Hard-Wired Barn Water Trough Heaters - GFCI??

[jap]

I understand, from experience though there is is only one dead cow, the others just stay away.

It is the same way with electric fences, cows or even horses only get hit a time or two and after that they just stay away from it. You don't even have to energize it in many cases and it will contain them. With pigs, they have a higher curiosity level and have to come back and test that thing every so often.

Its not the same. Electric fences dont kill livestock or nobody would use them.
Last time I checked one dead cow is much more expensive than the GFI Protection would be, and I personally wouldnt use "There's only one dead cow" as a guage to say it was a healthy average for not using it.

But that's just me.

 

[kwired]

Its not the same. Electric fences dont kill livestock or nobody would use them.
Last time I checked one dead cow is much more expensive than the GFI Protection would be, and I personally wouldnt use "There's only one dead cow" as a guage to say it was a healthy average for not using it.

But that's just me.

I was merely pointing out why you typically will only find one dead cow but may find several dead hogs in such a situation. If no cows are drinking when the fault happens they generally just keep their distance as they can feel the voltage shells around the faulted equipment before they come in contact, with four feet and a longer distance between them they are naturally crossing further distance and voltage than people and will feel it from further distance away, plus they don't wear any shoes to provide additional insulation.

Quite frankly I have seen very few cases where an animal was killed, the cows just stay away, pigs just aren't housed in unconditioned spaces all that much anymore so no heaters are necessary to keep their water from freezing. I have said I may not object to 30ma GFP but still think 4-6 ma GFCI would have a lot of "nuisance tripping". The main key here is having good and proper EGC and you will not have much trouble with shock and electrocution hazards.