Bhs approved yards with barb wire fencing?!?

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Caroline1239

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Have just come off the phone with a good friend who's horse has almost bled to death today. A very scared friend found her horse 30 min after turnout with an arterial bleed in right fore. The field has barb wire fencing in place, which they are trying to grow a hedge over. It was the wire the horse had got caught in - they found the spot where it happened.

I find it very worrying that the BHS are approving livery yards with barb wire fencing - surely this is NOT a safe way to fence for horses - or any other animal for that matter. I hate barb wire with a passion.....and am so relieved that my friends horse is still alive!!!!!!
 
Seems crazy doesn't it. I could never understand how the BHS approved somewhere I know of which had barbed wire, sheep wire and gates hanging off hinges.....
 
it is expensive to get the BHS approval, and sadly there are many approved yards with bad fencing, ragwort etc etc. i got the paperwork for the approved scheme, and it is expensive and you get little for it .. a free listing on the bhs site!!! but at least you know the yard does have insurance. if i were the owner of the horse i would be asking whether they had 3c liability, and potentially look at reclaiming the vet bills. yes accidents do happen but yards should minimise the risk by not having barbed wire.
 
I was on a BHS approved yard with no gate between the road and a open manhole with no cover or fencing to prevent anyone falling in it, when i brought this up with the BHS they got it inspected again and still approved it - need i say more & I will not go back on a BHS 'approved yard' again, as it does not mean anything
 
I used to work on a BHS approved yard, and when it was inspection time they do give you noice that they're coming, so of course everything is spick and span when they come (the yard I was on did have quite high standards anyway), but when the inspectors didnt like something they just said 'oh you have to change that otherwise next year we wont pass it', YO said 'Ok, will do' and approval was granted! So doesn't surprise me in the least.

Main thing they seemed to be bothered about was the horses feet, they inspected every last one of them and I had to pick out 40 horse's feet for them! Unless the ones I met just had a foot fetish....
 
I wouldn't hold any BHS Approval too highly to be honest! I am probably not best person to comment, but will say my piece...I hate post and rail!

Whether they go out invididually or in a herd, MOST horses do not respect post and rail. I have seen two horses first hand destroyed due to post and rail which impaled in their chests...thoroughbreds needless to say but never seen a death through barbed wire. I will also confirm it was bloomin expensive solid post and rail and not some flimsy effort! Freak accidents both of them but nevertheless stuck in my head.

Most horses (not all) have a healthy respect for it and it cant be chewed! - if tensioned correctly and not hanging here and there, personally as evil as it can be I would chose it over post and rail......:eek:
 
I've seen skin stripped off a leg down to tendons and bone by plain wire - so don;t think it is any safer than barb wire. in reality - but yes, barbed wire is less than ideal, but we have it and our horses havenever come to harm

And yes - I agree with every poster - BHS approval means nothing at all. The worst and most miserable yard I was on was BHS approved. The people and the horses were miserable and the YO was...be diplomatic...capricious.

Think if it like the old ISO9000 - for example if you had a customer satisfaction measurement process, you could show it worked you were certified ISO9000 - if it showed that you had extremely unhappy customers, you were still certified. It measures the process and ignores the results
 
I'm another barbed wire hater for all animals! A most horrid and dangerous invention and no need to use it these days with all the electric fence options now available.
 
We have barbed wire running along the top rail of our post and rail, it stops them trying to knock the fence over. I don't have a problem with it, they respect it and touch wood I haven't had a problem.
 
I find it very worrying that the BHS are approving livery yards with barb wire fencing - surely this is NOT a safe way to fence for horses
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I have kept horses in fields fenced with barbed wire for years, and never had a problem. Well strung and repaired regularly - it should be no problem.

It's usually the lack of maintenance that causes problems (for any fencing type), not necessarily the type of fencing used.
 
amymay said:
I have kept horses in fields fenced with barbed wire for years, and never had a problem. Well strung and repaired regularly - it should be no problem.

It's usually the lack of maintenance that causes problems (for any fencing type), not necessarily the type of fencing used.
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agree
 
"electric fencing"....

Great for small fields, in our yard you would need to power it up to a electricy mains station to leccy it all!!!

Barbed wire is fine...IF you tension it properly...and dont overstock your fields...little bit of luck in there of course, but generally it's respected by most horses......
 
I hope your friend's horse is ok. But accidents can happen with any fencing. I know of an incident where the horse tore his own hoof off panicking when caught up in ordinary wire fencing. Sadly the only way to avoid it is to move the horse. And your friend won't have any comeback for vets fees because the yard would say that she knew it was there and still turned her horse out so the blame lies with her. Terrible situation.
 
Sorry to hear about your friends horse. I hope he recovers well.

chestercharlie said:
I wouldn't hold any BHS Approval too highly to be honest! I am probably not best person to comment, but will say my piece...I hate post and rail!

Whether they go out invididually or in a herd, MOST horses do not respect post and rail. I have seen two horses first hand destroyed due to post and rail which impaled in their chests...thoroughbreds needless to say but never seen a death through barbed wire. I will also confirm it was bloomin expensive solid post and rail and not some flimsy effort! Freak accidents both of them but nevertheless stuck in my head.

Most horses (not all) have a healthy respect for it and it cant be chewed! - if tensioned correctly and not hanging here and there, personally as evil as it can be I would chose it over post and rail......:eek:
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But ditto this - I've seen more accidents with post and rail, plain wire and electric fencing than barbwire. In fact I've never seen a barbwire injury but i HAVE dealt with various 'horse friendly' fencing damage. Electric fencing is lethal if they try to go through it and acts like cheesewire. Plain wire instils no respect and post and rail gets trashed so easily and splinters into sharp bits. Barbwire (tensioned correctly) is a probably the best fencing IMO - cheap, easily mantainted and a massive deterant for them touching it. And if the horse is so freaked it's going to run through a fence anyways then no fencing of any description is safe.
 
wire and horses do not mix, simples, i understand that some horse owners have to turn out where ther is wire but i cant belive some of you are saying it is absoloutely fine for use as horse fenceing, and sheep netting is just as bad maintained or not :mad::mad: I have seen horrific injury's and death caused by wire fences , to say it is ok is just , well... actually it makes me kind of sad....:(
 
Sheep fencing is never safe regardless of how well maintained. In in my experience post and rail as as dangerous, if not more so, than well keep wire. And other than a large hedge or a stone wall I can't think of any other fencing type!
 
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