# are hot wires fair,, etc



## luke4275 (Aug 3, 2013)

My horse is moving into a new mare motel. barn manager wants to put up a hot wire bec one of his neighbors bites around meals and my horse is mellow.. SO, will my horse get shocked? is it once and done? should I care that the wire is up? the biting horse could be moved and switch stalls with a horse that is owned by same person.. they would just switch stalls as they are next to each other.. but barn manager wants to just put up the hot wire. thoughts?


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## Joel Reiter (Feb 9, 2015)

luke4275 said:


> is it once and done?


Depends on the power of the energizer, how well it's grounded, the conductivity of the wire, length, weeds, etc. But yeah, most horses get shocked one time and stay the heck away from the wire.

What size stall and what height would the wire be? I'm having a hard time picturing why the wire is necessary in a stall setup. What kind of goofy setup would allow a horse in one stall to bite a horse in an adjacent stall?


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

What is your stall set up? I'm trying to picture how they are getting to each other over the stalls.


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

I like and use electric fencing for my pastures but I've seen a situation like you describe and it made the horse a nervous wreck. I would guess because it was used on such a small space that horse felt like it couldn't get away from it or it could have been the horse was just a nervous type. I didn't know the horse or the people well enough to ask them which case it was.


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## Saskia (Aug 26, 2009)

I think hot wire is great in pastures, but as others have said, I'm not sure how this would work in such a small space?

I've seen horses be shocked and leap backwards, I'd worry that your horse would have nowhere to go and panic. 

I can't really imagine the set up your describing though.


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## WhattaTroublemaker (Aug 13, 2013)

Can't for the life of me picture that set up, but we use hotwire for 30+ acres of fencing and there's been no issues. Ours was once and done, but we have two chargers hooked to the fence and it will absolutely ground you if you touch it. Even I would rather jump off a building than touch that fence again. I would NEVER put it inside my barn though, that would be an accident waiting to happen, but I use a polytape round pen and my horses have no issues being nervous around it or anything.


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## jgnmoose (May 27, 2015)

Have the biting horse and hot wire setup affect their horses only. Since we are talking stalls here, your mare should not be involved. That is their issue to deal with.


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## Yogiwick (Sep 30, 2013)

JCnGrace said:


> I like and use electric fencing for my pastures but I've seen a situation like you describe and it made the horse a nervous wreck. I would guess because it was used on such a small space that horse felt like it couldn't get away from it or it could have been the horse was just a nervous type. I didn't know the horse or the people well enough to ask them which case it was.


That was my thought as well.

I would think they could put the wire up inside the other horses wall. Wouldn't love it but wouldn't be my problem. Or just a solid divider so the horse couldn't bite. Idk hot wire seems like the most pita solution, NOT the simplest!


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

I've never heard it called a mare motel in the US.... What exactly is a Mare Motel?


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## horseluvr2524 (Sep 17, 2013)

Mare motel:



















Extremely common here in Southwest, especially AZ and I think SoCal too. Its what most people have. Those are much nicer than a lot of ones we have too.

I had the same issue, except my mare was kicking and biting at her neighbors. We put up gardening wire over the panels to keep the horse's heads out of the stall. It seems to do the trick-protects them from her and she has stopped kicking the panels and hurting herself.










I have seen the hot wire stall setup once. The guy who did it ended up selling the problem horse on as he didn't like it, especially since his kids would come up and zap themselves on it. The horse didn't seem super nervous, but I only saw her once for a few minutes. I don't really think hot wire is a great idea though.

The garden fence or no climb works great for keeping their heads out of the stall and stopping biters. Horses that are really bad kickers it probably would not work for. We went with the garden fence because we didn't want to spend $150 on a roll of no climb when we only needed 24ft of wire. Works great.


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

I've never heard it called that before. I've seen those before but I assumed they were dude ranch type things. Learn something new everyday. Do the horses live in the stall or do they just come in to eat? I wouldn't use electric on that set up. I'd move the mean mare or feed on the opposite side so she can't reach over.


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