For hotcote to be safe, you need correct tension. My concern with T-posts would be, how do you get enough tension on there without the corner T-posts giving as soon as a horse were to lean or bump into it.
The safety of the fence is the bounce back, my guess, with T-posts, no bounce back as I suspect a T-post might bend or come with it.
But that’s just me guessing, perhaps I underestimate the sturdyness of a well grounded T-post.
From what I understand and remember reading (do NOT take my word on this and go and buy hundred of $$ worth of t posts . :)) T posts are okay for line posts with the coated wire. BUT you would still need solid wood corner and brace posts. All of the tension on a high-tensile fence is on the corner posts, so the line posts wouldn’t have nearly as much pressure as you might think.
This is exactly what the reps have told me as well.
I would think that by the time you buy the t post covers and the t posts themselves you will have spent more $$ than a wood post, wouldn’t you? Around here t posts are about $4.00. We do have sections of fence where we had to use t posts. We have just caps, not covers, and they do shift around much more than wood posts.
How tall are yours? Mine don’t shift, or haven’t yet.
I installed the flex fence field by myself, and that ended with a rented Bobcat with auger stuck in a handstand with auger deep in the clay. No thanks.
So I paid (through the nose) for local guys to install the wood ring fencing. Came home one day and realized things looked… weird. The ring fence was all different heights. No joke, some parts had post parts bolted on top of posts and were SEVEN feet. Earl, Earl and Earl all claimed this was so that it would look even and pretty from the house. I just love living in the Appalachian Mountains.
Also, since the place was totally wooded when I first moved in, I had to start with smaller paddocks and eventually expand them to full size once the grass was more established in newly cleared areas. Between that and realizing I was looking at hundreds of posts that would need to be put in by me alone and that I don’t trust Bobcats or builders anymore, I went with the Tposts.
I could pull them all, sell them, and sink wood posts but it would mean digging at least 385 post holes by hand. I don’t see where I’d have time to do that between work, regular farmwork, working the horses, keeping up the house, having some type of life, classes (never ending!), etc…
So they’re not ideal, but they don’t shift, rot, splinter or attract termites and they’re going to have to do.
I honestly don’t think there is such a thing as a fence that is 100% horse safe or horse proof. I’ve seen horses plow through 4 board fence doing a lot of damage to themselves in the process. I’ve seen horses very badly injured in high tensile…and IMO that is one of the worst choices for horse fencing…second only to barb wire. I have no experience with hot kote or whatever it’s called but if it’s high tensile…forget it. I’ve had the Spur vinyl rail and while horses would bounce off of it, they can still hit a post and get hurt or flip over it or slip through it between the rails. I’ve seen horses crash into diamond wire mesh and get legs hung in it and get injured. Again, they could flip over it depending on how they hit it…but run through it…probably not. My choice would probably be the diamond wire mesh if I had no limit on funds. It has the advantage of keeping unwanted animals out also.
I’ve had Horseguard now for over 10 years and the last 5 years have been here on this farm with around 40 horses behind it including a number of active breeding stallions and mares/foals. It is around my entire perimeter also…4 strands on wooden posts. Once or twice I’ve had foals pop through it when they are very young and not yet fencewise(I do not put the foals up near the road just in case), but other than that, I can’t think of any horse that has just run through it unprovoked. I had one filly crash out that was being chased by her pasturemates and there was not a mark on her. I’ve had legs stuck through it and it breaks with no injury to the horse and over the last 10 years, I don’t think I’ve had one fence related injury from the tape. I have had injuries from some wood fencing still on our farm…several times now…but not the tape.
I guess I can understand why you feel as you do…but I don’t think there is a perfect fence…you will have to compromise on something…either your horses’ safety or the chance that they can get through it if the wrong set of circumstances arises again.
Apparently the chance that they can get through it is NOT considering their safety at this point. I’m far from the road, but the fact they galloped down the very long(steep, asphalt!) driveway is scary too. What if they kept going and were hit by moving cars?
I have to weigh it out, yes. I’d rather deal with scrapes than peel one off a road at this point. I don’t want wood. The worst injury I’ve ever dealt with was caused by 4 board fencing on a leased property. Big young hanoverian ran straight through it and punctured his chest.
Never thought they’d challenge horseguard either, but there you have it. Sounds like yours have gone through it a few times too, glad they didn’t get hurt while out.
No, no one got hurt. I will pray there isn’t a first time. We don’t have much road frontage and they tend to stay near their friends. We have aisles that they stay in also and only in a few places do they share a fenceline. I think the few times I’ve had the Horseguard run through, I was nearby when it happened.
One was a new TB boarder this past Summer who just literally ran through it her first time out when one of her new companions got too close to her. She has not done it again and we were right there when she did it and got her caught right away. If it had been a board fence she would have been badly injured.
Truly though…I don’t think I’ve ever had a fence that was truly solid enough that a horse could not find a weak spot and get out. I’ve seen them crash down metal gates…about 50% of the escapes I’ve had over the years were gates demolished.
Good luck whatever you choose to do. If I had the money, I’d probably install the Diamond Wire Mesh but it’s only a dream. My budget will not allow that.
My budget definitely doesn’t allow for Vmesh either.
All the stuff is still sitting in my shopping cart because I’m so back and forth over what to go with.
I can do three rails of the 1" electrified mini rail. It would more or less look like three strands of horseguard but with 6000lbs of breaking strength compared to 1800lbs. That stuff shouldn’t be able to cause degloving accidents right?
I could do 4 strands of the mini rail for 8000lbs breaking strength but that’s starting to push the budget for the whole place.
I really don’t know what to do at this point.
What about 3 strands of the hot mini rail and recycle the horseguard to the bottom fourth strand? That would allow me to redo the entire place, and I can replace the bottom strand in time for four electric mini rails.
Aaah, someone tell me what to order. Order is being placed tomorrow, no matter what. I just don’t want to regret whatever I get.
Do you have the websites? I’ll look at it and see if I can mull it over any.
Here’s the electric mini rail: http://www.centaurdirect.com/hotsiteelectricflexible1inchrail.aspx
I was going to do that with three strands of electric coated wire under and a bottom of the horseguard and eventually replace the middle wire with 1" hotsite for three electric minirails and coated wire between.
I could also do four strands of the coated electric wire and recycle the horseguard to the top as well.
Or 3 strands of the mini rail with a fourth of recycled horseguard.
Too many choices!
Daydream… hotcote is a COATED high tensile wire, so not the cheese slicer stuff that regular high tensile is.
As far as how many and spacing… I deliberated about that forever as well. I settled on 6 strands with a top rail because I was worried about spacing. The times I’ve seen or heard of escapees with any of the centaur/ramm type stuff it wasn’t hot or they slipped through the strands when they ran into them. To me having them closer together seemed like it might help eliminate the rambunctious youngster slipping through. Maybe… where there’s a will there’s a way though. 
what height are you doing? That will help with spacing info.
If you have high-tensile (electrified or not), as another poster said… make sure the tension is correct! If it is not installed properly, then a horse could get a leg between 2 wires and fall, essentially twisting the wire around their leg. If it is to the correct tension, then that shouldn’t happen.
Again, with the… “if horses are determined to hurt themselves, they are going to”…
We also have a set of bolt cutters… If you needed to get a horse out, cut the wire A GOOD DISTANCE (like 20 feet) away from the horse. If you can get to your tensioner and release it, all the better. Our tensioners in Iowa had a little ‘switch’ you could get in there with a flathead screwdriver and flip it.
We now have a tiny little acreage in NW Washington. We only have 2 horses and 2 goats (and 2 kids and 2 dogs… gawd… I feel like Noah and the ark!). We have only 30 wood posts and 150 t-posts. ~1800’ perimeter-wise. 5 strands of high tensile works just dandy for us!
Oh- This doesn’t pertain to the OP, as she has done a ton of research, but to those who were asking about t-posts… if your t-posts are put in correctly and evenly from one wood corner to the next wood corner, then it won’t bend.
Well, I like that 1" rail a lot more than the coated wire…but I prefer more visual barrier fences and it would seem a bit stronger and less likely to injure a horse that tangled with it. I also like that it’s hot…that might help some with fence respect.
Could you do maybe two strands of that with your existing Horseguard? Maybe the 2nd and 3rd or 1st and 3rd rails?
Also, you do realize this is a tension fence and you will have to really brace your corners? I had the Spur vinyl rail at my old farm and that stuff was hard to keep tight…it would practically pull my end posts out of the ground…and we thought we had it braced appropriately. It would end up loose before too long and I’d be back to where I started. Horseguard does take some tension but we generally manage with just concreting in our ends.
what height are you doing? That will help with spacing info.
The top rail can’t be placed higher than 54" on the post covers.
dmalbone, do you have any pictures of yours? What color did you go with?
I can’t go with a large top rail unless I replace all my posts and while I’d like the look, I’m not sure I can pull it off.
6 strands with a top rail sounds so secure though! I wonder if I could go with 6 strands and re use my tape as the top rail for visibility? That’d be a fence with around 10k break strength and the spacing would be close enough together (7.7" apart) that impact should disperse pretty well right?
That would also be about the cheapest option. How far from the ground did you put your bottom strand?
I’m sure it’s safer than regular high tensile but I just don’t like thin fencing like that. The visual isn’t as good…doesn’t look as solid… and it will cut faster than a wider rail.
That’s the other option I’m seriously considering: a top and middle of Hotsite 1" rail and my current tape as the bottom rail. That would be a lower breaking strength though than 6 coated wires with a top of tape, and there would be a good bit of space between rails to slip through.
I know it’s a tensioned fence and am good with that. I have the tensioned 5.25" flex fence around one field. The only time I’ve had to re-tension it was when a tree got hit by lightning and fell on it… was on a young mare in the ring at the time, talk about a bombproofing test: she passed Otherwise, it’s been pretty easy but my bracing systems are huge (went with round corners because I like them so every bend is seriously reinforced).
[QUOTE=CoolMeadows;4636233]
The top rail can’t be placed higher than 54" on the post covers.
dmalbone, do you have any pictures of yours? What color did you go with?
I can’t go with a large top rail unless I replace all my posts and while I’d like the look, I’m not sure I can pull it off.
6 strands with a top rail sounds so secure though! I wonder if I could go with 6 strands and re use my tape as the top rail for visibility? That’d be a fence with around 10k break strength and the spacing would be close enough together (7.7" apart) that impact should disperse pretty well right?
That would also be about the cheapest option. How far from the ground did you put your bottom strand?[/QUOTE]
Ours isn’t up yet. 
It was supposed to be up last month, but it got to snowy and now everything is MUUUUUUD. It’s not spring yet. It’s supposed to be winter in Indiana. We bought the black stuff. I got the idea about the fencing from a fellow COTH’s blog http://javasbarn.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html (pics towards the bottom). We’re doing 7 strands without a top rail down the middle to separate the 2 pastures (save a teeny bit of money). As far as being solid, we also might have a stallion here eventually, so the fence is taller and is going to be hot as heck! Right now we’re STILL debating on 5 1/2’ or 6’ tall, so that will effect the spacing. I’m going to keep the bottom strand no higher than 8" though for dogs. I’d do 6", but want to give myself a little extra weed-room.
[QUOTE=CoolMeadows;4636240]
That’s the other option I’m seriously considering: a top and middle of Hotsite 1" rail and my current tape as the bottom rail. That would be a lower breaking strength though than 6 coated wires with a top of tape, and there would be a good bit of space between rails to slip through.
[/QUOTE] Hmmm… so you would only have 3 “rails” of some sort? I’m not sure that would be enough for what it sounds like you want. I saw the Hotsite and it just seemed so much smaller than I expected. I’m sure the Hotsite is much safer, but I think I would want more than 2+ tape.
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