My neighbor has one in her pasture…her draft horse used the wires to scratch his itchy butt on. My husband and I were terrified he was going to take the pole down as it would bend and sway and creak, but it held just fine.
Soo…I’m going the other way on this one, and tell a story that may change some of your minds.
For the price of a fence, a horse could be lost.
Every morning my drive to work takes me past a large horse farm. Beautiful, huge fields, indoor arena and barns set far back from the road, nice horses. They have a telephone pole and guy wires in one of their fields. The pole and wires sit about 20 feet inside their perimeter post and rail pasture fence. The guy wires are parallel to the post and rail fence.
There is a traffic light at this same location, so any morning I catch the red light and am stuck…I turn my head to look at the pretty horses in the field.
About two years ago, I turned my head, and saw a horse in the pasture near the guy wire… with a person standing next to the horse, holding the horse. And that person had a towel against the horse’s chest.
And the towel was soaked with blood.
Apparently the horse had run into the guy wire, and got the wire caught vertically in its arm pit. And practically sliced off the leg. Most horrifying thing I have ever seen at 8 o’clock in the morning.
The field was very far from the barn, and there were cars on the way from the barn to the field, so I did not pull over to help. I have often wondered what happened to that poor horse, how much pain it had to have suffered, and the emotional trauma the person in the field when through waiting for help to arrive.
The next day, as I was again at the same stop light, I turned my head to look. They had put a post and rail barrier fence around the telephone pole and the guy wires. Not a little stone wall, not a snow fence. A solid 3 rail fence, several feet out from the base of the guy wires. So the fence keeps the horses from going between the telephone pole and the perimeter fence, and prevents the horses from going between the guy wires and the telephone pole. The fencing prevents any horse from running into a guy wire and practically slicing its leg off at the armpit.
For all of you who say you’ve had guy wires in your fields for years, your horses know they are there…well, they know they are there until they forget. Or until they get chased in to one. And then for the cost of a solid, preventive barrier, you have a blood soaked towel, a wish you had taken your cell phone with you out to the field that day, an agonizing wait of uncertainty for a vet who may or may not get there in time, and a horse that may have mortally wounded itself…on a wire that he “knew was there.” Horses don’t intentionally run into guy wires. But they do. And when they do, it is a sight you will never forget. Please spend the money to adequately, safely and securely segregate your horses from the guy wires. On your own farms, or if you are a boarding barn - in the fields with your clients’ horses in them.
1 Like
@Calling Duck I think fencing around the guy wires so they are not a risk is a great idea, but I just want to say that horses can hurt themselves on that lovely three board fence too.
2 Likes
@Calling Duck A fence is definitely my first preference, although I have to plan out what happens if the electric company needs to access the pole and rips my fence out one day. That has me thinking I should fence it in with something pretty cheap, and not cement the posts into the ground like my regular fence is.
Don’t need to fence, just one straight barrier will do and the electric people can still get to the pole to service it just fine, you can mow around it, etc.
They do here.
I have a story that’s very similar to Calling Duck’s - except that it happened to a loose horse that ran out in front of my car. He was panicked (had about 40’ of fence tape tangled in his tail) and had run loose for about a mile before he crashed into a guy wire. He managed to extricate himself from it and continued running for another mile or so before we were able to get him to stop and be found by his owner. I don’t know what happened to him - but best case scenario, he had a pretty bad cut on the inside of that foreleg. This was a freak accident - but if I had a power pole with guy wires in my pasture, there’s no way I’d leave them exposed like that, especially after seeing this nice horse all torn up. Couple of t-posts and a gate or round pen panel would be cheap insurance.
1 Like
I have a down guy in my pasture and just built a wood panel fence section almost touching the down guy wire to keep the horses from trying to use it as a scratching post. I have several utility poles in my pastures and the horses don’t pay them any mind at all.
OP could wire two pallets, one on each side of the wire, to keep horses from hitting it.
If your horses respect electric tape you could even put in step in posts in a line from the pole to the base of the wire. Most horses that respect tape will not go through it, even if not electrified - if it is just as easy to go around.
So, for example, 3-4 step in posts with 3 strands of white tape - most horses will just avoid and go around. It’s at least better than nothing for now.
Just make sure what you choose to fence it off with the electric company (or phone company, which ever) can still easily access the pole. I would look at something like round pen panels that can easily be opened or moved if needed.
1 Like
