FINALLY replacing our fence with horseguard. Anyone have any installation tips? We’re using t-posts with t-post guards and bipolar fence. Been waiting 3 years for this and am so excited!
Use the black plastic boxes for your corners or tensioners as much as possible (i.e. avoid ones with metal). Are you bracing your corners? I would. I would also brace at any breaks for a gate.
My drylot is mainly covered t-posts and if you don’t brace the ends and corners the t-posts will move over time (mine are super deep too) and then your fence will sag.
I’ll second the advice to brace, concrete, whatever you can do for the corners and gate posts. Any fence under tension, even as little tension as Horseguard uses, will shift the posts. And then your fence will sag, and you will be sad.
I bought the Horseguard paddock kit, but it still sits in a box. I don’t have permanent fencing across the front yet and just… can’t… quite… get comfortable with only electric tape as the only fence. Once we’re fully enclosed then I’ll use it internally.
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Because of your location, I would highly recommend renting a post hole auger from Home Depot or similar, and using wood posts (cemented in) on either side of gates and at the corners of your pastures (and maybe one in the middle of a really long run of fence). Freezing/thawing and lots of rain can really loosen posts over time and the gate posts especially from latching/unlatching the gate over and over (even if you’re just using the red/orange plastic gate handles on springs). Renting the hole auger isn’t that expensive and a few bags of concrete won’t set you back either. The 4" or 6" wood posts will add stability to the fence and the gates. Plus, you can use regular farm gates with the wood posts.
Get a good, heavy T-Post driver for installing the T-posts, making sure that the spade thing near the bottom of the post is below ground level. I also recommend getting the heavier duty T-Posts instead of the less expensive ones.
Good luck with your new fence! I know that’s exciting. 
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I only have the Horseguard tape on top of my wire fence. I love it.
It took me nearly a year to believe I could install electric correctly myself. I have solar chargers and all the wires and connectors and ground rods, and, and, and , and, and just had me overfaced. I finally had to do it when the horses leaned on the wire fence. Short learning curve and now I’m confident in my abilities. I did the last complete set up without DH at all. (He was minimally helpful anyway, lol)
All good advice above, just take your time. I changed my mind multiple times re: how to span gates, run in sheds, etc. I finally just got a second charger and didn’t need to go under gates. (Still scared of all that) A few short stretches have non-connected ‘dummy tape’, but they never touch any of it.
Good Luck!
Thanks for the advice! For the corners I’m going to do rounded corners using 3-4 t posts every 8 feet instead of a square corner that will require cement. I bought the horseguard roundpen kit 2 years ago and we haven’t had any issues with those posts moving. But I’m definitely using cemented wood posts for gates. We’re only replacing about 75% of the fencing for now as we are building an addition to the barn next year and don’t want to risk any of the new fencing getting damaged so don’t have to worry about any gates yet. That will leave us with only two ends to brace. How do you go about bracing a t-post?
There is a special “t-post brace” that is used to connect a vertical T-post with a horizontal one (or one at a 45° angle). Its braced much like a wood fence corner - just using the T-posts and the special braces/bracket to hold them together.
We also went with kind of rounding out our corners where we didn’t have a tree we could use. I’m all for using natural features as part of the fence!
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I’m not sure how the brace will work with the t post guards?
I’m familiar with the T-Post caps that we use that cover the top 6 inches or so of the T-Post, but a T-Post guard sounds like a sleeve that goes over the whole T-Post. In that case, unless it can be cut (like an opening for the bracket to poke through), you’re right, that may not work. Maybe use conventional caps and connectors on the braced corner? Not sure if that would work on your system.
Yea the sleeve covers the whole post. A little pricey but makes them look so nice and provides and nice protective barrier. One time in the round pen my horse tripped and fell over onto a t post. The post and fence flexed and bounced right back and he didn’t have a single scratch or anything on him. I was really impressed. I think at the ends we’ll have to concrete the posts rather than bracing them
