# Best Cheap Fencing?



## Darrin (Jul 11, 2011)

For every strand of barbwire put a strand of electrical wire using a standoff insulator. This way they have to hit the electric fence before coming in contact with the barb wire.


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## Eolith (Sep 30, 2007)

Not a bad idea at all!!


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## nvr2many (Jan 18, 2011)

I was going to say something to this effect. I too have barbed wire because this is a organic cow ranch first and foremost but we have hot wire so we have never had trouble with the horses getting hurt. Knock on wood. But their main turnout is the square wire fencing, that gives me the willies. Always worried if they roll too close. 

We only have one strand of the hot wire and it seems to be enough. More would be better I would think.


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## Sharpie (May 24, 2009)

I will be watching this thread with interest. Right now my horse is out in a barbed wire pasture (yeah, shoot me) but where I'm from on the West Coast, that's pretty darn normal and my horse has not yet had an issue with it. I didn't even realize so much of the horse community was so against barbed wire until coming on this forum since 90% of the horses back home are fenced in that way. Now, I'm not saying that BW is good, or that just because it's been the norm means it should be continued, but I really need to come up with some financially viable alternatives before I buy a property since every property I'd be looking at would be currently BW fencing...


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## RunSlideStop (Apr 21, 2012)

Whatever you trust your horses in that is cost effective is your best bet. 

I don't like wire fences of any kind as horses love to bend them and get legs stuck in them or blankets/halters/fly masks/boots snagged or stuck on them (had a mare clip her throatlatch snap on her halter to a wire fence. She was there for at least a few hours, we guessed. Luckily she stayed calm. Halters in paddocks are a no-no now obviously.)

I love wood fences if there are no cribbers in the vicinity. If there are, string some wire across the top. May not even need to be hot, just having a barrier could prevent cribbing.

Otherwise I would opt for well-maintenanced ribbon that is HOT. Prefer rounded corners in the event of a chase so nobody gets bullied into a corner.

Best of luck 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## dbarabians (May 21, 2011)

Sharpie I agree here we have MILES of barbed wire fencing with out any issues.
Now i make sure each horse has plenty of room and they are not crowded but i cannot understand the prejudice against such fencing. Use common sense and not herd or work the animal against the barbed wire. a frightend horse or cow is going to try and escape no matter what type fence if pressured enough
I think it comes from those with small properties of under 200 acres. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to change the fencing here.
I am not willing to spend that much of this farms money and place the future of this estate at risk doing so.
I enclosed 3 acres for my stallion with pipe fencing and that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Shalom


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Stay away from welded wire. Unless you run a couple strands of hot wire, they lean on/paw it, the welds will break, and you'll have a mess of wire for them to get caught up in.
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## Chevaux (Jun 27, 2012)

In my perfect world, the whole of our property would be done in beautiful split rail fencing copied right out of Martha Stewart's website. However, since I am not wealthy I work with what I can afford and that is wooden rails for the corrals and barb wire for the pasture. I've got about 20 acres of pasture and one acre of corrals. I use three strands of wire in the pasture (this is perimeter fencing by the way) and put the top strand as high as I could on the post and the bottom wire about two feet off the ground. I check the pasture fence with great frequency to ensure the wire is not broken or loose. I have four horses so there is plenty of space and grazing for everyone and consequently they don`t really bother the fence.


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## Eolith (Sep 30, 2007)

I know that horses can do just fine in a pasture with barbed wire for a long time. I don't judge people who keep their horses in barbed wire fences. Most of my neighbors in the same area will have their horses in barbed wire pastures.

Personally however, I know that I would have a very hard time forgiving myself if one of my horses was badly hurt by a barbed wire fence and I knew that I hadn't done absolutely everything in my power to minimize the risk. I like the idea of using extended insulators with electric tape/rope... it seems like it will be a relatively cheap method of putting my mind a little more at ease.


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## Endiku (Dec 6, 2010)

We use welded wire, but only backed up against wooden fencing, never alone. We pull it extremely taunt and are careful to upkeep it. Otherwise it sags, starts to break, and crumples into a very big mess that can easily hurt a horse. The one time we did use welded wire by itself with capped T-posts, the gelding tried to jump it, got caught, and pretty much hung himself by three legs until I found him a few hours later. He had multiple cuts (non deep, thank goodness) and very sore legs for the next few weeks. It could easily have been much worse, but he was trained to give to pressure and did not struggle.


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## tim62988 (Aug 30, 2012)

i would say either high tensil electric, or poly wire. I would not try to contain with just poly wire, but for cordening off a large chunk into smaller sections it's great


From what I can tell it seems barbed wire is more common out west where you might have a 300 acre section with the beefers and the horses turned out, with that amount of land there is a lot less chance of a horse or cow testing the fence.

we have 2 strands of high tensil around our pasture and it hasn't been any problems, we do have a smaller corral on the side of the barn that is split rail maybe a 30x50


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## MainelyDraft (Dec 28, 2012)

In my pastures I have just fiber glass stakes and a single strand of electric wire (portable for rotation)... In the paddock I have 3 strands of electric rope on cedar fence posts...


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## GallopingGuitarist (Jan 8, 2013)

IMO barbed wire is much better than high tensile wire. I don't know if you've ever seen what happens when HT wire breaks. It goes crazy! Because it's smooth it can wrap around a hoof and when the horse jerks back it can cut the foot off. We had a friend that had a cow that got caught in the HT wire. She almost cut her foot off. 
We've had a couple of horses go through HT wire... It's not pretty. 
We have always had barber wire. Of course my dream farm would have that white poly (looks like wood) fencing... But for right now, it's barbed wire and the (electrified) HT runs with it, to re-enforce our sorry fences. 
What I hate... with a passion... is when people electrify barbed wire! That's just asking for the horse/cow/sheep to get caught, torn, and electrocuted.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

The barbed wire also keeps other large creatures out. On a 300 acre pasture the horses won't even be near the fences unless the pasture becomes overgrazed.


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## Darrin (Jul 11, 2011)

I do have to say, I don't like barb wire for horses but I only know of one horse that was badly damaged due to an actual barb wire fence. Most bad barb wire accidents I know of have come from old wire hanging around in coils on and off of posts.


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## Sharpie (May 24, 2009)

FWIW, most of the wire wounds and cuts I've seen (in person) were from loose plain wire wrapped around legs. Not that BW is safer, just trying to say that straight wire/non-hot hotwire can be pretty nasty too.


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## Joe4d (Sep 1, 2011)

properly installed HT wire wont break and wont cut legs off and horses wont run through it. 
People either dont know what HT wire is and call all kinds of cheap junk HT , or they dont install it properly with tension springs and with the ability to run free through the line posts, so it stretches a long ways in the event anything runs into it. HT is at least 14 gauge steel single strand comes on spools about two foot in diameter, and you cant cut it with wire cutters, or easily bend it without pliers.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

Heavier gauge high tensile is what use for the large pasture, had to do away with the all the wooden rails as I have forest on both sides of me and trees keep fall over on it in the winter. Got sick & tired of replacing it so the HT works great, but it is the thickest stuff you can buy as some of those trees are massive, we cut dead fall off the fence and use the insert tighteners to taut it up again. Hasn't snapped yet and it's been over 10 years. However for paddocks, I use the nice white rail fencing with a hot wire on top. If you have deer that like to jump in your paddocks, I don't recommend it, I had a deer break my hot wire and it all was on the ground. I come put to feed in the morning & one of my horse's had his back leg caught up in it, fortunately he is a smart nag & didn't struggle, he waited to be freed with not a mark on him. I haven't restrung it back up and no one has been leaning on rails so it's all good. Deer still jump in the paddock to lick the salt.
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## Joe4d (Sep 1, 2011)

yeh trees can fall on a high tension run, you just saw the trees off and it springs back up. people buy that stuff that comes on the hand held size spools they can cut with small wire snippers , that deer can run into and break. That stuff ISNOT HT wire.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

my place is fenced with wood post at corners and in the center on the long run
(330') I used field fence , t post with Caps and One strand of the 2 " hot wire tape. Most of the horse have not messed with the fence. one horse ran through it and she now stays in a pipe pen, as she would continue to run through it.


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## Fort fireman (Mar 5, 2011)

I'm getting ready to build some fence this spring. I'm going to go with the white rubber coated high tensil wire. Ramm sells it or gallegher farm supply. Gonna go with 4 strands( the middle one being hot wire) then do a top rail of electric tape. Posts will be wood 5 inch by 8 ft at about 30 ft apart and heavy corner posts. The posts are what is going to add up.
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