Alternative Materials for Horse Fencing

If you own a horse you can cut your costs significantly by keeping your horse at home instead of at the boarding stable. With full-care board costing $400, $500 or even more every month, horse owners can easily recapture the cost of fencing by ditching the boarding stable and bringing their equine companions home. Even so, it is important to choose the right fencing options. Barbed wire may be fine for cows but it is not suitable for horses. Fortunately there are a number of fencing options that will keep your horse safe and sound.

  1. Vinyl Fencing

    • Vinyl fencing is an excellent option for horse owners who want to create a safe and attractive habitat for their horses. Vinyl fencing looks good enough to fit in with even the most upscale neighborhood, and many horse owners choose to install this type of fencing in the front of their homes while using less expensive fencing options for the rear of the property. The main drawback of vinyl fencing is that it is quite expensive. Depending on the complexity of the installation and how much you can do yourself, it can cost several thousand dollars to fence in a single acre.

    Electric Fencing

    • Electric fencing is easy to install and it is one of the least-expensive options for keeping your horse where he belongs. Horse owners can easily fence in a couple of acres in a single day by pounding poles into the ground, installing the insulators, stringing the electric fence wire and plugging in the charger. There are even fence chargers designed to run off of solar power, making them the perfect choice for those without easy access to outdoor power. The downside of electric fencing is that not all horses will respect the fence enough to stay put. In order to keep a horse successfully in electric fencing you will need to check the charger frequently to make sure there is sufficient current running through the fence. You will also need to tie white rags on the fence to make sure your horse can easily see the fence line.

    Hot Tape

    • Hot tape combines the low expense and easy installation of electric fencing with the high visibility and durability of vinyl and wood fencing. Unlike traditional electric fencing, hot tape is designed to be very visible, since the electric filaments are embedded in a white plastic material that is easy for horses and other animals to see from a distance. Hot tape is just as easy to install as traditional electric fencing, and the cost is only a little bit higher than that option. As with electric fencing, horse owners who choose hot tape will need to make sure they have a quality charger, and they will need to make sure that the charger is working at all times.