Barbed wire

We had a filly running on,,,,oo........maybe 15 acres? Barbed wire. Guess what? She kept jumping it. ANd do you know what happened? She got caught one time. She absolutely TORE up her back legs. She had cuts all over one, and tore the tendon right through in the other leg. Had to be in a full leg cast. She would MAYBE only be breeding sound, but there was a chance she wouldnt. Anyway, it would have been hundreds of thousands to fix her leg, with just a chance of full recovery. So we had to put her down.

So my advice- fix the fence, divide it up in good fencing so she wont get hurt.

Wild_Spot - Mine itch themselves on the barb wire too... That was my face the first time I watched that. Anyways, we've had barb wire for years with minimal problems. Of course, it's not ideal, but nothing in this world is.

My thought is if this filly has that much space there is something else going on with the fence. Either she's getting caught in something else (thorns, loose wire?), other horses/animals are running her into it, or possibly she's trying to go through the fence to get with other horses.

90% of fencing is understanding pressure on the fence - unless you want the fence to be a accent piece of decoration. I have no problems with barb wire. It is a great tool in the right place - the back side of a 50 acre pasture runing through the woods. And you can get by in some cases with as little as 2 strands in very low pressure situations; but a barb wire fence in front of a barn with 3 strands is stupid - even herford cattle wouldn't stay in that. That is a high pressure situation and probably needs 5-6 strands and better yet needs 5 strands with a hot wire attached with about a 4" offset. Barb wire is not acceptable for a cross fence where animals will be fighting.
Everyone in the horse community wants a 4" white poly braid electric tape, but a single wire attached to a regular fence will keep animals off the fence without all the cost. And you could probably fence the entire 160 acres with a single strand of electric wire on top of the barb wire for less than $1,000- including the charger.

Thanks for the advice most were helpful

She is with the other horses and they never seem to have a problem but she was run through as a weaniling by dogs so maybe she just lost respect for it. Ill be building pastures next year

I like the bubble wrap thing but, you should break up the paddocks that way she has grass on the otherside for when the paddock she is in has run out of grass she can go in the other one and wait till the other grass grows back!!

That was my thought too!

The ribbon sounds like a good idea, you could wrap it around the middle sections of the barbed wire.

She might be one of those foolish clumsy horses that always seem to be hurting themselves. I have a horse like that. I could run 20 horses past a hazard and none of them would get hurt but him. Are they deep cuts or just scratches. If its tight, barbed wire will just scratch a horse. The biggest problem is when people don't maintain the fence and the wire gets loose and a horse gets a leg stuck in it and saws back and forth. I like the hotwire idea around the top of the fence. Most fence chargers will do at least 2 miles which is more than the perimiter of your pasture if it's close to square. Solar fencers are a little pricey but if you can get the AC fencers they are around $100 and a little simpler and more reliable. Fencing the whole thing with one hot wire will cost less than a minor vet visit and won't leave any scars.

I like Kevin's idea. We have one section of barbwire that the horses kept going through. We changed it to electric and they still did, but when we put the two together they finally backed off. It only took 3 strands barbwire with one strand of electric close to the top. The tape is a good idea as well. It could just be that she is a horse that gets cuts. If there are trees she could be rubbing on them. Also if there are dogs around they may be running her into the fence again. Our dogs stay loose so that neighbor dogs stay away from our horses.