We have electric fence here for the horses, and they don't test it anymore, most of our fence isn't very hot anymore from all the patches from the deer running through it.

That being said, your critter is probably ransacking your garden at night, yes? If the critter you want to shock has thick skin, then you'll want a decent AC charger to zap the culprit hard and make him respect the boundary.

I have only electric around my garden, the only thing it does not keep out is squirrels. Bottom wire is about 4 inches off the ground, and keeping the grass and weeds off it is a pain, but worth it. My problem was raccoons, and it keeps them out. and deer. and neighbors.
I don't know about the new solar chargers, but the batteries in the older ones were notorious for going bad and being really expensive, but that was many years ago. The one piece of advice I will give is drive your ground rod DEEP. Rebar driven 6-8 ft in. I have had to help two people who's chargers were 'bad' and they literally had it lying on the ground. with some dirt thrown over it.
I would check Tractor supply for AC prices. Or your local feed store.

Could something have climbed your wire fence?

I use an old plugged in fence charger. The plate says it has a 10-mile range. I burns foliage that touches the wire and when the insulators are wet it will throw sparks across the face of the insulators to the post or fastener. Once in a while something small gets into the garden, baby rabbits or the like, but I haven't had any deer or raccoons in there since the fence went up 3 years ago.

My plug-in fence has killed squirrels with the bottom wire abut 4-5 inches off ground, It was obvious that their tails had contacted the wire as they walked underneath it. Lol True,it's a pain to keep weeds off it.

Thanks! I think I'll stick with an AC model and just bring the wires under my deck and up to the ac outlet on the house. It's got an overhang to protect it from the elements there. I'm mainly concerned about keeping out groundhogs or rabbits because I think they are doing the damage. We do have skunks and raccoons but I don't grow corn so I dont think the raccoons would eat anything? But, I guess the electric fence will take care of that anyways. No deer around me, I'm to subburban. How many strands of wire do people run? What wire is best to use? The rope-type seems easiest to use? And, would it be OK to use 2x2 posts driven into the ground to connect the wire? Could the animals climb the 2x2 posts to avoid electric fence or am I being too paranoid? I have extra 2x2 posts that I'd like to use and avoid having to buy posts.
Harveyhorses, the groundhog may have climbed the wire fence, or snuck through by my deck stairs, which have an opening to the garden (I put hardware cloth there this weekend, after the damage.

I originally had an expensive solar power unit but it failed after only one year. I am now using a much cheaper AC unit that works well.

I think the best wire is the cheapest wire. I use those yellow or black plastic stand offs. Some can be nailed directly to the fence or the fence posts. Others are designed for T posts which is an easy solution if you don't have other posts. I have plenty of deer and rabbits so my wires go from 2-3 inches off the ground up to 9' high. If you already have a fence, I would think one wire would do the trick.

You haven't actually described your damage. What are you seeing? You are familiar with gophers??

The damage so far is several cabbages had leaves eaten, 3 of my radicchio were eaten, and 1 of my lettuces had leaves eaten. The damage was not nearly as severe as last year when I had groundhogs getting in. My guess is that its a bunny? My neighbor said he saw one in his yard. Maybe it's a baby that could squeeze through the wire fence. All my beds are raised, 12" high so I am unsure if a baby bunny could get into them. I would think more of the plants would have been eaten if it was a groundhog. Last year, the groundhogs mowed down my cabbages in September.

Hey tedposey, what kind of set up do you have? They are not designed to kill, only shock.
I use the rope kind, but only because I can see it, I think the plain wire is the best if it is in addition to your fence. They also make it that can be buried, for going under gates, so you could use that to get the zap to your fence.

My neighbor has a fence only system outside of raised beds. We have plenty of rabbits here. Our county used to be known for supplying rabbit fur for folks up north 100-150 years ago. They can indeed squeeze between small gaps or wide grid wire fence as my neighbor has unfortunately found. Rabbit stew?

I picked up a Zareba 25 mi AC charger yesterday at Tractor supply. I have 1 side of the garden with no wooden fence, just the wire fence which I'll replace with the electric. The metal wire seems cheapest, but the string seems much easier to work with. The tape was very expensive. So, I didn't buy anything. I figured I'd go home and make a plan before I invested in the whole setup. I want to take the wire fence down, since it's 4 ft and a pain to get in and out of. I'm thinking I'll make to gates with the rubber handles they sell so I can get in at 2 areas. How far apart do people place the posts?

I'm not clear about your layout so let me explain mine. Originally I had a 6' high fence with 7' T posts driven in approx 1 foot. When I went to 9' high I replaced T posts with 4X4" posts. I used 5 T posts (one for a gate like you are planning). My garden is 32X37'. I think one could go 50' without a problem if you used regular electric fence wire. I left the 5th Tpost since the gate didn't need to be 9' high.

If I had it to do over, I would be more particular about setting my 4x4 posts. I should have added more rocks to prevent the posts from sagging inward. I certainly wouldn't use cement since I may want to move them. Doesn't look so sharp but it keeps the critters out if I remember to turn it on!

I'm not understanding your question about difficulty about stringing the wire. If you wanted, you could use one roll of wire attached at one end with slack by the charger, and slipped between each stand off around and around all the posts or fences at ever higher levels (or not) depending on your height needs. As I learned afterward, it would have been wiser to have run the wire around the inside of the posts to prevent them getting shorted on the wooden posts at one of the corners. The stand offs only stood off on one side. More judicous nailing of the standoffs to the exact edge of the posts might work as well. If you are going outside of part of a fence, then going inside the post probably won't be possible.

I put mine about 10' + or -, depends on how many rocks I have to avoid. The String is easier in one way, but is harder (for me anyway) to make connections. It also allows you to put the posts father apart.There are tiny little wires running through it and they will fray. You could get the sort of clip on insulators that stick out about 5 inches and clip them to the wire fence if you don't want to take it down. That is what I have on my chicken run.

harveyhorses, constant charge fence chargers with 1350 volt outputs have enough amperage to kill squirrels. On the other hand, the pulse chargers would not.

There are earlier posts showing that some folks were not having good luck with the pulse chargers to control larger animals like raccoons. This is the reason why many folks will go with the constant charge fence transformers.

Chas045, sorry its hard to describe my backyard. I'm an urban gardener, so my garden is almost my entire backyard (which isn't big). It's about 50'x30. The back and both sides are wooden fences, and half the front side borders my deck, so I'm looking to fence the front side part that isn't bordering my deck. I will try to take some pictures this weekend. I want to get rid of the 4' wire fence that is currently on the frontside, because it's not that secure, and it's cumbersome to get in and out of.

Wow grandad, when the pulse chargers are strong enough to contain cattle and horses, I didn't realize coons were so much tougher. We had 20 acres fenced and it kept our horses in and seperated. I don't like the constant chargers, really don't want to kill, just keep out. Also I am a real klutz, and my hair is already curly. ;)
Anyway mine works for me. I had been using the wide tape, but it does not hold up well IME.

I concur that constant charge is best. I have two, one constant (about 850V, bought 16 yrs ago) and one pulsed (2700 V, two yrs ago), and there is no doubt that the constant one is the one that really has 100% rejection rate when in use. A ground wire buried around the fence will further improve rejection efficiency, and peanut butter on the wire every now and again will also help. As far as wire vs tape, the wire lasts forever.

I've been using a Parmak solar charger for years and have had no reliability problems at all. You will need to replace the battery after a few years, but that is true of all solar chargers. I am leery of chargers running of the mains with worries about lightning and so forth.

I too had problems with groundhogs. I have a small fence, about 3', just above the top of which I run a line of electric fence tape. My theory is that the groundhog will hit his head on this, and get a shock (these things do have quite a jolt). So far this has worked well. It is a hassle to run a tape down near the ground, due to the weeds, and I don't do this and don't need to, since the fence keeps things out at this level. I strongly support the suggestion to make sure you have a ground rod going deep into the ground; in fact, I use two 6' rods linked together -- this really makes a difference to the power of the fence.

harverhorses, good point. I see now that I should have been a bit more specific..... I had an opportunity to dove hunt a couple of years ago on a cattle farm. They had pulse chargers that were output 5000 volts - not sure of the current. They obviously had enough capacity to keep the cattle inside of the field. But still, I wonder if these would provide enough of a pulse to zap a squirrel should one make contact with the wire.

In any case, now that you mention it, I believe it was the low voltage pulse chargers that were being defeated by the coons. And perhaps the cause was not with the pulsing alone but also with grounding out the low voltage charge. One blade of grass contacting the wire will drop the charge on my constant fence charger about 200 volts.

Any suggestions for Squirrels ? I started with a deer fence (6') to slow them down but was pretty sure that I'd have to reinforce as the season progressed. First, our raised beds with hardware cloth did a great job of protecting against gophers which destroyed everything last year. As tomatoes began to ripen, friends often mentioned seeing squirrel activity and soon there was a tasted tomato each day, and the number of tasting has continued to increase.

Steps I've taken in defense: 1. put bird netting across top of 6 foot deer fence; 2. Knitted edges of netting together when they found it was easy to go between; 3. Ringed lower part of plastic deer fence with chicken wire to keep them from eating a hole to enter through; 4. Used wolf urine as a deterrent; 5. sprayed tomatoes with hot pepper spray that I made with garden's hot peppers, and 6. I try to plug obvious holes as I plan on a higher fence (our tomato plants are growing to about 6 feet + the raised bed) and either a squirrel proof roofing material, but would prefer a ring of electric fence at the top of the side fencing. SUGGESTIONS ?

If you want to use plain wire and need to see it just tie pieces of old sheet or white to-shirts every few feet. This is what we used to do so the horses could see it, before the invention of tape fencing.
Also, you can use 1" PVC pipe with the bottom sharpened and holes drilled where you run the wire or string through as the PVC works just like an insulator.
I used a solar charger for many years with horses and cattle. Never had a problem.
If the fence isn't very hot water the ground rod, and make sure you have 2-3 rods very deep,in the ground.
Sounds like that fence that burns grass would be a serious fire hazard in dry weather.