I'm tired of feeding the wild life my chickens and I'm going to set up an electric fence. I've got several energizers (2, 5, and 20 mile), wire, t-posts and insulators, short ground rods, and inexperience. I plan to set up the energizer in my tractor shed and run the wire around t-posts set up around my coups. I'll set one run of wire down low to take care of possums and second level for coyotes/dogs. I know the ground post wire goes to the ground rod and the other wire goes to the positive post but where does the end of the positive wire end? Should I get a longer ground rod?

 

Your charger will either plug into a regular wall socket or have a + and - for connecting to a battery or 12 VDC source to power the charger. So, if you are asking about that positive then it goes to the + of your power supply or battery.

The charger output will have a separate + and -. The output - most often goes to the ground rod driven into the ground but it can also be used to create negative wires on your fence. The + goes to wires on your fence.

Longer ground rods are better especially during dry periods as they can reach deeper and hopefully get to soil that's moist for a better ground. If you get really dry then the ground rod can be almost useless making the fence almost useless. In that case it's helpful to run both + and - wires on your fence. That way the critter isn't using the soil as ground. They just touch a couple wires and get a good zap even when the ground is too dry to be a good conductor/ground.

 

I was thinking of running one continuous wire from the positive post and go around my coups a couple of times. Does the tag end of that wire just hang loose? Do I tie it off? Do I wrap it around an insulator? I'm probably overthinking this.

 

You don't have to terminate the end of the positive wire in any particular fashion. The circuit is completed when an animal touches it and the ground. Just don't forget larger animals, such as foxes can catapult quite high and clear your fence if it is not high enough. I think you plan has merits, just carry it far enough to take care of all the predators.

 

Thanks, I hadn't considered foxes. Haven't seen to many in central Texas but my wife said she saw one down the road from us.

 

Between slate rock being hard to penetrate and maybe being a little lazy, I've not used a ground rod on my electric fence. I utilize the bottom strand of barb wire as the ground, it's also hooked to steel fence posts which grounds it a little more. It works well like that. If you don't believe me - ask my goat