Livery yard has barb wire fencing

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kdoug

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Hi, I moved to a yard a couple of months ago - great facilities, flood lit school, nice stables, solarium, the works! I was made aware paddock fencing is being slowly replaced and appreciate it’s a ££ project(!!) with Hotwire equestrian fencing, and some plain wire remained. The other paddocks, when viewing, my brain had processed as post and rail (as bit at front is) however my horses have been moved into it and turns out the rest of the paddock perimeter is barbed wire with the lower 3rd strung at knee height, some with 4th strung at ankle height at back of paddock. They are lovely huge paddocks, but one of my horses in particular is a liability — she has slipped into and injured herself on post and rail before (lovely but not always the brightest bulb!?), let alone barb wire!! My insurance is also invalid against any injuries caused by barb or stock fencing.
I suppose my question is - would you expect to see this / be okay with this on a livery yard in this day and age?! Would I be unreasonable to have quite an issue with this… have other peoples horses managed unscathed and I need to get over it?! I’d rather not move as I have 4 horses there and finding space elsewhere is not easy, plus the rest is spot on, so don’t want to get ‘into it’ with the livery owner too badly and get told to find elsewhere…! But contract does say ‘adequately fenced grazing’ - would you challenge this is adequate?
 
Barbed wire is Common on perimeter fencing as 3 strand stock proofing - if its tight it shouldnt be an issue — but I tend to put post and rail or at minimum electric between it and the horses although it shouldnt strictly be necessary

it is definitely adequate— if you dont like it then your options are probably to move unfortunately
 
I've had a horses cut his face on barbed wire and it needed staples....I didn't realise the barbed wire was there !!

Bought new field recently and I've removed barbed wire and stock proof fencing... barbed wire is a big no !! I would either ask to move fields, remove it yourself (wire cutters and hard work) or electric fence the horses away from it !!
 
My friend has just purchased some fields. Slowly getting rid of barbed wire. What I did with a top strand was remove it and replace with half moon rails which did the job nicely. Could you do the same with a small area near the gateway if concerned or it's electric fencing if you need?
 
I would do a baby fence inside with your own poles and tape, its what i did, there is barbed wire at the top of our fields and stock at the rest. After BBs accident with stock, I just bought lots of poles and tape and put a baby fence inside ? would that be a possibility?
 
I’d not accept a barbed wire fence dividing fields of horses or at the front where gate is. Not as bad at back or sides if not horses other side of the fence. If it’s tight wire and there’s enough grass and a big enough space the risk is lower.

It might be worth asking yard if you can run an inner line of electric fencing at your cost and effort inside the field of the most accident prone horse.
 
Kdoug if you can't for some reason run posts for the electric, you can buy long neck wire holders which screw easily into wood posts with a big screwdriver through the hole, and hold the electric wire about 8 inches out from the post. I would set one wire at the top and one at knee height. A battery energiser should do for a while if you can't connect to the existing electric fence.
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I have barbed wire on one side of our main field and I just use green posts and electric tape on the inside to keep the horses about half a meter of it. You don’t even really see the electric fence.

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Apologies for the magnificent pose from the horse in the photo. It’s the only photo I can find of the fence ? She is a very strange mare but we love her.
 
I've got my uncle's old farm and yes sadly there is a couple strands of barbed wire probably going back to the 1960's or so which runs right inside some of the hedges; uncle was a cattle farmer and would've put it up to keep his stock back. It was the cheapest and most effective fencing back then.

The hedge is an old Devon hedge and is very thick - the wire is buried deep within the hedge and it would be one helluva job to get it all out - you'd have to demolish the hedge to get to it.

I put up electric fencing wire in front of anything with barbed wire; ours is from the mains electric so they don't mess with it.

Barbed wire isn't ideal, but it is out there still.
 
We're on a working farm and all fields are fenced with single strand barbed wire due to the cows and some stock fencing. We fence about a metre in all the way around the perimeter with a good solar zapper so they can't get near it! The one place they can is at their trough which is against the fence - we've covered it with pipe lagging which works well. It's not ideal I hate the stuff, but then it's manageable & the farmer totally understands he's fab.
 
Going against the grain here, our livery yard has barbed wire in all the fields and we never (touch wood) have any injuries from it. We get the occasional ripped rug, but mainly the horses know to stay away from it. We do have very big fields though.
 
kdoug said:
Hi, I moved to a yard a couple of months ago - great facilities, flood lit school, nice stables, solarium, the works! I was made aware paddock fencing is being slowly replaced and appreciate it’s a ££ project(!!) with Hotwire equestrian fencing, and some plain wire remained. The other paddocks, when viewing, my brain had processed as post and rail (as bit at front is) however my horses have been moved into it and turns out the rest of the paddock perimeter is barbed wire with the lower 3rd strung at knee height, some with 4th strung at ankle height at back of paddock. They are lovely huge paddocks, but one of my horses in particular is a liability — she has slipped into and injured herself on post and rail before (lovely but not always the brightest bulb!?), let alone barb wire!! My insurance is also invalid against any injuries caused by barb or stock fencing.
I suppose my question is - would you expect to see this / be okay with this on a livery yard in this day and age?! Would I be unreasonable to have quite an issue with this… have other peoples horses managed unscathed and I need to get over it?! I’d rather not move as I have 4 horses there and finding space elsewhere is not easy, plus the rest is spot on, so don’t want to get ‘into it’ with the livery owner too badly and get told to find elsewhere…! But contract does say ‘adequately fenced grazing’ - would you challenge this is adequate?
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Adequately fenced grazing to me would mean that a horse can't get through it.

I would prefer electric fencing but only twice have I had a horse in such a place. And there were things I disliked more than their fencing so I did not stay (I thought their paddocks were too small). (And in one of those places I thought the terrain was too flat - it being as flat as a tack.) (In fact it was soooo flat, that one day when I drove to the paddock in an absolute cloudburst where I had to stop driving for a while, when i arrived the paddocks had a lake sitting on them. The rain stopped when I pulled up, and I watched as the lake disappears in moments. Quite a sight.
 
Anyone needing to remove barbed wire, especially if tangled through overgrown hedges as ours was when we moved in - I bought a cordless Makita angle grinder. I won't say this made it a pleasure to remove but actually it was incredibly satisfying. The actual cutting is effortless. I cut lengths out and folded them into short enough bundles to bag up in feed bags. It was well worth the investment.
 
I tolerate barbed wire providing it’s tight and is higher up with a different type of fencing underneath. (Like stock fencing). Low down barbed wire is a no no. My youngster went hedge swimming and managed to find a bit of old barbed wire to slash his fetlock on. we were very lucky that it missed the vital bits, but it was 2 months box rest to keep it clean (it was winter), and it was difficult to heal!

if you can run some electric in front of it, I would
 
If someone is providing livery facilities/turnout for horses then barbed wire is totally unacceptable as a fencing. The injuries it can cause can be life threatening/changing. All the barbed wire fencing should have been replaced with acceptable fencing such as wooden post and three rails with Equifencing attached to it before opening their facilities for horses.
 
PeterNatt said:
If someone is providing livery facilities/turnout for horses then barbed wire is totally unacceptable as a fencing. The injuries it can cause can be life threatening/changing. All the barbed wire fencing should have been replaced with acceptable fencing such as wooden post and three rails with Equifencing attached to it before opening their facilities for horses.
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I can't agree with this, sorry. Though i would prefer to see neither, I would prefer to see horses turned out with electric guarded barbed wire than not turned out at all. If the liveries are allowed to add their own electric fence then I don't see why the yard should turn down the money that they can earn which will then finance upgrading the rest of the fencing.

If all liveries had to have post and rail then most yards in the North West would have to shut.
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That's the thing, barbed wire and stockproof sheep/cow wire fencing is fine for horses, until it isn't. I know of 2 really bad horse incidents locally that involved wire, lots of vet treatment with one successful outcome and one PTS. Fields still being used, wire still in place as before. Very knowledgeable horse keepers too, would have realised potential for damage.
 
ycbm! If people/organisations intend to operate a livery yard then everything should be put in place to ensure the horses and liveries safety before opening. If they are unable to finance this then they should not be allowed to operate. It is about time that livery yards have to comply with national legislation and standards.
 
PeterNatt said:
ycbm! If people/organisations intend to operate a livery yard then everything should be put in place to ensure the horses and liveries safety before opening. If they are unable to finance this then they should not be allowed to operate. It is about time that livery yards have to comply with national legislation and standards.
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While i understand you pov, if that is to be the case then the costs of livery will be prohibitive. We have dry stone walls, except for one side, which is stock fenced, at our side and barbed at the other side, we have electric fencing inside that and also inside the walls.
 
PeterNatt said:
ycbm! If people/organisations intend to operate a livery yard then everything should be put in place to ensure the horses and liveries safety before opening. If they are unable to finance this then they should not be allowed to operate. It is about time that livery yards have to comply with national legislation and standards.
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I too agree that barbed wire fencing is an accident waiting to happen where horses are concerned, but as far as I'm aware it's not illegal?
 
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