How To Design Your Horse Fence
Deciding to build a horse fence is the easy part. The next step is putting it on paper,
then buying and installing the best fence you can afford. Someone recently requested help
in designing and choosing a horse fence.
Put it on paper
Sit down and draw the pasture you will be fencing on paper. It may or may not be square.
One important thing to keep in mind when laying out your fencing is that any corner that
is less than 90 degrees should be rounded or cross-fenced. You do not want a corner that
your horse could get trapped in.
Also mark your gates. Make sure you take into consideration your future needs when you
plan gates. Have at least one gate big enough to get equipment through.
You can mark gates you want right now - and gates you might want in
the future. When it is time to put your posts in, you can put the fence posts in now for a gate, but
simply run the fence across it. Later,
if you want to add a gate, it will be simple to remove the fence and put the gate in.
Add the total of all four sides to get the total lineal feet. If your horse pasture is
perfectly square, you will have 840 feet - but I don't know anyone with perfectly square
horse pastures. Our new one acre horse pasture came to 880 lineal feet.
Now that you have the lineal feet, multiply that by the number of rails or strands you
will be using.
She didn't have a lot of money for this project, so we decided to use 3 strands of
electric rope at .09 cents per foot and one rail of 4.25 inch flex-fence at .70 cents per
foot. We designed it so that the top strand was electric rope to discourage the horse
from leaning on the top of the fence. Under that came the 4.25 flex rail to strengthen
the fence and make it more visible to her horse. The bottom two strands were electric
rope. The discourages pests from outside and keeps her horse from pushing on the bottom
rail to get to "greener grass" under the fence (and ending up breaking the fence).
What's it gonna cost?
To get the total cost for the rails, we multiply 3 (strands) times 880 (feet/electric
rope) times .09 (cost of the rope per foot)
(3 X 880 X .09 = 237.60). She spent $237.60 for the three strands of electric rope.
Add to that the length of one rail of flex fence. (.70 x 880 = 616). She spent $616 for
the one rail of flex fence. Whew! Kind of expensive considering she got three strands of
electric rope for less than half that! But, it was what she wanted.
Many people get along just fine with electric rope or tape. You decide whether you need
it or not. Had she gone with just four strands of electric rope, her total rail cost for
the whole pasture would only be (4 X 880 X .09 =) $316.80. She would save over $500 by
using four strands of electric horse fence and not buying the flex fence. Again, that
extra $500 was a bargain if it made her feel safe.
Since her fence was going to be 55" high, the space between the wires was about a foot
(with the first one a foot off the ground). Experts will tell you that the spacing should
be about 10 inches. Most of my horse fence uses between 10 and 12 inches of space.
What about the fence posts?
The closer the spacing, the stronger the fence will be. Since she wanted to use the flex
fence, we decided to go with 10 foot spacing between the posts. Had she been using only
electric rope, I would have suggested 12 - 15 foot spacing. I have seen people use 20 -
25 foot spacing when using electric rope. ElectroBraid claims you can space your posts up
to 50 feet apart using their brand. I would still recommend a smaller spacing.
Because she was using the flex fence, t-posts were not an option. We decided that she
needed 98 posts. (880 feet divided by 10 foot spacing) PLUS 10 posts for corner bracing
and gates.
She got a really good deal on 4" round wooden posts. She bought 110 posts for $300. Had
she gone to a lumber yard, she might have paid up to $7 (or more) each for them.
Typically posts should be set at least 36 inches deep. Corner posts and gates should be
set deeper because of the extra stress they are subjected to.
Extra notes:
- End, corner and gate posts need to be longer than the other posts as they need to be set
deeper.
- Corners and ends should be braced.
- If you use t-posts with horse fence, buy t-post toppers. They cost under a dollar each,
but help protect your horse from injury.
- Never use t-posts in small areas. They should only be used in large areas (if at all).
- For very active horses, space your posts closer to make the fence stronger.
- Do not put gates in a corner.
- If you have only one gate, make sure it is wide enough that your equipment will fit
through.
Have a question or comment?
Contact us.
New! Do
a horse specific Google search using our customized
search from Google.
|
