Our horse-cation spot has had it for 30 years and it’s pristine. That was a major reason we went with it.
I have it and really like it. When my horse was a yearling, he wasn’t paying attention and ran right into it - it bounced him right off with no injuries. I’ve got the version from Kencove with the composite posts. My only complaint is that my donkey crawls through it but I could easily fix it with a line of the electrified coated high tensile. As another poster mentioned, if a tree branch or something falls on it, you just move the tree branch and it bounces right back up.
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I have it on my farm, and I love it! I have the white, and have had it for three years. Mine is 5 strand and is electric on one and four. I purposely went with white because we have a TON of deer here, and the back of my property is timber, so I wanted to make sure the deer could see it and wouldn’t run through it or get caught up in it. I’ve never had an issue. Another thing to consider is if you have your posts pounded in or cemented. Mine are pounded in, and I had a flash flood that knocked my fencing over. Since my posts were pounded in, they came out of the ground but did not break, so we were able to reuse them, saving $$$. I realize requirements may differ depending on where you are. If I were to choose fencing today, I would choose the exact same setup.
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^^^^. This. Some of mine is over 20 years old and is still a very crisp white. Someone asked if it is easy to electrify-yes, just attach the fence charger to it. It’s great stuff.
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Wow! A lot of really good reviews here. I’m considering going with coated wire myself now!
We did four strands of black coated and a top rail of the flexible 4” for sight. All the coated wire can be electrified, but we haven’t…horses don’t seem to put pressure on the lower part of the fence. However, we did add a top strand of electrified hot rope with the flex rail because the horses were leaning over the top of the fence. The fence is beautiful, holds up well and we’re really happy with it.
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My coated tensile is 16yrs old - 3 lines with top one able to carry a charge & top rail a 4" 2-wire Centaur clone.
I never did put a charger on, because: Lazy.
I have yet to retension a single line. ^see above :o
Probably should do #2 as yes, horses do stick their heads through to graze on the “greener grass”.
Mostly that just means repounding or pounding in new staples.
Posts are 6" rounds, treated & pounded in, set @ 12’.
Some are leaning due to ground heaving with frost. But still solid enough to not be dangerous.
Top rail is beginning to look ratty - places broken, sagging a bit…
But still enough to keep my non-fence-challenging herd of 3 in.
Coated lines still look good.
If I could redo, I’d go with electrobraid to replace top rail & #3.
And add a charger.
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Love mine. I’ve put up a lot of board fence over the years and aged out of all the maintenance. It’s gaining popularity around here too. I got good advice here on COTH and went with 2 hot strands and 2 not hot strands to fence 5 acres about 18 months ago. Looks great. Horses respect it. Fewer posts. Mine is brown Centuar product on 5” round posts on 12’ centers. Fence guys did it in a day.
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It’s rare for so many people to agree on COTH. Y’all have really sold me. :yes:
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My friend has coated hi tensile. 6 strands 4 white and 2 black. The different colors helps to be able to see the fence even when there is snow on the ground. Strands 3 and 4 are black and are not hot. This way she can climb through the fence at any given place. She has had trees fall on it, and once the large tree was removed, the fence bounced right back. The horses didn’t test the fence because they had learned to respect the bite. She also had a drunk driver plow through her fence, take down several wooden posts and drive back out. The fence didn’t break and all that was required to fix it was to replace the broken posts.
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That is quite the testimonial! :winkgrin:
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it is not good at containing deer/moose, so I doubt it would be good for cows: apparently there is no incentive to not get tangled in it… We had the electrifyable version of the plastic coated wire, but we didn’t get good results with it, particularly in the winter. We run a strand of electric wire along the fence in addition to the plasctic coated wire.
I have three “rails” of Ramm (or HorseRail) 5". In between the bottom and middle and above the top rail I have a strand of the hotcote/shockline/white lighting. I added in the electric myself after an installer built my first fences. Easy 1 person job. I’ve got brown, looks good, nearly no maintenance, and haven’t had any issues with it.
One thing I will mention, the three main brands, Centaur, Ramm, HorseRail…I’m pretty convinced they are all made at the same factory. I’ve mixed/matched and other than size difference (RAMM 5.25" is is 1/8" wider than the Horserail or Centaur 5") they seem exactly the same. In fact the brackets I got with the different brands are the same with just a different CPU sticker on the boxes.
Similar experience with the coated electric wires for each. SO, look at the different brands and see what installation accessories you prefer. I prefer the in-line tensioners and splice buckles that Horserail has versus Ramm. I like the PolyPlus Quick ends of Centaur better than the endloops from Ramm or the Insulated donut from Horserail. They are all based on 12.5 gauge center wires.
Oh - And Kencove is a great company to work with when buying parts and pieces!
If you’d like to see the fence in action this is from our horsecation place.
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I have Ramm 525 flex rail (3 rails with hotcote between each) along the road, Ramm 525 around the arena (and some naughty mare has popped a rail leaning on it already for no good reason, Kencove and/or Ramm coated wire elsewhere, a big stretch of Kencove coated wire and horseguard tape, and horseguard tape. Oh and no-climb and post and board. That’s right…everything but pipe. LOL
I have talked to a breeder who just had coated wire (hot and cold) paddocks and two mares were euthanized over the years. Somehow they managed to wrap a leg kicking at another mare. This is someone who knows how to tighten a fence. That’s why I only used it on exterior fences where there are woods, or something without horse pressure on the other side, and half my strands are hot. Although it isn’t as pretty, I used Horseguard for my dry lot pens. I have had a foal and various horses crash it without injury. And then all strands are hot.
With any kind of plastic fence, always have some hot strands, or the horses will stretch your fence.
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For those who have only the coated high-tensile, what’s your view on visibility? I love the look of it (so nice and clean-looking), but am concerned that the horses can’t see it well enough. I don’t love the look of a top rail only … but safety first. Does it make a difference if some are electrified? Seems like maybe it would in normal circumstances but not if a horse panics.
According to the FAQ page on Horse Guard’s website, horses see brown and green best, and white not so well (https://www.horseguardfence.com/faq/faq.php ).
That surprised me, because I had just assumed white would be most visible because of the contrast against other colors (except in snow, of course). More to think about in designing a fence.
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@OzarksRider That’s not totally surprising to me based on my childhood obsession with show jumping. Fences on course that are all white and fences with white pinstripes always result in a lot of visibility problems. I just never thought to apply that tidbit of knowledge to actual field fencing! Especially since to the human eye, the white is so much more noticeable. I have been making note of all the farms in my area with coated wire. There are a considerable number of farms with brown and/or black coated wire that blended in so well with the surroundings I never noticed it was there until recently.
@Pico Banana I have the same questions. This image from the Centaur Poly Plus page appears to have some sort of slightly thicker top rail? I like the look of that, although I’m not sure what that is. It doesn’t look like tape or pipe. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0250/6951/products/black-polyplus-is_large.jpg?v=1541177035
I have a T-Rex that likes to test the fence. He also likes to paw at the fence when he is impatient and caught the bottom wire in his shoe and pulled the shoe off. But the fence was repairable and he was not injured.
My barn has the 4" wide double wire top rail for visibility also.
We had a white top wire on our field fencing and the deer were always taking it down. Switched to a brownish color and never had it knocked down! Very interesting.
My horses don’t seem to have any issues seeing the brown coated. Had no issues with deer either and they live to cut through the pasture.
