Electric fence - is wire ok or should I stick to tape?

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diddy

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Evening all,

I have sheep fencing around the perimeter of our field but one of the ponies is a serial escape artist & has managed to get over into next door a couple of times. I assume that she's jumping the fence as it is all in good repair. I'm not sure how she manages it as there is also a hawthorn fence around most of the fenceline with only a few small gaps. So I was thinking of putting a line of electric fencing inside the hedge to discourage her from getting out. It will be a similar height to what is there now but will effectively make for a three-line barrier i.e. electric, hedge, sheep fencing. Hopefully that will keep her in!

So my question is, can I use wooden posts with insulators & plain wire for this? Or should I use tape? (People on here seem to think rope is a bit of a risk.) I have post & tape for dividing up the fields internally but it looks a bit tatty so was thinking that wire would be neater. But d'you think wire would be safe, given that the horse in question is accident-prone & willing to test the fencing?!

Thanks!

D. x
 
Definitely not wire. Not safe at all.
I do use rope, the thin stuff which does break under strain but not as easily as tape. It's too windy and the sheep are too woolly round here for tape.
 
what do you mean by plain wire? not electrified? The issue with think electric wire is visibility really and I would prefer not to use it with horses.

rope v. tape really does depend on your location/wind levels, we use tape without issue but the more expensive tape is definitely stronger and longer lasting.
 
galvanised wire ie fencing wire tends not to work as well as specific electric tape rope or wire. I am not a fan of very thin wire as it slices through skin like a knife so use rope mostly and 5 or six strands of tape on the moveable fence on the track
 
you do get galvanised wire specifically for electric fencing (as well as the polywire stuff) it is just made up of multiple strands.
 
Thanks for this. Yes, sorry wasn’t clear there. I mean whatever we put will have electric running through it. I might give the rope a go then - good to know that others have used it successfully. It’s pretty windy where we are & the tape blows about a bit & just annoys me tbh. Thanks for your help! x
 
I use wire...rope is too heavy and I can never get it taut enough and tape catches the wind and goes baggy after a while.
I make sure to keep it very well tensioned and well electrifed
 
As long as the rope is taught as you can get it and the power is high it should be okay. Wire is very risky mainly because they can'y quite see it. For an escape artist i wouldn't use tape.
 
I was very disappointed with the wire I used for my pigs. I thought it would be more hard wearing but after a month of no use it’s gone rusty enough to affect the correct going through it. I use tape for my ponies and accept I need to replace it yearly.
 
We use electric wire with our pigs, sheep & cattle. With the horses I tend to use tape but run an electric wire at a lower level too just to maintain the current.

meleeka said:
I was very disappointed with the wire I used for my pigs. I thought it would be more hard wearing but after a month of no use it’s gone rusty enough to affect the correct going through it. I use tape for my ponies and accept I need to replace it yearly.
Click to expand...

We learned thorough experience, 'you gets what you pays for' the cheap stuff just doesn't last. Not sure what make we use but it goes on for years... no rusting and is only replace when the joins become too much of a bother.
 
Having had an escape artist at a livery yard where they used wire, and found him standing with blood pouring from his leg inside a circle of electrified wire which he had detached from the posts, I would err against it. He was a ridiculously thick self harmer but the wound was significant enough for internal and external stitches and I was lucky to find him as quickly as I did.
 
I have had permanent electrified wire fences here for about 30 years with only one serious accident (12 ponies on average), touch wood. As has been said, wire is OK with a few caveats.

The wire I use, and recommended for permanent electric fencing, is high tensile galvanised steel 2.5mm. A cheap way to make it more visitble is to cable tie (cheap) white tape to the top strand. The accident occurred to a foal because the wire was not tensioned properlyand it got wrapped around a foot and cut a ligament. That could happen with any wire product that is not erected and maintained properly.

In the OP's situation, I would erect a single wire fence away from the existing on posts up to 25m apart, depending on the topography, with white tape cable tied to it for visibility. The posts can be some distance apart as all they are doing is holding up the wire. Of course, this needs to be electrified with a good energiser. If horses get a good shock from a fence, they won't usually be so keen to try again! Electric fencing is a psychological barrier, not a physical one, and the object is to keep the wire in contact wih the animal's body as long as possible so it gets shocked. A standard stock fence is a physical barrier, so it must be strong enough to withstand the pressure of the animal pushing or rubbing. So different things.
 
We had a incident with electrified wire where C decided to attempt to jump out and didn't get one back leg over it. The result was a 'cheesewire' injury straight into the hock joint.

I'll only use the rope or tape now
 
I've used tape and rope - the rope is definitely better if you're high up and it gets windy. We also rented a field that had wire round the outside with mains electric through it, but the horses couldn't run through it as it had a hedge behind it (if that makes sense). I also suspect that after one zap, they wouldn't have gone anywhere near it!
 
I tried rope for one of my fields, and found that it got very heavy, made worse if it was raining, and started to sag, so changed to tape.

I'm quite high up, and yes, tape can be a bit of a PITA if its windy and you're using movable posts, but I would never ever use the "cheesewire" type of wire; I keep that for the little boundary round the chooks pen, never for the horses.
 
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