fencing in your minis

[~Karen~]

What kind(s) of fencing do you use?

We are considering a wire mesh type fencing but not sure how it would hold up, so I am wondering what do you use for your little ones, and how well is it holding up? Are they as hard on fencing as the big horses?

~Karen

 

[Warpony]

right now i am using pitiful electric wire fencing. I am going to gradually replace it all with welded wire fencing (2x4 inch square) with two strands of electric around the inside to keep them from walking it down or rubbing on it. The electric is to keep them in, the rest is to keep everything else out.

I have the wire mesh type stuff around my dog run and when I put the little guy out there to eat the grass down he leans on it and itches his butt on it until it starts to stretch, so no way could I get away with using it without electric around the inside to keep him from making a mess out of it.

 

[Gena]

We have four strands of the 2 inch white tape electric fencing around all of the pastures (with the white pvc covers for the t-posts), and in the pastures for the new foals we added chain link on the inside WITH a single white electic rope running along the inside of it to keep the horses off of the chainlink...we have wolves and dogs in our area so it was worth it to us to double up on the fencing. It works nicely and the bonus is it makes your place look nice. We have had it up seven years now and we rarely need to restretch it in the spring and there is still no yellowing or sun damage, the fence still looks new

:

 

[Charlotte]

We have the 2x4 'no climb' horse fence (that is what it is called) I went for the heavy gauge on our outside perimiter fencing, but I think a lighter gauge would do too. It has been up since fall of '97 and dspite all the butt rubbing etc. it has never needed tightening or any repair. We have a roaming dog problem in this area so the fence is put down to and even into the ground in some places. That is for a 2 1/2 acre pasture.

For smaller areas and dry lots I use cattle panels with T posts every????I think 5-6 feet. Having plenty of T posts is the secret to the cattle panels staying good.

In some areas the cattle panels are welded to pipe fencing.....now that's the best )

Charlotte

 

[chandab]

I primarily use the mesh cattle panels, they seem to work really well and they keep the dogs out. I do have some portable pipe panels that use for temporary pens, but bring the horses into their mesh pens at dark.

 

[ibquackers20]

I use the old way I think with treated 4" round post 3 feet above ground and 2 feet below,then long 16 foot wooden rails/logs about 3-4" around.

The post are hammered into the ground about 8 feet apart from each other, then I strung all arouns on the inside page wire so they can not stick their heads through and ware their manes off - this also helps keep big dogs out or anything else big that might hurt my babies.

We will be putting in poles this summer all around our property with page wire so nothing gets in or out - here is a photo , I did goof and not put the page wire right to the ground in one of my corrals but will fix that this summer - will add to it and put small fencing around the trees in there before they kill them off.The red old barn way in the back is where I store my carts and the poles for next summers projects.

 

[PaintedPromiseRanch]

sounds like wire works for some but around here they tear it up almost as fast as the big horses do. we use pipe fencing... even 3-rail keeps most of them in, but i do have one mini who has figured out how to walk right through the 2 bottom rails... and she's easily 35"! however 4-rail keeps everyone on our property contained. we do have some 6- and 7-rail we use for the jacks (donkey studs) and for the foaling pen (this after one filly drove mama crazy by continually getting out of mama's pen and then playing peek-a-boo with poor mama who could NOT get out...). we sometimes line pipe fencing with wire, but it seems no matter what kind we get, they eventually tear it up.

 

[Warpony]

sounds like wire works for some but around here they tear it up almost as fast as the big horses do.

If I don't put in electric to keep them off it mine wreck it in no time, the rotten little boogers.

 

[Marty]

The only fence I trust is field fencing and it's backed up with two strands of hot wire.

I have dog and predator issues too so I not only have to keep mine in, but keep other critters out.

Without the hotwire, yea, they'll sit in it and wreck it.

It's all held up by metal tee posts 8 feet apart.

I also have a three board high and four board high field. They can sneak right out of that easy.

 

[VerticallyChallenged]

Our pastures are fenced in four strands of Electrobraid, never had a problem with anyone, big or small, going through it. Our paddock is fenced in the 2 x 4 mesh fencing.....but I also have a strand of electric on the inside. My mini is quite hard on anything that doesn't have a hot wire. He's always rubbin!

 

[SHANA]

I have mesh fencing for my minis and large horses and works great, they do rub their bums on it but each spring we just take tighten it, it doesn't stretch that much. I also use electric but have some minis who just walk right through it so mesh is much better.

 

[HobbsFarm]

I have three steel rail with wooden posts and my mini horses and donkeys don't get out of it. We do have the gates that are a "V" shape in it. I'm not sure what the techinical name is, but my husband and one of our farmhand's (who is Mexican) calls it a Mexican gate. It's real neat because you don't have to open and shut a big gate. You just walk through the "V" and your in. The full size horses can't make the turn but a couple of the mini's can. So we have to keep lead ropes wrapped around when the little one's are out there. I think I have a picture of it. Found one, Here is the only one I could find with the gate in there. Hope you can see it. Looking down on it, it looks like this... -----<----- There are lots of great ideas on here too!

Shannon

 

[Jill]

Our fencing is a combination of heavy guage field fencing and cattle panels -- both on oak posts. We are gradually switching it over to all cattle panels as we have time (got a pile of panels in the yard waiting to be installed). I like the cattle panels because they are very sturdy and keep dogs out.

You can see how it looks kind of in the backgrounds here. The panels are 16' long and we have the oak posts spaced every 8'.

 

[justjinx]

Most of our fencing is heavy gage cattle panels. With these guys it seems to hold up the best. A plus is that it CAN be moved pretty easily if needed. We feel it is definately worth the cost.

jennifer :saludando:

 

[Candice]

We went with the 2x4 (no climb) horse fencing. However instead of using the t type metal posts, we used full wood poles set deep (sugar sand) here. They do rub on it but the way my husband installed this fence it is going no where. Where their paddock borders our neighbors pasture we put barbed wire accross the top. (Keeps their horse from pushing down).

Our issue is with the gates we bought. The 4ft tube type gate. Never again will I buy one without mesh wire on it. My little stallion can get his head thru there and lift that sucker off its hinges. Hubby reversed the top hinge, so the little snot worked the gate so hard he got the ring for the chain pulled out and was able to drop the gate again. He is persistent!!!

Good luck with your fencing project. We're getting ready to fence off another section of our front yard (everything delivered the other day) and I'm dreading it.

 

[Sonya]

I used 4ft no climb wire mesh. Also called "goat fence". The squares were 2x4. 5 1/2 ft tposts (set about 8 ft apart) and on the corners and gates wood posts. It is very inexpensive and nice looking (I also used the same fencing for my goats and chickens). I did put one strand of hotwire about mini but level to keep them from rubbing on it. It worked great, no problems with predators, etc...

 

[~Karen~]

Great ideas!

Shannon (Mini_lover), the pipe fence you have, is it done in such a way that the pipes are removable (slide through the brackets), or are they welded or fixed in a permanent way somehow? I really like the idea for a fence and for around here, may be less expensive than any other type of fence. Then to run a hot wire, one at top and one at bottom. BTW, I looove the V gates! I have seen similiar before, and that is something I would love to have.

Question about hot wire: What brand of electric fencer box do you use, and have you ever had to replace it? How long have you used the same box? The reason for my question here is that when we raised fowl we went through several boxes, and some just didn't put out any juice (and that was running much shorter than the recoomended range). The only one that worked well was an old one that my husband had for many years. It finally gave out, but it was a good one. A good box is worth the price, but to pay a good price for something that won't last or do the job is not good.

Thanks for all the input, I love seeing the pictures of what you have, it helps alot!

I used a couple cattle panels to fill in the gap when our little girl came home for the holidays. I was concerned that she might get a hoof caught in one of the squares. Would be OK though to use as fencing with hot wire though I think.

That 2X4 mesh is what we have some of right now. We used it for our preschool play yard, and have some left over.

~Karen

 

[^T-bird89^]

we use the pipe fencing like my mom (paintedpromiseranch) said. However, we do have a four foot wire fence around the perimeter of our property to keep things like coyotes and strays out....plus, with all of our long-ears they tend to stay away anyways

: They are even better than our guard dogs.

:

 

[chandab]

Our issue is with the gates we bought. The 4ft tube type gate. Never again will I buy one without mesh wire on it. My little stallion can get his head thru there and lift that sucker off its hinges. Hubby reversed the top hinge, so the little snot worked the gate so hard he got the ring for the chain pulled out and was able to drop the gate again. He is persistent!!!

I have a couple of those tube gates, I just attached a piece of cattle panel (cut to fit and attached with baling twine or wire, zip ties would probably work too) to the gate, so dogs couldn't get in and horses couldn't get their heads into the spacing and lift or rattle, seems to be working on both accounts.

 

[HaazeMinis]

We also use No climb fence 2" x 4" (6' Height? I believe) with wood corner posts and 6ftT-posts every 5 feet or so ( we also have TONS OF ROCKS UNDERGROUND :new_shocked: ) in our paddock area with pipe gates. The fencing has worked very well for us as it does keep predators out and horses in and it is very safe for the babies.

I have to say the minis can be harder on the fencing by rubbing and pawing at it to get to the grass on the other side, BUT, all we did was put some braided hot wire (similar to Equibraid) on the inside of the fence about 2 ' up of the ground and it works like a charm to keep them off it. :bgrin

: Now, as far as the pipe gates are concerned we found a solution to the problem of sticking their heads through and getting the gates off too! :lol: All we did was attach (by drilling and bolts) a 1/2" or 1/4" piece of plywood (cut to fit to the 4', 6' or 8' gates we have )to the outside of each gate and the wood goes from the bottom of the gate and the length works out perfect because of the width of the plywood,so it leaves the very two top pipes open and they cant totally get their heads through there and its to tall for the babies to get their heads through either. :lol: So it works well for us.

Now we do have a rather large yard and have no "pasture space" so what we did was fence off our yard with "equibraid" 3 strands so the minis have some where to graze during the day time ours in the summer months when the weather is good. Our Box is a Large green box (Looks like ones they made many years ago) and it works very well for us. We have tried those smaller red ones and even bought a little larger red one before and they did not last through one summer. I think we found the one we use now at our tractor Supply store.

We have never had any of our horses get out of they fencing but we try to be extra cautious when they are out there so we try to turn them out there when there is actually grass to eat and always make sure there is hay for them to eat in the other area they have access to when they are out there. Now, as Karla (barnbum) stated ...getting the babies used to the fencing is a PAIN, but once they get used to it they dont touch it again USUALLY!

: I would never recommend putting minis in this type of set up full time unless it were actually a VERY LARGE pasture space. IMHO. But this type of set up we have here works for us and they are never out in it 24/7 and I do stall my horses at night and in bad weather.

:

Well good luck with your fencing ! There are alot of good options and suggestions here.

:

Jeri