fencing questions

[Riverrose28]

How well does the tape or rope work with the horses in their "winter woolies"? My guys look like little yaks right now,they have so much hair. We've been having some unusually warm days here, so I'd like to get started on this fence project. But thought of holding off till Spring so that you can actually feel the zap of the electric fence.

Yes they all reapect the fence, but, there is always the exception, I have one mare that even clipped doesn't respect it, it's like she has no feelings. I have over 30 horses and she is the only one that tries the fence. I also have mine on dry lots with grass growing on the other side, and no problems except with the one, and she's been sold and is being picked up tomorrow as a matter of fact.

 

[angelspeeper]

If I were to use electric fence, does anyone have suggestions on a charger? I was thinking about using a solar charger, but am re-thinking this as one person said "they are a waste of money". Does anyone on here have or have had a solar fence charger...would love to hear your opinions.

 

[mini horse mania]

If I were to use electric fence, does anyone have suggestions on a charger? I was thinking about using a solar charger, but am re-thinking this as one person said "they are a waste of money". Does anyone on here have or have had a solar fence charger...would love to hear your opinions.

It was me.....(hide) We bought the tractor supply one...the problem we had with it is it just didn't have the *pop* that the plug ins do. It lasted About 4 months and we noticed the goats getting out ...That when the sun was shining...it worked....when it was dark it didn't...the rechargeable battery internally needed replacing that soon...I have seen larger boxes That were solar and we may try one...it is $200 and some odd dollars...we currently use a zareba 10 mile box on our small pastures.and a 50 mile box for the 10 acres...they are outstanding.but electrical..we have also seen a brand. ..the larger box is called a p30. ..I can't remember the brand. ...it is car battery powered/ or electrical...we had no electricity out to the woods and considered it because it lasts 12-14 days on a car battery..it is for a large space...there is a p10 and p20 box also....I am also curious if anyone has had luck with the solar box...we had our solar 5 mile box around 1/2 acre with 5 strands of wire...

***don't forget the ground rods*** they are usually overlooked as not being important . It took me years of replacing boxes for larger ones....to realize that I needed more than 1 ground rod as I was told....(blonde) lol

 

[Jean_B]

Lots of different topics in your original post.

As far as using them as therapy animals - this would be GREAT (occasionally). I once in a while would take a couple to the local nursing home and the reactions of some of these supposedly non-communicative elderly residents was AMAZING. There was one little very elderly woman who was convinced that her Cabbage Patch doll was her baby and would pitch a holy fit if it wasn't in her arms. I brought my little mare down the hallway and Alice's eyes lit up. She literally threw her doll on the floor and launched herself out of her wheelchair to wrap her arms around the mare's neck, hugging and kissing her.

To prepare for the visit I would feed the horse very lightly before going there and would give the horse a good bath. A horse will desperately try not to go on a solid floor as they don't want to splash themselves. But I always brought in a bucket - just in case and in the hopes of catching it before it hit the floor. Never had to use it once. Also, if taking to a place where the floors a slick - wrapping the hoof in vet wrap or duct tape will help to keep them from slipping around.

Insurance - I've had lots of quality breeding animals over the years - and only insured one horse while I was making payments on him. Back then, the premium was 3% of insured value.

Fencing - I LOVE LOVE LOVE my "Common Sense Fence" from GeoTek in Minnesota (they will ship it anywhere). Electro braid, posts are fiberglass coated with a PVC material so that you do NOT need any insulators. And the beauty of the fiberglass posts - if a deer should hit the fence the post will bend a little but pop back up into correct position. They come in many different lengths so you can make it as tall as you want with as many strands as you want. Installation is VERY easy and goes in a lot faster than a zillion T-posts (you use only 1/3 as many posts as if using T-posts). I have the bottom strand about 12" from the ground and then 2 more strands that are 18" apart. If we ever run big horses or cattle, all we need to do is add another strand on top.

Fencer is key - you want one that is "low impedence" so that it will shock even if touched by wet weeds, but you really do need to keep the weeds and grass trimmed along the fence line. In our case - the fence is a long distance away from any plug-in source - so we are using a battery operated one that we keep in a well-constructed box and hook up to a car battery. We use 2 different batteries and swap them out every week in order to re-charge.

Only down-side to electric fence - if you have a drought like we did this year, the animals will not be grounded very well, and might not get zapped very hard when they touch it.

 

[Margo_C-T]

Our perannially DRY ground conditions make any sort of electric fencing not feasible. For perimeter fencing I have 42" field fence, w/ two 'barbless' strands above. For my runs/large dry lot, we used 12', 5 bar, steel welded panels, but if building them now, would use 7 bar, spaced so that even minis won't put their head through...perfect for both large AND small equines! We set round wooden posts, tied the panels to them in the runs; the large paddock is 'semi' round, so the panels can be 'freestanding' on the circular part, and are tied to round wood posts at each end and in the 'straight' areas. Has worked for MANY years.We 'lined' the original 5 bar panels w/ welded 2x4" wire to keep heads in and all but determined intruders out; though we have coyotes nearby, have never had an issue(but have never left horses outside of their runs/large paddock at nights, either!)

Given a choice, I'd probably use 5' over 4' rolls of woven wire fencing.

Margo

 

[michele80906]

Electrabraid is the way to go! Easy to install and horses totally respect it. I also used 4 strands and followed the manufacture method of installation.