What attributes should pasture fencing have for horse safety?
This injury was a result of a horse being terrified when fireworks were let off. It is these instances which truly test the safety of our fences, a post and rail fence can look great and it is usually higly visible however if your horse is galloping in blind panic the only fence that is going to prevent injury is one that is not there to collide with!! But as we a horse naturally roams we need fences to keep our horses secure. How smart is it then to have a fence that when hit under impact may splinter, impale or break bones? When fencing for horse turn out paddocks and fields you may want to take into consideration, what likely injuries your horse might sustain when it is in "panicked gallop" speed (this is the gear just before they break the sound barrier) and think they can gallop through fences.... solid post and rail is great on yards where a horse cannot get up to great speeds and therefore impact to break the actual fence.
So what do we recommend 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, consider what would happen if your beloved equine hit the fence at full gallop, and correct installation needs to be a priority. No fence is going to be safe if it could 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 with no fencing injuries!
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 what would be to risk? 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. We do not recommend the use of outriggers on these fences unless they are installed directly on top of fence posts increasing the height of the fence rather than the width of it. We also recommend that in this case you are best to have a electrified wire that can be broken. I have plucked a weanling foal from a wire fence that had an electrified outrigger top wire. He had tried to jump the fence but caught his back leg in the fence, unable to free himself and getting shocked he did more damage trying to get away from the electric current.
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.
