You can brace corners and straight fences without a wire.
We have used these pipe corners for decades now.
The wooden post with wire brace is a corner that has been there a good 75+ years, it is a good way to build fences also, but you do have that wire across there and if you don’t want that, ask they make your corners the other way:
[QUOTE=Marla 100;7093583]
I believe the problem is I’m using no climb welded wire fencing and it MUST be stretched for approx. 300 ft. The H brace and wood diagonal do not brace in the same way that an attached (wrapped around upper part of corner post and bottom of second post) twisted tensile wire would do. At least that’s what the fence builder is telling me.
If someone can tell me if the H and diagonal would work just as well, that’s what I’ll go with. I hate arguing with someone about the safety of my horses.
And I keep using that word- safe, not safe, safer… as a hint to the fence builder.[/QUOTE]
Why are you using the welded wire? It’s not nearly as sturdy as the woven wire and after my experiences with it, I completely understand why it is not recommended for horses. The welds pop apart and the gauge of the wire is significantly thinner. It breaks for no reason - a horse hitting it with a hoof with any force would go right through it.
I have a Bekaert woven wire fence; it is braced with the H braces and then the diagonal wood braces as recommended by Ramm and Centaur. The posts are sunk in concrete 4 1/2’ into the ground.
Correction- it IS woven wire- Red Brand- the heaviest they make.
I own a property that has high tensile cross bracing. I am not in a position to take it out and start over. It is a 5 strand coated wire fence - top and second from the bottom are hot. What have those who have this type of fencing done to prevent horses from getting a leg caught or other injury? In one section of the pasture, horses are on both sides of the fence. Can the brace be covered with anything to protect a leg if one is caught, eg split pool noodle foam?
I’d need to see a picture to have any useful advice.
If I had to have the wire diagonal brace on the inside of the pasture I might try covering it with a short section of non-climb fence stretched hand-tight and secured with a vertical board on the post. (Even if you carefully bend back the horizontal wires it’s going to have pointy bits somewhere.)
If it’s a corner I might also consider a 3-board fence across the corner to keep them away from it. I don’t like 90-degree corners for horses anyway.
Good tips. I will snap a pix and upload as soon a practical. Thank you.
Hello Wildblue-you mention being able to cover the brace wire. What would you recommend covering it with?
Wildblue hasn’t logged on here since 2014. You can check that about most users by clicking on their name, then again on the box that pops up. (Some on this thread are still active all these years later!)
Here is a pix of the fencing. Most is 4 board, but there is coated wire with bracing on either side of a 300 ft dry lot. I have placed wire caps on all of the pointy ends but want to cover the uncoated wire too since horses are on both sides. So far, I have come up with cutting an old 100 ft flex hose in the length I need; cutting in half lengthwise and running it over the wire and securing with flex tape. All other ideas welcome if mine is a bust.
Needs a wider angle, I can’t see the bottom or tell if it’s in a corner?
Covering it with hose will help the horse not get cut up as badly as with bare wire… but it isn’t going to stop them getting a foot stuck in the V at the bottom (not pictured) if they are pawing at it.
This is why I won’t have shared fence lines, you have to brace the posts if the fence is under tension, and I need all that kind of stuff to be on the outside of the fence.
It isn’t going to be pretty or match the rest of the fence, but I would still put a piece of non-climb over that section and frame around it with wood (since you won’t be able to stretch it tight.)
I’m sure plenty of people have this in their field for years with no problem. And the bigger the pasture, the less pressure on the fences. But my luck and history with small-ish paddocks says if I know a thing is dangerous and don’t do anything, it’s going to happen. YMMV.
I would get some fence boards and put a section of wood fence over the exposed side of the brace.
late to the party, but here goes anyway
I’d be disinclined to have horses on both sides of a fence with any sort of stretched wire or stretched woven wire (even if it is coated high tensile like the pics from 2022) just because horses playing across the fence can kick or paw through the fence at any point and get either legs or shoes hung up and hurt themselves very badly
if the corners braces are your only problem you can get metal welded H or N braces installed (like remove the wood ones and have them replaced) and a fence contractor can do this by de-tensioning fence and remove corners then add new corners then re-tension fence
hotwire keeping the horses away from the corners a couple of feet out from the main fence would be more effective and if you must have horses on both sides of a fence, building a single strand 17 ga galvanized hot wire fence at about chest height on each side of the hard fence that’s about 2 ft to 3 ft off the hard fence (making a 4 ft to 6 ft no man’s land chute) will deter kicking through hard fence or pawing at hard fence – the 17 gauge galvanized hot wire breaks quite easily without much risk of breaking skin if someone does crash the fence
I had fence put in a few years ago and didn’t know to ask to not have it done that way. I was really irritated like what pro fencing company would do this with horse fence? AND, I’m having perimeter fence done soon and hiring a different fence company. They pointed out numerous issues with my fencing and asked if a friend had done the work? Ugh. NO. I paid a lot.
Here’s my solution. No horses are ever on each side but still. IF a horse could put a foot through something like this it just shouldn’t be done. I do plan to have it removed and don’t remember what his solution was. A different bracing system.
Both temporary fixes but better than nothing. My husband said it looks bad and I said I could care less. Not having a degloving injury was far more important to me. I have this setup in about 8 places in my dry lot.
This is a very OLD thread. Not sure what OP ended up doing about their bracing.
A hot wire making the corners into a triangle, not allowing horses to get close, might work in some situations.
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