And this is why you do not use sheep wire as horse fencing!

Bestdogdash said:
Gosh that poor horse - what a stroke of luck you came by. However, this leads me to ask you are for recommendations as I now am worried about a plan I have.

We need to fence a 25 acre boundary in January. I had planned post and rails, backed by sheep netting. The reason for this, is that I need the land to also be completely dog proof (keeping dog in) as well as for the horses. How about a smaller gauge sheep net (smaller than hoof size)? Any recommendations ?
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I would go for smaller guage.
We do have stock netting round all fields and my old mare used to sometimes get it caught between her hoof and shoe. She just used to yell until we went and rescued her, we kept wire cutters by the gate. Ours is inside 12 foot high hedges and has solid rails along the top for the most part, barbed wire in places.
Worst injury I ever saw from it was at a yard I was working in and a horse got his hoof caught, panicked and removed most of his hoof capsule. He did recover.
I don't get rid of ours because I don't have enough money to do so and horses will injure themselves on any fencing at all so it is the best we can manage.
 
cptrayes said:
How does a horse die from properly installed electric fencing? I've never heard of a single one. I've used electric fencing for 22 years without a single accident. Tell me more ....
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I think that the electric rope is lethal, as it doesn't break if a horse gets caught up in it. I use the electric string, and have found that it does break if necessary. I have never had a horse marked or otherwise damaged by the string even if they've somehow snapped it.

We have a post and 3 rail fence backed up with electric string on offset insulators. I wouldn't like to have any sort of electric fence with young foals, though.

Going back to the OP, that is one scary picture. I know of horses who pull their shoes off in sheep netting, but have never seen one caught up like that before. Well done OP, for helping this horse.
 
Bestdogdash said:
We need to fence a 25 acre boundary in January. I had planned post and rails, backed by sheep netting. The reason for this, is that I need the land to also be completely dog proof (keeping dog in) as well as for the horses. How about a smaller gauge sheep net (smaller than hoof size)? Any recommendations ?
Click to expand...
We've only got 7 acres, but this year we completely replaced the c250m length of fencing between us and our neighbours with a double line of fencing.We put sheep netting up on the boundary, then we left a metre gap and installed the post and rail fencing along the inner perimeter. We have a young hawthorn hedge (3 years old) growing in the middle.
 
Poor horse, good job you were there! :)

Although have to agree with others on the post and rail. Only serious fencing injury we've had (fingers crossed!) was a pony getting staked on post and rail when he was out on loan. I don't think there is a totally safe fencing when it comes to big animals!
 
I've got one mare who can get herself stuck on any fencing apart from electric. She had to be cut from stock fencing 3 times and from single wire strands in various different fields/yards, she's impaled herself on a wooden fence (the only incident that needed a vet!), destroyed about 4 pairs of thick turnout boots on fences/hedges, got her rugs clips caught on a fence, got her head collar (when muzzled) caught, had single wire between her hoof and shoe a couple of times, she's been found on the outside of a fence trying to get back in as well as getting her legs between wood rails on post and rail fencing and the worst of all I found her with a front leg stuck through a metal five bar gate at her chest height. She must have been there for hours as she'd pooed several times and a couple of wees but she wasn't injured at all. I have post and rail fencing with electric tape along the top rail so she's reasonably safe here apart from the gates. Fortunately she doesn't panic when stuck even though she's very nervous and pulls back when tied up. When she's stuck she stays very calm.

Our pony got stuck on the fence by her muzzle this summer and the other horses stayed with her until my friend and I found them. It was so sweet, both horses had white pony hairs on their foreheads where they'd been so close keeping her still. I'd thought it was odd that they didn't come when called until we got close enough to see what happened. Horses do seem to be able to injury themselves on anything but the impaling on a wooden fence is the only one that caused an injury and it needed several stitches at midnight!
 
Poor horse thank god he's ok.

My yearling got badly tangled in electric rope. I found him on his back with legs stuck up in the air. Thankfully he was ok.

I saw a filly that ended up having to be PTS, post and rail with a single strand of electric wire along the top. Filly's cannon bone completely exposed and ligaments severed.

I've also seen horses impaled on post and rail. Sometimes accidents are hard to avoid despite your best efforts
 
I do think certain horses will try to kill themselves on whatever's around them.
I'm lucky enough to have the type that manage to lean through barbed wire without getting impaled on it.

I watched my big welshy deliberately put his toe into some stock fencing, and pull it down so that he could get his head under the barbed wire and lean through just that little bit farther to eat next door's grass. This he repeated all the way along 100yds of fence. That horse knew exactly what he was doing, and had obviously done it before!
 
Oh and I also had a mare that got badly trapped in a hedge, we had to chop down the hedge to get her out, and i"ve seen a horse cast at a wall in the field. So I think that covers most fencing options that i've seen accidents.
 
Thank goodness you were able to help.
We have horse netting, which has much closer mesh. About to get some foals, so hopefully they won't get feet stuck through it. I do have a small amount of stock fence round one side of a field, but hedge has grown through most of it, so fingers crossed nothing will get stuck.
 
cptrayes said:
How does a horse die from properly installed electric fencing? I've never heard of a single one. I've used electric fencing for 22 years without a single accident. Tell me more ....
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Cookie got tangled and possibly could have died if he was left much longer (I MUST point out that this happened at his OLD home. NOT with me or my friend) he's now got a white line around his leg. Apparently he was laying on the ground, exhausted and still being shocked!! Poor lad! Still, it made him respectful of fencing, which is a plus.
 
Tiddlypom said:
We've only got 7 acres, but this year we completely replaced the c250m length of fencing between us and our neighbours with a double line of fencing.We put sheep netting up on the boundary, then we left a metre gap and installed the post and rail fencing along the inner perimeter. We have a young hawthorn hedge (3 years old) growing in the middle.
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This sounds sensible - thanks, I was going to plant hedge in the gaps behind the fence anyway and this will protect the young hedges. Blackthorn if I get my way, securing future stock of sloe gin !
 
I had to rescue a pony who had got the clip from his leg strap caught in sheep wire. I think he had slipped into the fence on mud and the back clip had been pushed onto the fence and sprung shut, he had then fallen over and when I found him was lying in an exhausted heap and completely stuck. At the time he was 39 years old and I really thought he was a gonna. However when we got him up he toddled off and lived another 2 years, although he never wore a rug with back leg straps again and nor do any of the other horses. Terrific pics OP and a timely warning.
 
Wow OP well done for acting so quickly - reckon you could have saved that horse's life. Very depressing reading about all these field injuries though.... will just have to keep fingers crossed constantly!
 
When I used to work at a livery/stud yard I saw a horse get tangled in sheep wire like this. She was known for getting cast in her stable and she just rolled too close to the fence. Luckily she was quite used to being stuck so didn't cause a fuss and I alerted everyone as I saw her do it.

It's incredibly lucky you were passing OP! Well done for helping the poor horse out.
 
I'm just so glad I ended up hacking out that day, and chose that route! it's not one we often go on, so an amazing bit of luck there. After schooling my horse I hacked up there again today to check how he was doing. He happily trotted over and looked fine, and as I said, sheep wire has now been taped off by his owner :)
 
Hope you don't mind but would like to share the top photo on Facebook, We have it at my yard and it makes me SO nervous but no one seems to consider the dangers. A friends mare argued with my youngster over the fence the other day and she still wanted to leave her in adjacent field overnight :eek:

After me pointing out their legs getting caught she didn't but people just don't realise. :(
 
cptrayes said:
How does a horse die from properly installed electric fencing? I've never heard of a single one. I've used electric fencing for 22 years without a single accident. Tell me more ....
Click to expand...

Old mare, panics and bolted in the field, ran into the fence and it tripped her, electric tape got wrapped round her neck, she fell and somersaulted to the bottom of the hill, was PTS with a broken leg :( . It was the type of fence with the plastic posts that push into the ground.
 
You are welcome to share the photo, the more people realise the better. Hopefully people will act upon it and prevent something like this happening again. I have heard of an electric fence de-gloving a leg; didn't witness it myself but can see how it would happen.
 
I'd be interested to see whether this would be possible with the really expensive horse netting that you can buy - it has small holes at the bottom to stop hooves going through (which is what I;ve seen happen - and getting stuck on shoes) but the holes get bigger towards the top so I'm wondering whether this is still possible.
My horse has a nasty wound from getting electric tape wrapped around his leg - but I have to use something

Nastiest fencing injury I've personally seen was on a post holding up a gate (not much option to that) horse reared and came down with the post in his armpit effectively - the post went right up inside him along the line of the girth but between the rib bones and the skin - the vet could get his whole arm up inside to pick out splinters of wood, took absolutely months to heal and smelt like nothing on earth.

I think we all just have to accept it's possible for a horse to injure themselves on just about anything at all - given how hard they try! so we have to do what is most practical to get the risks to be as low as possible. No fencing can be free of posts!
 
Polos Mum said:
I think we all just have to accept it's possible for a horse to injure themselves on just about anything at all - given how hard they try! so we have to do what is most practical to get the risks to be as low as possible. No fencing can be free of posts!
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This is very true, and is a contributing factor in some instances to the 'What makes owners give up' scenario which is currently running as another thread. You do your damnedest to keep them safe and yet they still get injured.

Musing on fully horse safe fencing, the only option I could think of is the tall weld mesh panels used in lungeing pens. Though probably someone, somewhere, still knows of a horse which has injured itself on that! Additionally, it would be crazily expensive to fence a decent sized paddock using that stuff.
 
The farm where I kept my girl, having let the horse's fields to 50 or so sheep (nice bit of double income that!) put sheep fencing up without saying a word to us. Trouble is, the sheep used it as a ladder so it didn't keep them where they were supposed to be and the one thing that did get trapped in it was ... a sheep. Luckily I spotted it and another livery and I cut the wire and got it out but its foot was totally cold by that time so whether it survived, I don't know.
 
I have never had a fenced based injury since I surrounded all the fences with mains powered turbo rope guard fencing .
It is more labour as you have you mow the grass in the strip and strimm round the post and rail fences .
 
Equi-Fencing is far tighter and designed so that even foals can not get their legs through it. We use post and rail fencing with Equi-Fencing on it to prevent horses kicking through the fence line.
 
Any fencing is dangerous. We have and will always have sheep netting, because we have sheep. Not had any of mine ever do that, anywhere. However have seen a foolish pony attempt to jump post and rail and land on the post...saw the hole that left in her chest... nothing is completely safe people, everything has a risk with animals. Try not to get yourselves over excited.
 
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