Fencing horses - what is the best fence?
Understand the purpose of the fence, it is to contain your horse, often the true measure of our fences safety is not appreciated until our horse contacts the fence in an attempt to escape or because he never saw it in a moment of play. Weaning time, guy fawkes, thunder storms, new horses are all great catalysts to fencing disasters with horses.
How will the fence hold up in a moment like this? What is the likely consequence if your horse hits the fence at full gallop after being startled? Or how hard would he fight to free himself if he found himself stuck in a fence?
There are many horse fences but there is no best horse fence. Each fencing type has inherrent trade offs in its features. We can however consider a few factors when considering a fence safety for horses:
1. Horses are far-sighted, they scan the horizon for danger. So any fence should be clearly visible when a horse is close to it.
2. A fence should be secure enough to contain a horse that runs into it without causing injury to or fence damage. A fence with give will minimise impact injuries and broken bones.
3. A fence should be high enough to discourage the horse to jump it, and solid enough to discourage a horse from testing it.
4. There should be no openings that could trap a hoof or a head (this is why the use of outriggers needs to be very carefully managed).
5. There should be no sharp edges or protrusions from the fence (gate latches, gudgeons etc) that could cause injury if a horse ran or fell into them.
6. It should be inexpensive to install, easy to maintain (would you rather be riding or fixing a fence?).
My experience leads me to recommend the following fences for the following scenarios:
For horse yards and stalls - I recommend very sturdy post and rail fencing. As it is not likely your horse will have room to get up to a gallop in a yard or a stall. With this in mind they are not likely to suffer impact injuries. The rails need to be strong enough to take the full weight of your horse leaning or pushing on and over the rails, and high enough that he is by no way tempted to jump the top. For a hack I would recommend a 1.40m yard height. Also due to the small space of a yard it is not recommended to electrify a yard - if a horse gets a shock it will naturally try to move away from the fence - imagine if when he did this he received another shock from the other side of the yard!
For pasture fencing - it is preferable that a lower cost option is used given that your pasture paddocks will have larger runs of fencing to do. There are many options on the market for suitable pasture fencing, but the key things to consider here are visbility of the fence line, what would happen if your beloved equine hit the fence at full gallop, and correctly installed it should not allow a horse to easily get tangled in the fence. Another consideration should be the maintenance required and ease of this maintenance for your fence. If you have to wait for a fencer to show up everytime something needs re-tightening, or adjusting on your pasture fences it soon gets expensive and annoying!
For permamanent pasture fencing it is preferable to choose a product that is going to last more than 10 years. It takes considerable effort to put a fence up, you dont' want to purchase a fence that is going to look great for 2 years and then start to sag, discoulour and require more and more maintenance to look great.
Electrifying pasture fences can prevent horse pushing on or through fences, further reducing the chances of accidental intanglement - because like the head of the herd, if a fence kicks a horse will keep its distance! and give the fence a certain amount of respect! One of the most effective methods I have seen on a horse property that had stallions and mares coming and going and young horses being broken and weaned was double fenced electrified fence. Not many people could boast having two stallions next to each other
We recommend Electrobraid for permanent pasture fencing and have had great feed back from customers on its visbility, ease of installation and horse safety benefits, as well as the 25 year warranty. Here is what one of our customers wrote a Horse Talk Forum about Electrobraid:
"Ive put up about 3.5km of the stuff, 3 and 4 wire about 1 km of fence.
Benefits are - costs about the same as 7 wire post and batten, posts at about 10m instead of 5, highly visible, easy to put up once posts rammed, easy to take down and up again, lasts longer than wire fence in salt spray zone, much more pleasant to handle.
Now, thats before safety aspect. If you want a story - we have a young (4) mare, thinks shes a foal again, was doing a leer and flinging herself around. Did a pig buck, a huge double barrel, spun around in the air and came down with her back legs stuck out backwards - straight on top of the fence! The braid stretched right down to the ground, then fired her back up. We were watching all this with open mouths - shot down to check on her - not a mark!
I reckon that fence just paid for itself in angst and vet fees!" Dave Fish - The Fresian Stud home of Wabe.
If you are trying to keep costs down you can minimise the amount of strands to suit your horses. After all if your perimeter fences are robust and your property is enclosed if a horse manages to bounce through an internal fence into another paddock as long as it is not injured, you need to weigh up the risk and if it really going to cause an issue (obviously if the answer is "depends if he bounces into the Stallions paddock" you will have your answer)!!
I would never recommend high tensile wire be used for a pasture fence, however often we buy properties which already have this fencng installed. The best thing you can do if taking it out is not an economical option is make sure it is tensioned correctly, add a top rail to it to increase its visbility or alternatively add a breakable but highly visbile electrified top wire to it.
After witnessing the two seperate but equally horrific accidents caused by horses going through a post and rail fence - I am not sure I would recommend post and rail as a pasture fence either. If the rails used are not strong enough they will break and splinter which can cause a nasty impalement injury, and if you use strong rails that won't break - your horse probably will break bones.
For Perimeter Fencing - strong, tall and handsome is best. However as many of us don't have the budget for a strong post and rail perimeter fence we may need to resort to high tensile fencing to keep other animals out and our animals in. I recommend double fencing if you are able to where your horse paddocks might intercept this fence, and plant a lovely row of shrubby trees (which will provide shelter as well as visibility to your horse).
