Installation Guides: Hot Grass & Hot Vines

See this page for Hot Grass and Hot Vine installation photos, videos, and downloadable PDF's.

Hot Vine Installation Methods
The large tree pictured on the left has been recently relocated to this habitat and is fragile, so the animal staff are using our Hot Vines to train the gorillas in the exhibit to avoid it. The black horizontal bands you see in the photo are EZ Ties, which we used to attach the vines to the tree. You can also use screws and zip ties (like in the photo above) or galvanized staples to attach vines to trees, walls or rock work.

When attaching a vine to a tree, make sure the curled points are sticking out away from the tree and other plants/objects. These copper curls are the electrified "hot" points which deliver the training signal. One way to do this is to "gnarl" the vine before attaching it to the tree-- see the Hot Vine installation video below for more info.

Creating Hot Vine Trunks and Branches
When installing Hot Vines on larger trees or walls, we recommend you begin with at least one vertical "trunk" vine, then create "branches".

To create a branch, first zip-tie two vines together (as shown in the photo) then carefully twist together the base of the two curly "hot" points.

Connecting to the Electric Fence Charger
In the Hot Vine photo below, you can see the vine's electrical attachment point at the end of the vine near the base of the tree. To create this attachment point, cut the long wire that is protruding out from the vine on one end to about 3" long and bend it up into a "j" shape. For more info, see the installation video below.

In the Hot Grass photo on the right below, you can see how wire from the electric fence charger is crimped to the first Hot Grass clump in the chain. For more info, see the installation video below.