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Re: RC: Barbed wire fencing



Hi Kat and Ride campers; I hate barb wire, having vivid memories of my dad's favorite riding horse, a big red quarter horse, got his leg caught in some old wire on the trail and shredded his leg. He was a roping horse, and felt the tension, kept trying to back up. What a bloody mess that was, and I was four years old, I still remember.  Kat made me worry, because like her, I have an old place, built in 1923, and we found lots of old wire buried in the dirt. It did break, but we found long sections of it, and had to use a metal detector to find some of it. What a job.  I still have a couple of rolls laying around to be disposed of soon. (We are refencing the pasture)   I would just say, watch out for old stuff that old ranchers may have just thrown aside when they were fixing fences long time ago.  It may be even partially buried, and makes a real boobie-trap.     Beth G.

>From: "guest@endurance.net"
>To: "ridecamp@endurance.net"
>Subject: RC: Barbed wire fencing
>Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 10:05:10 -0700
>
>K S SWIGART katswig@earthlink.net
>
>
>Though I don't consider barbed wire to be the best type of fencing
>for confining horses, unfortunately it exists at my place and
>replacing it is cost prohibitive.
>
>What I did find, though, was that I needed to replace it where
>the horses might "challenge" it.
>
>If you have a big huge area, then the horses generally don't have
>any reason to want to be on the other side of the fence, or even
>to go anywhere near it. And, I consider that to be the only
>"safe" way to confine horses in barbed wire...to give them no
>reason to want to be on the other side.
>
>In the places where the horses might find whatever is on the other
>side of interest...using barbed wire is a recipe for disaster.
>
>Barbed wire is a psychological barrier only. If a horse wants to push on it or through it...it will. And if it is strung in
>such a way that pushing on it or through it won't make it "give"
>then the horse may rip itself to shreds trying to get away from
>it. And, I have found, that horses rarely ever injure them-
>selves seriously getting pushing on barbed wire. It is when
>they try to get away from it that they may run into difficulties.
>
>So even horses who have been injured from getting caught in it
>and ripping themselves apart trying to get out will frequently
>not learn that barbed wire is something to be stayed away from
>(they just learn that it is something to be gotten away from
>after they get in to it--which may become escalating).
>
>So, what I did at my place (since replacing 2 miles of fence was
>a total non-starter) was to replace the sections of fence that
>they wanted to be on the other side of (e.g. the section between
>the pasture where the mares are and the main paddocks, where my
>stallion is, the section between the pasture and the hay barn,
>the section between the pasture and the wash rack--believe it
>or not, it is difficult for me to keep the herd away from the
>wash area, since having a cool shower on a hot day is a treat to
>be relished). These sections have been replaced with post and
>rail and/or electricity.
>
>But it required replacing only about 400 feet of fence, rather
>than 10,000.
>
>In my experience, there is no safe way to teach horses to
>"respect" barbed wire. I am not even convinced that they learn
>that respect if they get badly lacerated by it. But as long as
>they are happy in their home and have no reason to want to be on
>the other side of it, they just don't go near it.
>
>kat
>Orange County, Calif.
>
>p.s. The good thing for me, is that my barbed wire has been
>there for going on 70 years now, so if, for some reason the horses
>do "get into it," it just breaks. The only time I have had
>any problem with this is when the horses wanted to get IN to
>their pasture, not when they wanted to get out :).
>
>
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