Barbed wire/striaght wire/pig wire/sheep wire etc.....

[S_N]

Would you be happy with any of the above being part of the fencing of the fields at you rlivery yard? How would you go about dealing with it, if you considered it to be a problem?

 

[4whitesocks]

Would be unhappy with barbed wire - not sure what you mean by straight wire....don't know what pig wire is and plan to fence my paddock woth high tensile sheep wire in front of which will be planting whitethorn quicks and in front of that, until hedge is up, electric fencing, white tape.

 

[PapaFrita]

We've got plain wire at our yard. PF isn't an escapologist, thankfully, so it doesn't bother me, but barbed wire would upset me quite alot! I'm not sure what pig and sheep wire are though.

 

[ihatework]

Certainly far from ideal, any of it.
As a boundary fence I might put up with barbed wire provided it was taught, but would be happier if a strip of electric was run from it.

As a dividing fence between horses, absolutely no way.

 

[Christmas_Kate]

There's sheep wire in little man's paddock, but it's taut, and I have no choice about it. The yard is a farm, and the paddock is grazed by sheep, so I just accept it's there, but check it regularly. If it was a livery yard and I was paying proper livery prices I wouldnt accept it.
A pony I used to loan got himself trapped in barbed wire, caused a nasty gash on his flank. Again, little man's paddock has this too, but he's not into getting away from his lovely grass so I don't worry too much, and it's only along about 1 metre of fence.

 

[Parkranger]

I lost my old gelding due to barbed wire - he tried to clear a 5ft fence, and punctured a main artery in his leg when he knocked it....very against barbed wire for that reason......

 

[riotgirl]

I wouldn't trust my Welshie around it - she doesn't respect anything other than an electrified fence. Having said that, I'd have to put up the electric fence anyway, so it it was a foot or so from the wire fence it wouldn't be a problem as she couldn't get to it. I do realise though that other people have 'normal' horses who don't need everything electrified, so it might put them off.

 

[SydneyB]

I think pig and sheep wire are the mesh type things? You can get it with diffrent sized holes. Plain wire wouldn't bother me. Barbed wire would, not sure about the mesh. It depends how it's looked after.

 

[S_N]

Pig wire is the big squares and sheep whire is the slightly smaller squares - or t'other way around

Chicken wire (which I know I didn't mention) is the tiny hexagons.

 

[Chex]

I keep Chex on a farm so the fencing is less than ideal (for horses I mean). One side of his field is a drystone dyke, one is electric tape, and 2 are square mesh fencing, one with babrbed wire I think. The field is huge, so he rarely goes near the fences, apart from the electric tape side where there are horses on the other side. I prefer straight wire fencing, not too keen on electric (but I don't have an escaping pony lol)

 

[samp]

Unfortunately our livery yard owner has put up barb wire along the back of our field. Complete uproar at this, downside being the yard is the only one in the area that has bettr facilities.

An old horse severely lacerated his tendon on barb wire and another ripped her hock open. Both were severelt scarred and no longer competition horses

 

[ladylisa]

We have barbed wire inside our hedgerows, so they dont try to push their way through. and sheep fencing to half the field but it is also used with electric fence above it. Wouldnt use barbed wire anywhere else and as for straight wire horses dont have any respect for it and just lean over breaking it as they do!

 

[Sooty]

I wouldn't trust any wire to contain a horse, and would run an electric tape round the inside perimeter of it.

 

[miller]

Wouldn't have any near horses personally - old livery had high tensile (straight) wire and in the 18 months I was there 9 horses were injured by it - I mean to the point of mon 2 weeks out of work, alot of dressings, big vets bills etc - worst was £2600 bill.

We've opted for electric tape and P+R at home

Edited to say - whatever we said to owner of yard they said - well cows don't have a problem! Have heard since I left (not before time) that they are gradually going P+R.

Also be aware that some insurance companies don't cover wire fencing injuries - mate with £2600 bill found that ou the hard way

 

[pixie]

All of our paddocks were post and plain wire, the top few strands were barbed and the bottom half also had sheep netting (~1 inch^2 holes, so you couldn't get a hoof through that!). Our worker made sure that it was always kept very taut and the animals were all used to it, so no injuries and they were far concerned with grazing to bother about trying to jump fences! I think that like electric fencing, they soon learn that the barbs are prickly, so just keep away from the fences.

 

[filly190]

I have post and rails for main paddocks, and then electric fencing powered into the electric.

I would not be happy with the wires as discribed, I can only see an accident waiting to happen

 

[Happytohack]

No wire. Have the perimeter fenced in post & rail with the green electric tape running along the inside of it. Just use posts and the green electric tape for dividing the inside paddocks. Have seen two many accidents with all the wire you have listed.

 

[GTs]

My preference is post and rail fencing - the place I kept my horses in CO had the top as barbed wire, which out of wire fencing is the best - I do not want my horses getting out, sheep wire is too risky to be tangle in, straight wire you can break leaning against it, etc.

 

[Puppy]

In one of my fields I have barbed wire along two sides so I run electric in front of it with a good gap between the two.

In my other field I have plain wire along two sides - one I run electric fence in front of it, the other has a hedge growing through it/merging with it so I am confident its safe.

The remaining sides are hedged which are of course far preferable.

 

[kirstyfk]

I hate barbed wire and would never want to put a horse in a field with it. We have sheep wire on 2 sides of our field. the 3rd is plain wire but connected to the mains electrical supply and we use electric fence for the 4th side

 

[Nic]

Dear goodness woman, AGAIN!!

We have barbed wire round our field(meant to keep the cows out but the calves still duck under!)

No issues with it at all, there is hedging around most of it. If money was no option then I would love post and rail, but the tank would be through it and loose in 40 acres before you could say "you sh*t"

ETS: can't run electric round the inside as the local neds steal our posts(probably to impale each other with)

 

[Sparklet]

My old horse tried to remove her foot, pastern downwards with barbed wire - it was half cut through. I wouldnt trust any type of wire unless it had electric fencing in front.

 

[Skhosu]

Ours are post and rail, which I love, but a neighbouring field we rent is barbed wire and I don't much like it, but it seems ok. Is in a hedge though. Could see accidents happening though!
Not sure about the rest, wouldn't be fussed on anything not taut or anything with holes/wirey for a foal

 

[JessPickle]

We have electric fencing/ normal wire (not barb) all round all our fields. The Yo has been there 10 years and only once had a horse have a problem involving it and thats because she tried to jump it!

I would love post a rail but it is too expensive for my yard.

 

[Farm Kat]

Ours is all barbed wire, and most of the time with a run of electric fence in the middle. Ours is farm land, and rented so I have no say, it is always tight. TBH I don't know of may places that are not plain/sheep/barbed wire, sometimes with a wooden rail on top.

My only encounter with post and rail, the YM of the yard I was at didn't put the posts in well enough or the rails attached well enough and I came down to find a fellow livery's show pony with the top rail of fencing over her back, and the bottom in 2 chunks, and that was 3 days after it was put in! alot of it fell down and needed reparing.

 

[eekmon]

I have one side of barbed wire and the rest are massive hedges. The barbed wire side has electric running over the top of it so nobody goes near it! Would love post and rail but not everyone has the money for it

 

[Pidge]

barbed wire all round our field, so have bought tall posts and electric tape and now the horses can't get to any of it. Expensive but worth it as Pidge is very accident prone and Sunny will itch on anything even barbed wire.

 

[aran]

i wouldnt have mesh or barbed wire. P&R is the best but very high maintanence. We have a strand of high-tension straight wire, followed by one of wide electric tape, followed by another strand of high-tension straight wire and finally another of wide electric tape around every field. all fences are electrified to a central control up at the stables. for a large livery yard it is the best fencing I've ever come across and we havent (so far) had any injuries. we also have electrified penned off areas in front of each gate so there is no issues getting horses in - lovely!

 

[sojeph]

Wouldn't be happy with any of it!! IMO horses and wire don't mix (except electric)!! Don't know what pig wire is like tho but my shettie found a bit of sheep wire in a hedge, tried to jump it, caught his foot in it, landed on top of the wire and cheese wired his leg down to the bone!! So not a big fan. Friends pony got her shoe caught in some sheep wire and straight wire, was caught up during the night, collapsed and fell on the electric wire. Don't know how long she'd been lying there but she never got back up!

 

[Tia]

All my fields are either post and rail or post and cattle fence, which is similar to UK stock fencing. I would have preferred all of the fields be post and railed however after ten's of thousands of dollars spent just to get the cattle fencing, there is no way I could have afforded to have the lot post and railed - I'd have been looking at somewhere around $100,000 for post and rail.

Most of our fields have hedgerows abounding them so the type of fencing isn't really an issue for the majority of the fields' perimeters.

I don't like high tensile or barbed wire AT ALL.

We have had 2 incidents happen here in 2 years due to horses getting caught in the cattle fencing so not too bad but would have been nicer to be able to say no accidents.

If it was me and I was renting land where I wasn't happy about the type of fencing used then I would string up electric fencing on permanent posts using the long extension insulators to keep the horses well back from the fenceline.