Start at the Energiser, Not at the Fence
Every electric fence check begins at the energiser, because a fault found there explains everything downstream and a fault missed there invalidates the whole walk. Confirm the unit has power, from the mains or a charged battery, listen and look for its pulse indicator working at its normal rhythm, and check the output and earth terminals for corrosion, loose clamps, or a cracked case letting in weather. If the energiser has a built-in meter, note the reading at the terminals before you walk anywhere; that number is your fence's best possible performance, and comparing it with the far-end reading later tells you how much the line itself is losing along the way.
Test at the Farthest Point, Not the Nearest
Voltage must be measured where the fence works hardest, which is the point electrically farthest from the energiser, not the convenient post beside the yard gate. Use a proper fence tester rather than a blade of grass or the back of your hand; the tester gives you a number you can write down and compare with last time, which is how a slowly failing fence gets caught while it is still a trend rather than an escape. Work back toward the energiser in sections if the far reading is low, testing at each junction and gate, and the section where the reading jumps back up is the section holding your fault. Animals learn a weak fence by testing it, so a declining reading is urgent even if nothing has got out yet.
Walk the Line: Vegetation, Slack, and Insulators
More electric fence failures live along the line than at the energiser, and the commonest is green growth shorting the pulse into the ground. Walk every metre with the fence off where you are working, cutting back grass, bramble, and hedge growth touching any live wire, and looking for fallen branches after wind. Check insulators post by post for cracks and for wire that has slipped off its insulator and is resting on wood or steel, which bleeds the pulse away silently. Take up slack: a sagging wire meets the animal lower, tangles with the wire below, and swings in the wind until it shorts on a post, so tension and spacing are containment, not cosmetics.
Earth Stakes and Gates Decide Whether It Works
An electric fence is a circuit the animal completes, so the earth system deserves the same attention as the live wire, and it is the part most often skipped. Check that the earth stakes are driven deep in soil that stays reasonably moist, that the connecting lead is sound and clamped tight, and that there are enough stakes for the energiser's size, since a dry, undersized earth is the classic reason a fence tests well at the unit and deters nothing in the field. Then check gates as fences in their own right: the underground or overhead cable carrying the pulse across the gateway, sprung handles that actually reconnect when closed, and no stretch where an animal can slip under a gate the current never reaches.
Retest, Record, and Treat the Reading as a Baseline
Finish the check by going back to the farthest point and testing again, because a fence check that ends on repairs without a fresh reading is a guess wearing a hi-vis vest. Write the final voltage, the date-free facts that matter (which section was cleared, which insulators were replaced, battery charged or swapped) into your farm records, so the next check starts from a known baseline and a falling trend shows up early. Walk the boundary from the animal's side too, looking for digging, rubbing, or a learned weak spot. And if stock still gets through one night, KinsLe's Lost Pet Alert System alerts nearby members at no cost, and a finder can message you directly about the escapee.