Perimeter fencing pasture

[gsganzer]

But an LGD can be so sweet!

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That black mouth cur dog brings back memories of the one we put down the other year after he got a lung infection. Ours was also yellow. Our latest 1 year old is a red BMC. BMC's are the best dogs ever!

 

[drumminj]

As said above, horses will chew wooden boards. Also run a top strand of electric with woven wire or the horses will lean over the woven wire to get at the greener grass on the other side. A 1000 pound horse leaning on woven wire will cause all sorts of problems.

One way to look at my proposed approach is it's running 4' no climb with a top board, which is a pretty common approach to add visibility and avoid horses pushing down on the top of the fence in the situation you describe.

We just have two other boards lower down to make it look "prettier".

Horses, donkeys, or sheep may chew boards, but the hope is with the low stocking rate we'll run they won't spend much time at the fenceline.

 

[lman]

One way to look at my proposed approach is it's running 4' no climb with a top board, which is a pretty common approach to add visibility and avoid horses pushing down on the top of the fence in the situation you describe.

We just have two other boards lower down to make it look "prettier".

Horses, donkeys, or sheep may chew boards, but the hope is with the low stocking rate we'll run they won't spend much time at the fenceline.

Four acres is not much space for a couple of horses and the grass will get greener on the other side when the grass gets short unless you use some electric fence.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have goats and goats are famous for escaping. I also have horses, so I wanted a fence that was horse safe. And worse of all, there are tons of wild hogs where I live, so keeping them out was a huge priority. I went with 2x4 horse fencing. I started with Red Brand because they had the best price before Covid at Lowes with my military discount. After Covid, they went way up in price, so I bought OK Brand.

I wanted Class 3 galvanized fencing, but couldn't find it, and when I did see it online, it was crazy expensive. Class 1 is expensive enough!!!

I have a 12-inch auger. I'm a Contractor that does a lot of repairs for homeowners. I'm convinced that the only way to keep a wooden post from rotting in the ground is to set it in concrete with the concrete coming up above the ground, so standing water isn't able to touch the wood. I've never pounded posts into the ground, and I don't know if water will sit next to the post after it rains. Backfilling a hole with dirt is the very worse way to set a post and the fastest to rot.

My wood posts are every 100 feet or less. My T-Posts are every ten feet or less. I use a Mansaver T-Post pounder to set my T-Posts. It runs off of a small pancake air compressor that I power from my little Honda Generator.

You want straight lines for fencing. The longer the line the better. Bends and turns require additional bracing, which is more work and more money.

Everything starts at the corners. Anywhere the fence turns, it's a corner. I set those posts first. Then I stretch barbed wire from the base of each post to create my straight line. I measure off for my wood line posts and set them. Then I measure for my T-Posts and install them.

Handling and unrolling the horse fence was my biggest challenge. I built a way to do this using my pallet forks and hay forks. Then I use two come alongs to pull the wire tight.

I'm at the point that it's pretty easy to build the fence by myself. I'm 60 years old and fairly active in decent shape. What takes me the most time and is the most work is clearing the trees. I won't do any fencing if I can't drive and mow along the side of it. Fortunately, when doing my property line, my neighbor felt the same way and allowed me to remove all his trees that I wanted removed.

Trees hate fences. They will attack and destroy a fence if they can. The only way to avoid tree damage is to remove the trees!!!

My fence is goat proof, hog proof and horse safe.

 

[drumminj]

Thanks @EddieWalker, I had hoped you'd chime in based on some of your threads on fencing I saw.

That pneumatic post pounder is nice. Didn't know those existed! I'm still young enough to somewhat enjoy the workout of pounding t-posts, but certainly not that many.

Lookng at pricing, the Bekaert is $2/ft which is cheaper than Red Brand (and I think OKBrand, but so far haven't found it locally). It has their special coating they guarantee for 30 years: Buy Horseman® 30 1348-2 12.5/13.5 ga 200' Horse Fence | Fence Products | Bekaert Fencing

The OK Brand has high-tensile no-climb fencing that's class 3. Our co-op carries their livestock panels but apparently not woven wire fencing. I haven't inquired about them ordering it to get pricing.

Fencing contractor didn't seemed concerned at all about following the curves of the driveway without any extra bracing. I'm a little concerned about that but they're an established company in this rural area so I would expect they know what they're doing /shrug.

 

[drumminj]

I should also add that I've been clearing trees along the planned fenceline on and off for a few months. We do want to keep a visual buffer with the neighbors (and the monster of a house currently being built two lots over) so there will be some trees overhanging the fence. Hoping I don't come to regret that.

 

[grsthegreat]

I made my own unroller and stretcher myself also. I build my fences the same way as eddie, but i manually pound my own posts. The trick is to i stall tposts right after spring thaw. If i wait until late summer….its like pounding thru concrete.

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[drssg]

When I was building fence, I found that the cost of materials was about half of what it cost to hire out the work. That might help in getting the post pounder cost past your CFO.

I did the rounded corners, but that really only matters if your horses are too loony to not run into the fence line.

I would NOT want to have boards on the inside of the fence. Over time, the nails and boards can come loose and create sharp hazards.

I'm not a fan of wire fencing, but I second the advice on adding a top electric wire. Our horses treat the fence line as "look but don't touch".

 

[Torvy]

That black mouth cur dog brings back memories of the one we put down the other year after he got a lung infection. Ours was also yellow. Our latest 1 year old is a red BMC. BMC's are the best dogs ever!

She's an Anatolian Shepherd. 100 lbs of muscle. She's considered fawn colored. Her sister is bigger and more of a red color.

We looked into the BMC as an option. Wife wanted a bigger dog bred to guard livestock. She heard Anatolians were good around chickens.

 

[Rockbadchild]

I have never see horses having problem with 90 degree corner they will make their own trail and radius along the fence line corners just put your next post closer and cross brace it like the picture below, I would also suggest electric wire that way they really respect the fence and there will be zero chance of one getting stuck in the fence... I would also keep everything on the same side even if going in curves in and out.