Which fencing for sheep & horses?

M

Marv99

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 March 2010
Messages
72
Location
Bolton, Lancs
Visit site
I'm hoping to soon be in the position of having 5 acres to graze my horses on. I'm also hoping to get about 6 sheep to graze the land as well. The perimeter is fenced with square wire stock fencing but I was intending on dividing the plot into 4 fields. What kind of fencing should I use? I will for the meantime keep the existing perimeter fence as I can't afford to replace but I'm going to run electric on the inside of this to keep the horses away from the wire. My sheep are Wiltshire horns and I know from speaking to other owners they pay little attention to the electric!

Also does anyone have any other advice for grazing sheep and horses together?
 
Sounds like what you are intending to do should work. We have sheep netting round the perimeter then a strand of electric to keep the horses off the fence but high enough to let the sheep under to graze right up to the fence otherwise you will just get loads of weeds/ long grass in the wire. If I want to divide the field I again put it so the shhep can get under but not the horses (realise this depends on the size of sheep/horses , we usually have lambs from april which go to slaughter in dec so they are not too big)
 
the electric nets are not really strong enough, unless you wire them to the mains. I'm afraid that some sort of stock netting or possibly electric wire if it is low enough, at least 3 strands and with a powerful energiser, nothing else will keep sheep where you want them... you can get ''horse safe'' stock wire netting nowadays, it's a bit expensive, but maybe worth looking into. I have to say, I have never had any sort of problem with horses and ordinary stock fence.
 
I know electric won't stop the sheep as they all have horns and therefore just go straight through it. I think from listening to you all above its stock wire fencing with electric to keep the horses away. I have a horse who put his foot through some stock fencing ending up with expensive vets bills so I am very aware of the dangers of using this with horses.
 
martlin said:
that will do both:
http://www.tornadowire.co.uk/classic-horse-fence
Click to expand...

We have that (the premium version ) in the field we rotate sheep with lambs and horses in. Very very good esp for lambs as the foxes cant get in (ours is 6 or 7 foot high as it has 5 foot of tornado then 2 electric above! (dont ask, OH went a bit loopy with the spec!)

The other fields have sheep mesh then horse electric tape in front of it. Does mean we have to top the gap between the inner horse fence and the outer sheep fence.

Electric sheep mesh is not permitted under the defra welfare code for horned sheep as they can easily get caught in it. Hence our ram (the ewes are polled) is always in the metal sheep mesh or tornado mesh field, not those with electric mesh.

In your position I would go for standard stock fencing (metal, square holes, bigger squares at top than bottom) with horse electric on the top on offset insulator loops to keep the horses away from the stock fence. This would be reasonably safe (assuming the electric is working!) and would also be appropriate for the horned sheep.
 
Thanks for the advice. I've emailed Tornado for prices just to see but I think stock with electric is the way to go. I also didn't know you couldn't use electric netting with horned sheep so thats something else thats useful to know.

Thanks for all the advice
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top