Hazardous Fences

Wooden fences are popular with horses for chewing, cribbing, wind sucking, and other vices. Hours can be spent applying various concoctions to the wood to repel the horse, with limited and temporary success. Horses also like to rub up against solid fences. If a rail comes loose, a nail may stick out and cut the horse. If a rail breaks, it can be lethal to horses. Some have been killed by spearing themselves through their chests with a piece of wood rail. It’s possible to protect such fences by running a strand of tape along the top rail. HorseGuard tape can be used to keep the horses off the fence.

Electrified cord is dangerous: Too resistant (2 tons breaking point), and too thin (5/8'' to 1/2''). In Sweden we know of more than six cases where horses have been permanently injured. The Dutch National Stud Farm installed it to enclose their stallions. The result is in the photo.

Electric string is too small for a horse to see and is fairly easy for a horse to break. This endangers the horse when he is loose. This string has only three threads of wire. They do not connect with each other so the char ge is unevenly spread along its length and tends to short easily. Because the current is carried this way, the string just doesn’t give a sufficient shock to warn the horse.

Pig netting or electric netting is a mesh with openings large enough for the horse to paw and get a hoof entangled, but not lar ge enough for the horse to withdraw the trapped hoof easily. Many horses will lean over the low fencing trying to get to grass on the other side, paw, and become panicked when trapped.

Solid fences offer a surface for a horse to rub against it. Depending on the fence this may not cause excessive problems. However, a fence solid enough to rub against constitutes a potentially dangerous obstacle should the horse kick against it possibly resulting in broken leg bones.

Vinyl fences look nice when new and are safe. However, horses do use it to rub against them. An adult horse can exert about 500 pounds of lateral pressure and this quickly plays havoc with plastic fencing. Idealy vinyl should be protected with one or two strands of electric tape.