Repelling Mustangs

[mythkat]

Hi all,

I hope this is the right place to ask this. I have a garden fenced with 5 foot horse fencing. The mustangs have wrecked about half of it. I need to make it unattractive to them. I only want this two acres, they are free to vandalize the other 38. I don't want to hurt them. I love watching them but I can't afford the damage and the garden is to off set the rising costs of food. Help.

Kathy

 

[helmstead]

I would run a strand of electric over the top...

 

[mythkat]

Thanks Helmstead. I had come to that conclusion myself but was hoping for a less expensive solution. I found a solar charger that works with 5 miles of fence so I can expand the tilled area a little at a time. That's the next project. lol

 

[helmstead]

Yeah electric is pretty much the only solution to fence-busters...but after those first couple shocks they learn fast and leave it alone.

 

[goodhors]

You probably will want a couple strands, prevents reaching as far. You might consider the wire holders that stick WAY out from the posts, to prevent horses from getting close to the horse wire at all. Not sure if they have 12" ones, but get them as long as possible.

Not sure where you are located, but having a good battery to backup the solar charger, should be considered. Solar doensn't work well here, so I have no idea if there is much charge left after a few jolts to the horses. Especially if they come at night.

A good charger, backup battery, is about all you can do for fence wreckers. Don't cheap out on chargers, better makes put out more BITE to teach horse to back off. Do make sure you have a good ground, 8ft 1-piece steel post in the ground, sometimes you may need a couple posts to get a BETTER ground. And if the dirt gets dry, you WILL need to "water the ground posts" so they can do their job. Dry dirt doesn't contact posts well, so fence fails without being grounded. Just dumping a bucket of water on ground posts every day or so in dry weather, should keep them working. Weird but true!

YOU need to check fence regularly, make sure wire is tight, not being grounded out, not hit by lighting to kill the fencer or unconnected for some reason! May need check to be daily, not sure of your outside conditions. My fencer just got hit by lightning, had to change the fuse which blew out. My daily walk by told me fencer was off, no clicking, before I had any animal problems with it.

They sell some lights that clip in electric wire, supposed to tell you if fence is off visibly. I would like some, SOUNDS good, but have been too cheap to spend the money yet.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/fencin...ies/fence-alert-low-voltage-indicator-3600354

Hope the fence saves your garden. I hate varmints that mess up the whole place after working on stuff. WHY don't horses understand about YOUR 2 acres and the FREE 38 acres? Silly things. Do check daily after installing the wire, they make break it a few times learning the boundries. Wire is hard to see.

 

[patandchickens]

Um, ALL solar fence chargers HAVE BATTERIES. (Unless it is a DIY jobbie made by adding a solar panel to another type of charger). Otherwise they would only work during the daytime on sunny days

That is pretty much the reason why they are not noticeably superior to a plain ol' battery-powered charger... realistically, most people have to replace the batteries in the solar unit just about as frequently as in the nonsolar unit, due to excessive fence drain at some point. (When the battery gets drained too far down it will never hold a charge properly again)

Seriously, there is seldom much point in shelling out for a solar unit, battery units are usually as-or-more economical (even in the long run), although of course plug-in is the absolute cheapest (you can run up to 1-200 feet of leadout wire from charger to fence, if necessary)

Ignore all this "charges X miles of fence" malarky, it does not have anything to do with your real world situation and it WILL NOT charge anything like that much of YOUR fence. A 5 mile solar-powered charger is among the weaker chargers and I would not personally buy it unless htis was a *real* small garden fence and I was planning on keeping the fence quite clean of weeds.

Pat