Newbie Raccoon question

[Pat]

twstanley, A most interesting question... how do they know it is hot without touching it. Well, it is pretty high voltage... Maybe it produces enough ozone for them to sense it.

Also... on shooting coons. If I had your problem and couldn't take it as a chalenge and fix it (non-leathally) and economically within my resources of time, interest, etc. I'd probably resort to lethal means of control as well. I sure wouldn't let it continue if I had the means to remedy it. Just remember... if you shoot it ya gotta eat it. Boy am I glad I do most of my killing with traps!

I use large powerful conibear traps that are definitely leathal. I won't use leg hold anymore. It is enough to kill, I don't have to make them suffer.

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[twstanley]

The little fence tester I hvae with the multiple neon bulbs says our fence hits about 8-9k volts when its at its ungrounded best.

I forgot it was hot about a week after I put it in and touched it with leather insulated gloves on and heavy insulated rubber boots on, on dry ground and it still gave me quite a zap, so I know its pretty potent. The blue arc that it produces on a short to a metal T post is a bit scary.

I "thought" I could smell a bit of ozone around the fence when I first turned it on, but I may have been imagining it. But I wouldn't doubt that 9 thousand volts along a 12 gauge steel aluminum clad wire would give off some ozone.

- Tim

[Pat]

twstanley, I haven't made the test but suspect that with the capacitance value of your body you could get a noticible jolt even if you were standing on a good insulator with no DC path to ground. This is due to the relatively fast rise time of the pulse which when analyzed (with Fourier transforms... AKA math stuff) is found to contain lots of high frequency components. The equivalent "resistance" of a capacitor is frequency dependent and varies inversely with the frequency.

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[450EXC]

Thanks again for all the advice.

No sign of the coon since last daylight sighting, but I think there are a few out there. I was mainly concerned with the rabies thing.

Our chickens are locked up in the coop at night and no feed outside. A few ducks and geese in the barn. The coop is pretty tight but I'm sure coons could find a way in the barn if they wanted but no sign yet. Keeping every one inside makes for a lot of cleanup work though. Moses, a Great Pyrenees, lives in the barn also. Grace lives in the house.

Thanks again, could'nt do it without you guys. Larry