Has anyone had any problems with Poly Tape?? I am thinking about using it as a turn out areas for the horses (keeping them seperate and off the growing grass areas)! I was going to do the 3 string method…any advice? 
I’m certainly glad others have had good experiences with it, I sure haven’t and I’ve seen some very nasty injuries(not all at my barn 
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Has anyone had any problems with Poly Tape?? I am thinking about using it as a turn out areas for the horses (keeping them seperate and off the growing grass areas)! I was going to do the 3 string method…any advice?
headsup - sounds like your farm manager needs to test the voltage on the fence!
You need 2000-3000 volts before a horse can feel it. Back in the old charger days, ours was producing a shade under 1000 volts. One horse who would not have dreamed of walking through it did amuse himself all night long by chewing on the excess tape by the gate handle… I guess half an acre of grass AND hay just wasn’t exciting enough. 
I felt pretty bad for the poor dog who accidently made contact with the tape after the New & Improved charger was installed. Poor guy had been zipping under the fence for months, and all of a sudden it BIT him! 
You know, it’s hard to apologize to a dog…
The place we lease has two big pastures, and we subdivided the lower pasture into 4 big paddocks with the 2" electric tape (Tipper Tie) that Jeffers sells. I liked it because they have reasonably priced step in posts that hold the tape, and the 2" tape is big (and white) enough to stand them off a bit.
Since we installed the tape, we have had 3 relatively young (3 to 7) TBs and 2 ancient and wise escape artist ponies added to the mix (before that, everyone was an older more settled TB… or as settled as a TB gets, anyway).
Needless to say, I discovered with the ponies that I needed a lot more charger than my really cheapo charger that was supposed to charge 5 miles/horse level just fine (Ha!)… Upgraded to a charger with a 50 mile radius (mind you, I haven’t used more than a mile of tape), super weed shocking capabilities, shock strength indicator, and many more joules power than the other one. Since that time, I have not had a problem with the Pony DestructoMatic 
We have it where I board, and it does a pretty good job of keeping the horses in, though I would wish it had a higher charge. The only one who gets out though, is the little arab mare with enough mane for 2 horses, who is smart enough to put her head under the tape and push up right where her mane is thickest. Those arabs! Got more brains than any other horse I know of.
It is important to keep it adequately charged, to keep it taut and to make sure that it does not come into contact with weeds.
As for injury, horses can and do injure themselves on anything. A survey answered by vets done some time ago showed the tape to be among the safest, causing mainly small injuries and, surprisingly, wood to be on of the biggest causes of serious and life threatening injuries - if they crash it, they are going to damage themselves and damage themselves badly.
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Ok, you just gave me more nightmares on what my wonderful boy could do to his legs!!! Where did the splinter go in at??
Do you worry about the tape being to far from the fence to where they could he grazing and get their heads up under it?? I would not want to see a horse get trapped between the fence and the tape…(I am having terrible visuals here)!!!
I think if I run a 3 strand from the bottom up, that should be enough. I also bought the post tensions to keep the tape tight and decent looking! I was planning on running the post about 16ft apart and putting a T-post in if I need to… with the plastic “tape holder!” I am going to give it a try. I have nothing to loose unless I put his big %^#$%&# in a padded room all day!!! Or maybe bubblewrap him…
I hate it with a passion and after 4 injuries in the 6 months I’ve been there, my horses no longer go outside. Most recent injury was to an expensive 3 yr old that sliced herself up on it and we are crossing our fingers for no scarring. This is the first time I’ve ever had horses in anything but board fencing and it will also be the last time. The owner has the more expensive kind(have no idea of brand names on the stuff) but I have found that despite it being installed properly, it sags and breaks. Ours is set with 3’6 being the top line(we have 3 lines of it). The injuries I’ve seen it cause more than justifies the cost of board fencing. Just my two cents.
ELJ - how exactly the splinter got where it was, and as badly infected as it did - with NO visual evidence as to the point of entry - is one of those great mysteries of horseownership. The only thing that was NOT a mystery was timing. Stall at HITS was paid for and horse was shipping in 7 days…
Actually, putting their head under has never been a worry - they don’t want to get NEAR the stuff if properly charged. But if they were, the tape is just set in the step in posts, and if they were to put head under, get zapped and run backwards, at most the tape would lift off the fiberglass pole and stretch a bit, but horse would be safely free.
Since it is tape, not wire, I only put 2 strands up. We have had 2 characters go through it a few times (see aforementioned destructo-pony) and one 3 year old TB. In both cases there was no injury to either. The toll on fiberglass poles snapping off at the base was annoying though…
The TB had just happened to be turned out in the big field (no tape) and had never got zapped. When he went out in one of the tape fields, we had become so comfortable we mostly forgot to turn the fence on. He had no clue it was supposed to be eeeeevil. Turned it on and turned him out. Now he knows…
I did select tape over wire because of it’s high visibility though…
I really like the tape. We have a couple of smallish turnouts that have the electrified version. With 2 strands of the 2" white tape. When Bud first met the “mean” fence, it took him two zaps, slow learner. He then spent the next three weeks in this little tiny square at the center of the area. Wasn’t going near that mean stuff again.
Now I can turn him out in the non-electric space with tape and he stays away from the fence line. wouldn’t trust him for hours on end maybe, but hey he was never known to be the brightest light on the block. 
“The older I get, the better I used to be.”
We used two strands of tape, step in line posts and 4x4 corner posts at our old barn. Loved it. The existing fence was not good for anything but a visual barrier and the polytape was easy to put up and take down when we moved.
Our horses were accustomed to electric so we had no problem with them disregarding it. Used the white tape for visibility, though, youngsters play hard!
Shop around for your step in posts, we found ours on sale at Tractor Supply for $1.50 a post.
I hope it works well. Do you have any problems with shorting out or other problems?? What type of charger do you use?
But my expensive gelding keeps pawing at the damn fences…thus, tearing his legs up and tearing shoes off!!! It is killing me! I still want to turn him out but can not afford to replace ALL the fencing at this point!!! He did it the other day and caught his leg. Yet, he only has a couple of scratches and some bruising…he could have broke his leg!!! I figued he would respect the tape (maybe)!! I dont know how to make him stop and I can not keep him stalled all day! I am at my wits ends…any other sugestions? 
Well I can sympathize with your plight - my older show horse (you know, the one who was supposed to be the most “mature” ) had $2000 worth of vet bills/surgery (at UGA, mind you, not outpatient) to remove a splinter that had lodged in his leg (perilously close to the sesamoid joint capsule and collateral ligament). After all was said and done (and he missed the FL showing season… More ), it was determined to be a splinter that came from pawing at the (wooden) fence line… I now have a “fence line” of tape and step in posts keeping him 3’ off that fence line.
With horses, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
