Recommend a particular metal detector?

[PonyRiderMom]

I already have a rolling magnetic pick up, which is great, but it doesn’t work in tall grass and it only picks up stuff that’s right on the surface. (Although it has picked up so much stuff so far that frankly I never want to let my horses out of their tiny safe paddock. It’s scary how many old nails and bits of barbed wire are floating around my property.)

I’m finishing up fencing in a pasture that was partly used as a dump by previous owners. I want to look for metal stuff that’s at or right below the surface that could hurt them.

Most of the ones I see online seem to be aimed at people who are trying to find treasure at the beach. If I find a giant box of gold coins or a fancy necklace, well great (now I can pay for that fence haha), but what I really want is something that picks up iron and steel. Can anyone recommend a specific brand and better yet a specific model they like for this? I’ve seen some threads here with people using them, so someone must have a recommendation?

Thank you!

[goodhors]

You can probably rent one at the rental place to use, see what you like or hate about it. They may have various brands to do comparison searching, seeing how effective they are.

We just pulled a rusted-off T-post base from the center of the barnyard! We have been using that location as a barnyard for over 40 years! The broke off post ends we found before were NEVER in the barnyard!! It just had worked it’s way up thru the dirt over time. I have found other broken off posts near the present property line fences while weed whacking. Tripped or stepped on them. They were not there the last time I cleaned fencelines! Every time you think you have found them all, another will show up like a mushroom! So far no horses have stepped on any of them.

Yeah, no telling what you might find in old farm fields. We got a semi flatbed trailer worth of old farm implements out of the swale hole after buying the hayfield acres. Hauled it to the scrap yard for a few dollars back. I think the old farmer just unhitched them all there before it started collecting water and walked away. He was not a very good farmer. Trees had grown up around them, some had parts that were inside the trees! We cut trees to get them all out during a dry spell, but I expect there are still pieces/parts in there. We don’t use that area, too wet, so no damage to our machinery. There is old barb wire, page wire buried in dirt along the property lines, grown over on trees used as fence posts. We don’t want to disturb that mess!!

Good hunting!

[PonyRiderMom]

@goodhors

We got a semi flatbed trailer worth of old farm implements out of the swale hole after buying the hayfield acres. Hauled it to the scrap yard for a few dollars back. I think the old farmer just unhitched them all there before it started collecting water and walked away. He was not a very good farmer. Trees had grown up around them, some had parts that were inside the trees! We cut trees to get them all out during a dry spell, but I expect there are still pieces/parts in there. We don’t use that area, too wet, so no damage to our machinery. There is old barb wire, page wire buried in dirt along the property lines, grown over on trees used as fence posts. We don’t want to disturb that mess!!

Good hunting!

That’s interesting, that’s almost exactly our situation. Part of the land is kind of boggy and historically had a flat slow creek or fast marsh flowing across it. The previous owner seems to have dumped everything out there. Two owners ago put in French drains and rerouted the small stream to where it is now an actual stream that flows through a culvert and out the other side. I fenced off that part of the pasture (stream, culvert, lowest part of the swale, and biggest piles of stuff, which is mostly rock and old concrete) to make the rest of it usable. The pasture is still not usable probably 10 months out of the year, but it has green grass in August and September, without having to be watered. That plus I don’t have a lot of usable land already, so it is going to be a horse pasture for those two months every year, hopefully. The fencing guys still need to push one pile of giant rocks back into the newly fenced off squishy area, then I’ll go over the whole thing with a metal detector before letting the horses in.

[gradytb]

Yeah, I took out a mower deck on a busted-off t-post that suddenly appeared one year!

[goodhors]

You might contact a landscaper, gravel seller on the rocks. Big rocks sell well around here as driveway markers, may get house numbers incised on them, other ‘arty’ designs in beds around homes that get decorative plants at the base. Our friend sold a LOT of rock piles and boulders from her farm, made VERY good money on them.

We got offered $500 for the boulder that got dug out of our arena. 4ft x 4ft with rounded edges, crevices. The bulldozer guy went nuts digging it out instead of COVERING the tiny exposed corner!! I think it cost more to dig out than they offered, PLUS then we had a hole you could bury a Volkswagon in, that needed filling! We use it now as the bleacher seats beside the outside arena. Husband says it reminds him NOT to leave construction guys alone doing jobs for us!! Ha ha