Fencing for horses. What you have/wish you had. Advice.

I have a 200’ section of no climb with a top and bottom strand of horse guard bipolar, I have three rails of horse guard bipolar on wood as interior fencing, and I have 5 strands of Horseguard and coated wire (the 2 HG are hot) as perimeter fencing along the woods and the corn fields. This has worked really well when trees fall on it.

I even have some black 3 board wood (horseguard on each board on the horse side) for paddocks & the dry lot. So I have a bunch of different fencing–it depends where it is. The only one I wouldn’t do again is the no-climb, but that will possibly come down when we do the arena. I think no-climb is awesome, but it is hard to DIY and wasn’t necessary. We did it to keep the dogs out of the pasture before we realized HG alone was enough. It is the least attractive with the bottom hot rail, but I don’t want the donkey and mini rubbing on it. It requires the most upkeep from a grass/weed/vine perspective compared to my other fences.

Along the road to the house and the driveway I am doing three rails of cenflex 5" flexboard with 2 hot rails of coated hot wire in-between (my fencing is black). On 5" black rounds, except for 6" braces. Along the highway that that meets the corner of that fence, I’m either continuing that or just doing 4 strands of coated wire with one top-rail of cenflex.

It really doesn’t look as choppy and mix-matched as it sounds. The sightlines are split by trees, etc.

My only advice is make it hot.

Another vote for 5’ non-climb with electric on top. LOVE IT!

[QUOTE=TrotTrotPumpkn;8668496]
I think no-climb is awesome, but it is hard to DIY and wasn’t necessary. [/QUOTE]

It’s definitely not as easy as stringing electric, no.

But just wanted to post a pic of mine: https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/10628144_10154554257430215_6587332294169256163_n.jpg?oh=103da42a8e6a472197c483fca254ca95&oe=57CE58E4

Which I did with just two people…110lb me, and my father. Gas-powered post-hole digger, and a scrap 1x4 for tensioning. That’s it. No come-along, etc. Legit RedBrand fencing, not the lighter, cheaper one.

Three years later, everything is as straight and tight as the day it went in. This five acre field took a weekend. Posts one day, fencing the next.

EDIT: Want to note that I’m not arguing with anyone! Just noting that while it’s not easy, it’s certainly feasible to do with another capable person. No need to drain the kid’s college funds for pro install. :lol:

My husband and I did the Red Brand ourselves. Not perfectly tight, but doable. It is 8 years later, and it still up and looking good.

I have 5’ welded wire with a wood board on top. A little overkill for the minis I have now, but I’ve had goats in this as well and they didn’t try to jump it. I like the welded wire because it keeps animals in and animals out.

With the minis it might be a smart idea to have electric running at bum level to prevent the body itching they all do, but the fence is mostly 20 years old and still doing well.

The only thing I might have done differently was to have woven wire instead of welded wire.

We have 3 strands of electrobraid on t-posts currently. I plan to eventually switch to electrobraid on wood posts, preferably 4-5 strands along the (super quiet, very rural) road to keep out the neighbor’s dogs as much as possible.

If I won the lottery, I’d have no climb with a strand of electrobraid at top and bottom to keep said neighbor’s dogs off my property as a perimeter fence with a riding alley between that and an interior fence of electrobraid on wood posts. We have a ton of road frontage, so that setup would require a lottery winning.

We have 3 rail wood. Looks pretty but it’s high maintenance, I would prefer something easier to maintain. We live in a very humid climate with lots of rain, so the wood swells then dries out and shrinks, this works nails loose and boards warp. I like the look of vinyl fencing but around here it gets moldy quickly and I see boards popped out all the time. I like the look of no climb wire mesh and also the pipe fencing you see out West.

Bluey we have hot wire run around the top for those bad horses who want to lean or rub their hineys on it. Keeping it stretched is no trouble, takes two people but the Ramm tensioners are very easy to use. It has been up now for 11 years and have had very little maintenance until this year when we had to replace a bunch of line poles that had rotted out.

The fence we have could also use an upgrade so I’ll just listen in.

When you need to have fencing installed in the future, we’d be happy to help you find the right pro:
http://contractorquotes.us/fence-companies-near-me/

pipe cable with mesh, five foot as we had a few horses jump the four foot

DH & I fenced 1.5 acre paddock in Red Brand on wood posts with one strip of Horse Guard tape at top because our fjords love Red Brand as a scratching post. Has worked great for 7 years except where we didn’t cement line posts because our soil is heavy clay and shifts a lot during freeze & thaw cycle. We used tractor to push posts back into alignment last year. I love Horse Guard BiPolar tape fencing but our herd lives out 24/7 and we loose electricity too often to rely on it 100%. Last year we got a quote to have a pro company fence another 1.5 acre paddock with same materials (minus the HG which I can DIY) and the quote was $14,000 - I kid you not. (In Metro Boston area) so that new paddock will be done in HG using their post sleeves on TPosts and we will only use that paddock during the day when power is on and horses supervised. One of our fjords only respects really hot electric fence if there’s grass on the other side.