Help! Horse keeps escaping!

Bertolie

Bertolie

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Paddock has 5ft wooden posts with 3 strands of the thick electric tape, a 1.2j energiser and fully charged battery. Little by**er is squeezing between the strands of tape totally oblivious to getting zapped! There is quite a bit of grass in paddock but he still won't stay put. Luckily when he gets out he can only get onto the track between paddocks which has a gate at either end so he can't go far but I am at my wits end trying 2 keep him in. Does anyone have any suggestions (short of cutting off his bleeding legs!)?
 
Apart from trying a double fence ie couple of feet apart, my answer is no. I have a NF who is always going through or over the fence to get to the grass I am trying to save. Just when I think she has stayed in, I find fresh poos in the other bit - she is obviously getting too clever and returning to where she should be by morning.
 
Sorry forgot to add, have you tested all strands of the fence to see if there is enough zapp there? Also rugs, especially with necks can stop some of the contact and if the horse is quick to get through it probably doesn't even get a tickle.
 
We used to have a little Welsh A x Shetland and she was wicked, she would always get out too, she was seen by someone actually kneeling then whizzing under. I ran another line of fence about 4" from the bottom and that seemed to stopped her.
 
Hi i used to have a cob that would break through any fences if he didnt have enough to eat,as long as there was hay put out for him he was happy but if you didnt give him enough to eat he was off to feed himself!he would smash through any fencing:eek::eek:
 
My mare can commando crawl on her belly to get under the electric fencing! The bottom strand has to be about 18 inches off the ground, anything much higher and she wiggles under it! (Oh, she's a 14.3hh chunky percheron X, btw!)
 
This will upset you all, but if I can't stop my retired mare escaping she will be PTS, reason being she gives herself hefty doses of colic when she escapes, plus she could in theory get onto a road, a risk I'm not prepared to take.
 
Alfiem said:
This will upset you all, but if I can't stop my retired mare escaping she will be PTS, reason being she gives herself hefty doses of colic when she escapes, plus she could in theory get onto a road, a risk I'm not prepared to take.
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Not at all as I had a little naughty cob that did this and it was next to an A road. It crossed my mind that he could kill a car driver etc and cause a nasty accident. I found him out in the farm field next door on the crops.It was open farmland..I had to get a feed bucket and walk him back and get him to follow me as he wouldnt be caught. V stressful

I do agree to put hay out as its usually pure greed..grass is greener syndrome. Also if rugged wont feel shock. Make sure the horse is given a good shock with the tape if u cant to respect it. Double it etc. I know of one horse that use to bite the fence and liked it!!

Difficult one.Could section off in strips and hope they end up in a safe strip.
 
been there & done mot of the tricks, tape sewn on inside of rugs, tied tape into mane & on headcollar, run multiple strips (had 9 strands between 11" & 3foot high) all enegised, run off the mains, run 2 fences parallel to each other........ the list goes on.

adly in the case of our gal we ended up with no other choice but to teather her for her (& others) saftey as we are directly onto a main trunk route & the police & i were fed up of being called to retrieve her off the middle of the damned roundabouts! plus the fine from the law was not something i could afford easily. even teathered she was a cow & did everythnig in her power to get loose, sold her to a home that had 6ft fencing to keep Llamas in but wa told 6 months later she had gone through it & been hit on local back road & PTS, wish things were different for her but hey ho you live & learn. hope you find something that works for you both.
 
Alfiem said:
This will upset you all, but if I can't stop my retired mare escaping she will be PTS, reason being she gives herself hefty doses of colic when she escapes, plus she could in theory get onto a road, a risk I'm not prepared to take.
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ok if this is the case then you need to move her! If she does herself that much damage you need to put up solid fencing that she cant go through or move to a yard which does.

Is she clipped? could she cope without a rug? Even if not, if you left her without one for a few hours and she got a nasty shock that might work.

Is there any way to run the electric off the mains? I find thats stronger than a battery as even I could walk through that if I really wanted to.
 
We had a welsh b and a shetland that were masters of getting out of the bit they were suppose to be in, in the end we had electric tape at 1 ft high then at 2ft, 3ft, and 4ft to stop the welshie jumping! Worked though.
 
Just had phone call from one of the other liveries 2 say that he was out again! It looks like he is squeezing between bottom and second strand. He is not rugged and I have left his headcollar on as its got metal parts. This time he has jumped into an empty paddock! Its not a lack of grass as he has just moved into his winter paddock which has lots of grass. The only thing I can think is that whilst his field companion was on box rest my boy was getting turned out with another liveries mare. Perhaps he's trying to get back to her! Really don't know what else 2 try.
 
Try another strand of tape, although rope is far more effective, and then use either more wooden posts or plastic ones to make the gaps between no more than 3ft, that will stop him! If you watch him do it he will approach on an angle, head down, and basically just rush through lifting his head as he goes. By putting more posts in you reduce the 'lift' in the tape and he will get a shock! The problem with plastic posts is that they learn to lift them as they go, something they can't do with wooden ones so wooden are better if you can afford them. Our rope distances, for welshies, is bottom strand at 12" and then a foot between, we use 4 strands, ours are on mains now (10000v) which also makes a huge difference. We had several houdinis and haven't had an escape since the fencing went in just over a year ago but when on a battery energiser at our previous place the closer posts did the trick.
 
bushbaby28 said:
ok if this is the case then you need to move her! If she does herself that much damage you need to put up solid fencing that she cant go through or move to a yard which does.

Is she clipped? could she cope without a rug? Even if not, if you left her without one for a few hours and she got a nasty shock that might work.

Is there any way to run the electric off the mains? I find thats stronger than a battery as even I could walk through that if I really wanted to.
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She's unrugged, electric off the mains, I cannot put up anymore fencing as the land is not mine, and a nasty shock to her is nothing, she will get to the other side in any way she can, and will end up a danger to herself and others. She's not ridden due to health issues and has plenty to eat. She's just a greedy, unmitigated nuisance and other liveries are, quite rightly, fed up with her. She cannot be sold on for health reasons and wouldn't be much of a companion as she wouldn't stay where she was put! So, I have to make a decision, and in this climate - I know it's the right one.
 
As someone else has suggested use a mains fencer, also check its not shorting out, one thing I have done was turn him out wet. I had a real escape artist and getting him wet gave him hell of a shock, he never did it again and lived to tell the tale. That might sound extreme but if it saves his life its worth it.
 
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