Fencing and "Barn" help

[sfmini]

Tape is easy to fix. just tie a knot in it. If it is too short for that, just cut a piece and tie it in.

Poly is about the same, they have these connector things.

 

[JanBKS]

For the poster that uses tape for visibility on her elec. fence, I have found a skein of white yarn works better, I cut it about 12 inches long or what ever size cardboard I can find to wrap it around ,cut one end and you have a bunch of strips just fold in half and attach to fence threw the end loop, lasts for years and when dirty they can still see it, they do slide but easy to move back.

I use cattle panels for all the minis I have one section in back that has been up for 10 years and not a problem ,with T-Posts.

I live on a main road and would never trust Elec fence for mini's so it all cattle panels.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Sassy Fillies]

Can a mini live with chickens? I'm not going to be able to get both minis like I wanted too :/

 

[AngC]

Can a mini live with chickens? I'm not going to be able to get both minis like I wanted too :/

We have chickens in the area; I can hear the coyotes take them out occasionally; it's pretty noisy. I don't know if coyotes can take out a mini horse. I'm betting Coco would kick their collective coyote butts.. But I also am hesitant to "chum" so I have no chickens. ...oh, and I wouldn't want to be picking horse poop out of the chicken poop---nasty stuff.

 

[paintponylvr]

If I remember right, there have been chickens as "mascots" for TB racehorses. I'm drawing blanks as to which ones, though.

I have had chickens in the barn w/ the horses - the hard part was keeping them from "chalking" all my equipment (they roosted in the rafters and seemed to move around a lot) and in the feed buckets. Finally got to where I opened up the feed bags, "sewed" (hay string and rug needles are wonderful things!) them together end to end and then turned the white part up and draped it over our equipment (which was hanging on the panels I used to separate out our feed area). Pic below shows the feed area w/ lead ropes, harness and all other hanging equipment hanging on the panels (Including helmets for our granddaughters and myself). And I see that this time, not all the bags are turned white up (made it easier to tell when I needed to "clean" the "drapes". Hmmm. Not even sure what the bright green thing to the right is (think it's a towel) - the blue is the farriers sweatshirt jacket. This also protected the equipment somewhat from both blowing rain and dust/sand. The feed bags had to be strapped to the posts on each end. Buckets - well, i got to the point if I saw one roosting where it would "drop" in a bucket, I used the "pick" (horse stall rake) to make it move. Poked "Din-Din" enough to make him roost at the very top of the rafters over the center of the open stall area - chalk mixed nicely w/ horse manure. Thought I had some other pics showing the equipment panel in the background, but guess not!

I didn't mind the chicken poop in w/ the horse manure. Nice mix - the chicken works better in our area for compost and fertilizer as the weed killers in the hay doesn't change when it goes thru a horse. Horse manure has to be composted for 2-3 years here before it can be used to fertilize your garden - especially TOMATOES, PEPPERS & CUKES! That was a TREMENDOUS blow for us - as I had planned on selling the manure to several area Nurseries - that backfired when the compost started killing all the plants. ALL of the hay suppliers in our area use some form of herbicide weed killer - none of which breaks down in 1 season...

You could check out a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD) or a cat (several of our barn cats will sleep on some of the pony's backs). Goats sometimes work as well - maybe a pygmy or Nigerian Dwarf (make sure to have them dis-budded if you get a kid or get an adult w/o horns). I've heard bad stories about goats/horses and I have one myself (my Arab mare picked up and "threw" a young mixed breed small goat when she got in her feed pan on the ground. When she flung her, it snapped her neck. And so that you know - that particular mare NEVER shared her feed with her foals either!) - so it doesn't always work.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

For the poster that uses tape for visibility on her elec. fence, I have found a skein of white yarn works better, I cut it about 12 inches long or what ever size cardboard I can find to wrap it around ,cut one end and you have a bunch of strips just fold in half and attach to fence threw the end loop, lasts for years and when dirty they can still see it, they do slide but easy to move back.

Be careful with this. I did that and a weanling ate the strips. Luckily, he passed them. But it could have been deadly. Older horses probably wouldn't bother them, but babies have to taste everything.

 

[BeeBopMini]

minis are escape artists, especially in the winter. We used to use hot wire but in the winter and their heavy coats, they could not feel a thing and just went under or thru it. I put up cattle panels with T-posts every 8 feet. I absolutely love them, easy to move if you have to, easy to add onto as you get more funds together and usually tractor supply has them on sale for only $20. for a 16 foot panel. We also put in 12 foot metal gates for easy access with the tractor for clean up. Can't beat this kind of set up, you can even make a really nice round pen out of cattle panels for training or turn one or two on its side and bow it up like a tunnel with a tarp over the top for a temporary house or for storage. As far as housing, its good to have a structure that they can escape from the wind or blowing snow. I have wood houses both 12 x 12 and smaller plus I purchased some metal hog huts and 3 horses love to cozy up in them, in the winter with the sun shining its darn warm in there. Some of mine have a choice between the hog huts and wood barns and they prefer the hog huts. Hope this helps

 

[Carly Rae]

I am on 13 acres but I section off my yards so they are closer and I just move them when they eat down all the grass. I use electric fence, Just one ribbon at nose height keeps mine in just fine, I got my electric fence off ebay for $150. It came with 5 kilometres of ribbon, a solar powered box and a heap of insulators. If you use ebay I could see If i can get a link to the same thing. But yeah, It seems to work great for me