--- On Tue, 8/5/08, Diane Trefethen <tref@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Diane Trefethen <tref@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [RC] Can a horse wearing Easyboots get shocked by electric fence? To: "Ridecamp" <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2008, 7:13 PM
> I had an electrical engineer in my cube when this email came in I had
> replied back to Sharon privately with him saying the horse would not get
> shocked.
> No, the easy boots will provide the insulation for the electricity with
> or without shoes. The only possible way that the shoes could bypass the
> insulation is if the shoes protrude beyond the boots and are touching
> the ground directly.
If the horse/human is wearing insulating material (easy boot/sneaker), I
believe the answer will depend on a) the shortest distance between the
horse/human and the ground and b) the strength of the charge.
a) Electricity arcs. If you have a fairly strong fence charger and your
ground bar is in moist soil, you don't have to actually touch the wire
to get zapped. Put your hand close enough and the electricity will arc
out to you.
b) Think big. I'm sure you can see that if you are standing in the
middle of a field wearing sneakers and you get hit by a bolt of
lightning (30 million volts), you are toast... literally.
So if you put your hand on a wire with a weak charge and you are wearing
new sneakers without holes in the bottom you probably won't get shocked,
unless a blade of the grass you are standing in is just millimeters from
the conductive part of your shoe. The same would be true for a horse.
Weak charge + easy boots without holes should protect the horse from a
shock, until it puts it's head down to pick up that stray piece of hay
or walks through grass tall enough to touch his leg.
I expect someone out there with a degree in electrical engineering could
refine these points to precise numbers of millimeters paired with
precise voltage. Isn't that what those high school physics experiments
were about, seeing how much voltage at how many inches/feet produced arcing?
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