What fencing do you have and why?

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NELSON11

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Just curious really what sort of fencing you have on your yards or at home and why? I visit a lot of yards as part of my job and it amazes me what standard of fencing people will keep horses in.

What do you think is the best fencing to have in your paddocks and why? Do many people still use barbed wire these days?

We have a mixture of electric fencing and post and rail at our yard, the post and rail has never been treated so seem to spend lots of time nailing back on weak rails. Does anyone else suffer this?

I think in an ideal world, natural hedgeline would be my preferred choice all round
 
I have Tornado Fencing and post and rail. To be honest I don't think it matters what fencing you have providing it is well maintained. In Australia there is masses of wire where the horses are and as long as it is taut it isn't a problem. (Pomms are now gasping!!) I have my fencing for personal preference and due to having expensive stock but wouldn't knock anyone with wire, electric etc as long as it's well looked after. Good thread I think.
 
We use a flexible rail system of fencing, it is amazing, better than post and rail any day, so many benefits and you don't have to creosote it :D

Like this...

http://www.mcnamarafencing.ie/flexrail.htm

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My horses live behind good stock fencing (2 strands barb and sheep netting) - I live on a farm. My smallest field is 7 acres and I have never had a problem and have had foals upwards.
 
I have post and rail in most areas and am working towards getting the whole yard post n railed. Its amazing how many people will only accept post and rail as an acceptable fencing for their horses.

My personal hate is electric fencing as it looks so ugly and always needs putting back together when the wind blows or something pushes it.
 
pressure treated & creosoted post and rail with hawthorn hedging on two sides.

our post and rail fencing is heavy duty stuff and in the 11 years its been in we haven't had to repair it once - love it.

I use electric fencing occassionally to section of areas of the paddock i.e. when reseeding gateways etc.

The hawthorn is well established and the girls love to tuck into / under it in bad weather - only downside is extracting bits of it from their manes and tails - it's spiky!!
 
Stock wire, professionally installed, treated timber.

Not keen on it, but we have sheep, goats and cattle too, they take no notice of a couple of rails or bit of hot wire. We have over a mile of road frontage, wandering stock is a not an option. It also puts the coyotes off snacking on the sheep a bit as well.

Hedges? What are they? We don't have them where I live, they'd get in the way of the combines;)
 
My land is all post and railed with three rails (which has been treated with waste engine oil rather than creosote...free, lasts MUCH MUCH longer and doesn't smell half as bad) and has a strand of electric wire on each rail to stop the youngsters chewing the fencing!

Works brilliantly for me, but as long as horses are safe and kept it, I don't see a problem with most types of fencing. At home we have dry stone walls around all out fields, and have never had a problem with that!
 
All thick hedges around the outside and all electric fencing inside :) Its so versatile, and an absolute must with native ponies; I have a track system in spring/summer and move them around in the winter in paddocks of around half an acre each.

I have nearly 6 acres altogether and they live out; Never have to feed hay which is a bonus!
 
Wooden posts with wide elec tape between - because her majesty runs through other fences if it pleases her to be on the other side! (well, the grass is always greener...!)
 
enfys said:
Stock wire, professionally installed, treated timber.

Not keen on it, but we have sheep, goats and cattle too, they take no notice of a couple of rails or bit of hot wire. We have over a mile of road frontage, wandering stock is a not an option. It also puts the coyotes off snacking on the sheep a bit as well.

Hedges? What are they? We don't have them where I live, they'd get in the way of the combines;)
Click to expand...

Where are you then?
 
Electric fencing attatched to wooden posts. Works perfectly well.
Old yard had barbed wire, and it looked awful. However in 6 years we never had a single injury as a result of it.
 
Post and rail round all over the fields with high hedges at the back and then electric fencing to split the fields up into 3-4 acres each, my po has to have the high stuff or else she escapes!
 
Hedges around the perimeter reinforced with post and plain wire; internal paddocks are fenced with wooden posts and electric polywire. As someone has said, this is extremely versatile and easy to replace the odd post that's past its sell by date. The polywire looks quite smart I think. I don't use plastic electric fence posts, they're not stable enough and don't look too good. Plus, I had a youngster who managed to get the business end of a plastic fence post impaled in his side, luckily it missed any vital organs!
 
Our 'big fields are mostly pressure treated post and rail but along the road we have (very old) hedging. Within the fields we have paddocks made up using electric fencing... at the bottom of our land it is 'fenced' by a river.

Works for us and when horses are 'turned away' for what ever reason we don't have to worry about water!

Bx
 
We have a mixture. The field they are currently in has dry stone walls on two sides, post + rail on one and sheep wire with a strand of electric tape at the top on the other. We've removed a lot of barbed wire recently as I don't like to risk it with horses but if you have other livestock it's so essential. We had cows in our top field for a couple of months over summer and they really do just walk through anything else! I wouldn't want sheep wire between fields with horses either side but we do need to keep sheep out of the hay fields over summer. Once I've got more money in the bank I'll have to look into the horse mesh I think - which hopefully will do both jobs!
 
Our fields mainly have stock fencing round as they are bordered by farmers fields with cattle and sheep in and we occasionally have the sheep in ours so we sort of need the stock fencing. However, due to us having some (stupid) horses who seem to love nothing more than getting their feet in the sheep wire and either getting stuck or removing shoes or both, we have removed alot of the netting now that divides our fields and the parts around the stable yard. These are the places they other will stand and lean over - the fences between ours and the farmers they don't bother with.

We are looking at slowly going down a similar route to Weezy's style of fencing as the same horses who like to put their feet in the fencing also seem to like chewing wooden rails so I don't think post and rail would work and we have a heck of a lot to fence! Currently where we've removed the sheep wire we have replaced this with a couple of strands of sight (white) wire which seems to work well but we ant to replace with the thicker stuff like weezy has.
 
Stock fencing highered to 5' around the perimeter with two strands of electric fencing about 18" away on he inside (I have goats too ;) )
 
Had barb wire for 14years with no problems but as I bred a foal this year refenced with 1.05mt X-fence. Super fencing and addictive have now done dry cow field and heifer and bull field. Hate electric fence but had to use as foal had to have restricted turnout for a while so has its place.
 
our boundry fences are sadly either stock wire or barbed wire, thankfully I have lined them with two lines of electric tape in order tokeep my babies away from it. My internal fences are post and rail, I have to line most paddocks with electric tape as my nf jumps 4ft post and rail (she escaped again today). My neighbour thinks stock wire is the way to go has surrounded her land in it and then proceeded to push her old post and rail down during the summer, it was on my side and she deceided it made her new fencing look a mess and was encrouching on her land.....sadly she put it up originally and left in wrapped in barbed wire and nails in my field......the reason I don't like stock fencing is because my old gelding got his foot caught in it one day and it severly damaged his foot.
 
Post and rail with electric wire along the top. Post and rail because it's safe and sturdy and electric wire to stop them chewing it/trying to jump out/rubbing on it.
 
sheep wire [ netting] because we have sheep,with a rail on top so the horses can see it and electric tape too to stop them chewing the rail and keep them away from the fence in general. Also hedges with sheep netting eitherside.
 
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