Where do birds go to die

I had another pigeon come to visit but this one was the racing/homing/city type although it didn't have rings around it's legs. It seemed very thirsty as came up close while I was watering the garden and was drinking the runoff on the lawn, it also ate some cat mince but it's mouth wasn't big enough to eat the cat crunchies so I broke those up for it with a stone, it hung around for a couple of days, spending the one day in the alcove at my front door, then disappeared, I hope it was just recuperating and has continued it's journey and isn't dead.

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

Mythbusters busted this in S1 Ep 6 in the case of the constant 650 volts 3rd rail train lines the have in the US.

MythBusters (TV Series 2003–2018) - IMDb

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I've been thinking about this and what I said about the apparent 'spike' could well be wrong, but in the field that's the way it presents.......... and I've copped a few. I've sometimes been in contact with the wire (supposedly off) for 20 sec, then wham.

If there is constant voltage (not doubting this) how come it is just a split second belt? Is the system working like an ignition coil?

My uncle used to manufacture plastic insulators out of poly pipe for connecting tree guards to the main electric fence line on his farm in the Strathbogies.

All his fences were electrified and he had bare fluoro tubes on the electric wires that glowed faintly at night from induction so he could see at a glance that everything was working and the cattle were in check, which suggests constant voltage.

cheers, David L

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Originally Posted by 350RRC

If there is constant voltage (not doubting this) how come it is just a split second belt? Is the system working like an ignition coil?

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Some (not all) have a constant voltage to indicate continuity (end to end). They all however use a pulse for high voltage. The more agricultural use an ignition coil, and the more refined use bespoke transformers and fancy electronics, but they are all pulses.

Constant DC high voltage is a recipe for death as it induces a consistent muscle contraction and you can't let go. Short high voltage pulses don't do that, they hurt more and you can use a much higher voltage to assist in overcoming skin/hide resistance to make sure it "bloody hurts".

When I did some work in South Africa back in the late 90's we looked at some lethal ones. 2 warning pulses 750ms apart and the third one 750ms later is the "big one". They worked by detecting the additional resistance applied to the fence during the warning pulses and cranking the voltage up to "overcome the additional load". We got asked whether the Prison system here would be interested into looking at them. We backed away quietly.