Looking for some feedback on using rubber fencing for the perimeter. What caught my attention is that you can nail it directly to trees. Pro? Cons? Thanks!
How are the edges finished?
I can remember horses chewing on the rubber fencing, and getting shreds of the fiber in their gut, and then colicking.
Not fun!
Hmmm. I’m not sure. I did just read a post about horses eating the threads. Not good!
I worked at a barn in the early 90’s that tried a black, recycled rubber fence. We screwed some of it directly to trees. It lasted 2-3 years under the usual onslaught of horse abuse & New England weather, and it didn’t slowly degrade – it just sort of collapsed – it stretched and sagged, it cracked, it was a mess. I don’t know anything about new & improved rubber fencing products. You can attach Horseguard to trees, you know – I’m doing 1600’ this week, and it is so simple!
I’ll check into that! Horseguard is electric tape?
I’ve seen it at three or four farms now, and it’s looked like crap at each one. Like Frog Pond mentioned, this wasn’t 20 year old fencing, this was stuff that was relatively recent, and wasn’t just a little faded or something. Stretched, shredding, etc.
Beware that if it gives, as in stretches at all, it may NOT contain all horses and may not be SAFE for a perimeter fence.
Breeder/friend has mentioned young horses learn how to place their butt against it and wiggle through backwards to get out or into another paddock.
I believe perimeter fences need to be impenetrable and safely contain horses under all circumstances. I’d never consider vinyl or rubber would meet those standards.
Yes, Horseguard is electric tape, but it’s stiffer & more robust than all the other tape I’ve seen/used, and I think that is what sets it apart – it can, installed correctly, create nice, crisp visual lines. This is just a guess, but I think that horses see it as something more solid than other electric fence options, because – in my limited experience – they respect it more when the charger is down. I’d love a solid perimeter fence, but my property is basically a skim coat of dirt over 8+ acres of granite ledge, and installing fenceposts requires pinning them to that ledge with the use of drills, parking-meter style cement, and, yeah, it’s $$$ and I don’t love anything about it. So, yes – Horseguard, trees, and the occasional fiberglass post where there’s dirt! If you use the rubber, let us know.
No particular reason you couldn’t use trees for all kinds of different fences, but honestly you’re probably better off for both your fence and your trees not doing so.
You might look at the flex-rail fence from Centaur or Ramm.
Well my Arab was behind rubber fencing for 18 years, with O problems. Ya…is pretty ugly as fence goes, but I replaced the posts twice in those 18 years and screwed the same fencing back on. New posts gave me a chance to tighten it up as I reset the posts. It was absolutely the most cost effective solid fencing I ever found.
The first time I saw this fencing I watched two horses run another straight into the rubber at full tilt…it bounced him back like a rubber band. THAT fencing had been up for 10 years. Owner said she had never had an injury due to fencing. EVER.
I bought a few thousand feet from her the same day she gave me my Arab.
The key is to get it stretched really tight to begin with, and screw it on. A comealong is your friend. And use super heavy deck screws with washers. It sagged a bit in the summer, and tightened with cold weather. Nothing serious…just what rubber does. The thick rubber was coating a heavyweight nylon belting so strong we used leftover chunks to tow a truck. And DaiShaVoo never chewed it much…it did not taste very good. It took an act of congress and a really REALLY sharp blade to cut it.
After 18 years in the weather the rubber did show some age cracks, but as it was melted around and through the belting it never came apart, Or chipped, or flaked.
it is great stuff. And I would use it again in a heartbeat.
I lost my Arab in 2007. Eventually the rubber was given to a backtotheland homesteader who ran it tree to tree on his northern Maine wooded acreage, and keeps his cows behind it. Last I heard he had no bovine jailbreaks and they love to rub on it.
I would highly recommend it.
Made from nascar tires with Kevlar, smooth edges, safe, attractive and durable. Has to be put up TIGHT with properly braced and concreted posts of course… We use it on our back fence lines which edge the woods and have to take abuse from deer, falling branches, etc.
Jennifer
