how to prevent horses chewing my wooden fencing

amymay said:
Horses chewing trees is exhibiting natural behaviour though copperpot. Why would you seek to prevent them.
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Because they're killing the trees? We have lost a couple of young trees when the horses stripped all the bark off. It was winter, they had plenty of haylage, but wanted something "fresh"! They broke into the chicken run to get at them too!
 
I thought the lady who had put electric up with water pipe was a really inventive solution, I'd go for something that didn't need re-doing all the time but we don't have lots of spare time.
You could put tape up on all three rails, or the top and bottom ones (they probably couldn't get to the middle one)
I'd imagine poo would wash off quite quickly in the rain so you'd need to do it every couple of months and three rails round 8 acres has got to take you a good few days each time!
Creolite (which is what we get from the builders merchants) certainly still smells pretty bad and kills red mite in the chicken house so not nice stuff still - but it's not cheap and will take you days to paint on and need doing every year or so.
 
its a fab idea to put bales of hay in the field but no livery wants group turnout so all horses have electric fencing to section them off. so it really isnt for to make them do this as not my horses & most are coming in at night with hay in the stables. yes, grass is the problem but no mud in sight so always something to pick at. none of my guys wood chew, only a few of the liveried horses but obviously i dont want my lovely fencing/wooden gates looking like a beaver has attacked them :-( & yes, liveries will be charged for the damage at the end of the winter period but i would prefer preventation. we have a holding number so will look into creosote but worried if a horse licks it & gets sick i will be sued :-( looked into electric fencing & going to cost more than the damn rails are worth...

hmph..... :-\
 
I wouldn't have thought electric would be much more than creosote over a couple of years, 200m of cheap tape is £17 ish on ebay (you aren't using it as a boundray so doesn't matter if it's not strong), blue water pipe must be £'s a meter so 100's of insulators for £20 ish, then just some nails and time to put it all up.
so maybe £100 for 1000 meters all in.
The creolite was £40 is for a 5 litre pot which I'd imagine wouldn't go that far on fencing.
 
thanks polos mum - would either have to buy the long sticky out things @ £11.25 for 10 & even then one of the liveries horses was leaning over the electric fencing to have a good old chew so would have to fork out to energise it. paddocks are all split. :-(
 
Have a look on here for DIY thread, a lady had made the long sticky out things from blue water pipe at a cost of less than 1p each, they looked good and really effective, just cut the pipe to the length you need, nail one end ot your posts and thread the tape through the other end. A little time consuming I'm sure but well worth it for the saving.

Could you borrow an energiser from someone for a couple of weeks? Once they've had a good shock it'll put them off for a good while? Even if not a basic energiser and battery would only be £80 odd second hand from e-bay so the same price as replacing 10 meters of fence?

I guess your only other option is to drastically reduce the numbers of liveries you have on the land so there is plenty of grass and they don't feel the need to eat other things! But that sounds like a very expensive option!
 
not an option to reduce liveries as already run at a loss but does mean i dont pay to livery my guys although they are in my rented field rather than the 8 acres. grass never lasts in the winter unless i only have 1/2 horses on it as most are out 24/7. will take a look at the diy thread now. i do think people underestimate how much a horse living out 24/7 actually eats.... you need at least 4 acres per livery just for winter to make it last which isnt viable at £30k+ an acre. plus im so lucky to have sandy soil that id rather have no grass than my horses stood in mud. summer paddocks are clay soil so not useable in winter - all summer/winter paddocks are rested for approx 6 months each. summer paddocks are all electric fencing so no chewing woohoo :-)
 
Aces_High said:
I put the Rockies Reds out and have found that providing the horses have enough hay during the day this stopped mine from chewing the fences. There were obviously missing a trace element of something as they stopped immediately.
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Rockies are a good idea but the normal square 10kg red Rockies are NOT recommended for sheep horses or goats - they should have the yellow Rockies block instead. This is because the red Rockies (which is meant for cattle) has a potentially dangerously high level of copper for horses and sheep and goats

The blue Rockies is fine, this is same as yellow but with added magnesium.

There is a small horse specific salt lick rockies make (2kg I think) of which there are red and white versions (annoyingl) and both are safe but check before buying on which you are getting and what the copper levels are.
 
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