to think of other insulators that may
work better than a garden hose.
     Hopefully I will try this tomorrow.

Stan                the cheap and lazy gardener

_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index