Spacing of T posts for Horse pasture?

[DZee]

Concreting in the corner posts is a good idea, gives you the option later for hard wire if wanted. On my cross fences I set the steel posts at 15' mainly because if a insulator breaks the fence has less chance to touch the post and short out.
My cross fences have only 2 tape (white) electric wires, reason for only 2 is voltage drop on too much wire, and I have 2 & 3 year old stud colts seperated without any problem for 2 years now, they respect the fence.
Hope this helped.

Thanks,
DZee

 

[whistlepig]

There are arguments for and against concreting posts. Some say concrete makes the posts rot although I have never had that problem. For stretching woven wire I concrete my posts. For electric fence I think maybe concreting the posts is overkill. I do both woven wire and electric fence.

 

[JoeBuyer]

They and I have used the ratchet wire strainer to tighten up the brace wire instead of a stick.
How to build the fence end brace

Agree that it was a good post but I stick with scrap barb wire ends and a good old stick to tighten my X wires on an H brace end. Guess I am too cheap. Also agree no concrete is needed. You can't budge the H brace if you do it right. Also the proper amount of tension on the barb wires down the fence line is key. Not too loose, not too tight. I add 1 strand heavy gauge hot wire to a standard fence. I don't like the tape. Horses and cows, same fence. I like the early morning idea of letting new stock into the fields. Usually do it when I get to it, but that makes sense.

 

[clovergamecock]

Thanks all!! This was great info and very helpful!!!! y wife won't let me run any barbed wire so I have to use all smooth wire. I may have to to a bigger box after I get the rest of the pasture fenced in (7 acres).

Thanks again everyone!!!
Wade

 

[BeezFun]

Can't tell if you're talking about using high tension wire, which has some ratchets and springs on steroids to tension them, or regular wire which can have kind of baby ratchets and springs at the end just to take up the tension. My fence is high tension wire and I installed round wood posts every 150' with one T-Post in between, and that works fine. I have 6 wires so the braces at the end are pretty beefy because they're resisting about 1200# of force.

I'd also suggest you hang flags on the top wire. It's safer for horses but more importantly if you have folks snowmobiling, dirt biking, or doing any kind of horse eventing in your area, it's easy in the right conditions to miss a wire fence and ride right into it. Yuck.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have to say that letting an animal touch a fence once is a good training aid. It really startles them more than hurts them. If you ever actually touch an electric fence yourself, you know it doesnt really "hurt" but gets your attention.
MY (well my wifes) german shepherd puppy got into my brother in laws electric fence and got it wrapped up around his legs for a while till he finally got out. Now he wont go near anything with a white line. I could keep him inside a nylon cord fence and he would go near it. He love to play with BIL's german shepherd but he stops trailing him when he goes under the wire. One well done shock stays with the animal for a very long time. Cows will test an electric fence by placing their nose close to it and I guess feeling the tingle and if no current, they will push it down if they want to get to some grass on the other side.

 

[Soundguy]

Equines will push you if you let them. I don't consider them dangerous but they will out you in a hospital in a second if you don't know your way around them.

yes.. yes they will.

so will cows!

 

[DZee]

Wade,
I have 40 acres with barbless wire and agree with your wife, far to many horses cut up thruout the years with barb wire and vet bills suck. The problem is you will always have that horse that thinks the grass is greener and will push and stretch the heck out of barbless. What I have done is use wood posts, drill thru them & run the wire thru so all I need is restrech from the corner posts, and your corner posts need to be H or X braced or they will break them off, esp. if you concrete a single post. As a deterent I have also ran a single electric run in between the top and second wire this put a stop to reaching thru.
DZee

 

[Soundguy]

dumb horses will get cut up often by barb.

less dumb horses get a few cuts once... same as cows.

i got horses, cows, mules, etc. got a mix of fence from hi ten. to barb to no climb.

the barb gives ME the most problems. not them.



soundguy

 

[whistlepig]

Barbed wire is the worst. It looks like a chainsaw has cut through the horse.