Lady_M bought the farm! (in a good way)

Thanks folks! So ... let me explain ... the lady does have good solid metal T-posts in place already (like the one HL4L linked). My problem with them is that they are only 4 feet tall (above ground), and that some of them are not sunk very deep. Add to that the fact that her hotwire doesn't seem to be working properly (I have a tester so will confirm that soon), and this makes me WANT to rip out what she has done.

What I would really really like to do is to put in good permanent fencing more like wood or wood posts with tensile wire, something to that effect, at least for the small pasture where I expect to let the boys out most frequently. She has done an excellent job with wood posts for her corners of the pasture, so I have a good thing to work with. Problem for me right now is $$$.

So as an emergency just to get my horses in there to start me off and maybe make due through the winter ... I wanted to take these cheap plastic ones and affix them to the already placed metal ones, extending the height of each post by 1 or 2 feet. Then I run one hotwire across the tops of these extended posts. Then in the Spring I would re-evaluate how much I have for funds and what kind of more permanent fencing I want to put in.

A medium term solution might be to just replace all of her posts with taller T-posts. While I don't disagree with that plan, again funding is tight and I would probably still end up longing for a more secure fence overall.

Take offense??? Heck no way!!! Although I do have the desire to take a fence, something that's working well for someone else's clydesdales and they want to just move it for me. :-)

I totally hear you about temporary becomes permanent, and flimsiness of the plastic. I'll admit that the sagging or damage wasn't something I had thought of. I do also have something working in my favor, in that my boys spent 3+ years at a boarding barn where all they had was T-Posts with electric tape. So I know they are respectful of electric, and of fences in general, and that the kind of fencing in place can definitely hold them.

Mostly I was sulking because my truck was in the shop and I would have loved to spend this weekend shuttling my stuff up to the new place. If I can't do that, then I want to make myself useful some other way. But yah, throwing good money after bad is never good. Hmm, that was poetic, wasn't it? Sounds like a country song.

Anyhoo ... I'll take another look at everything today. I have a local area friend who has promised to come take a look at it and offer ideas and suggestions. Then I have the name of someone I got off craigslist who claims to specialize in livestock fencing. I didn't have any luck trying asking for contractors at Rural King.

Update on the farm ... sorry I haven't been coming in here much, but the last 4 weeks have just flown by lightning fast.

Moving was an ordeal! My truck had a check engine light on in May, and I opted to go to my favorite mechanic who is above and beyond HONEST. But the shop is also SLOW. Basically they don't manage their load well and don't say no to enough people, or raise their prices high enough, whatever the case, they had it for over a month. Started with a batch of bad diesel, so they cleaned it thoroughly inside and out and ended up replacing both the high and low pressure oil pumps. Most everything went onto an extended warranty when I purchased the truck, otherwise it would've been thousands.

Point being, I had no truck, but luckily my retired parents lent me one of their two cars, so I at least had transportation. So I kept using a little Honda accord to take a few things up at a time, which in retrospect was probably just a stupid waste of a lot of time behind the wheel. I would've been much better off renting a small sized U Haul than what I did.

But by the time I rented the "big" U Haul, I thought everything was gonna go, but didn't. So I had to go back a second week and rent another smaller U Haul. That was fun fun fun.

So I'm now officially out of the old rental house, and 99% of my stuff is at the new place. The remaining 1% being the big beasties and whatever gear I have in their trailer which is parked at their boarding barn.

I got a couple of quotes on fencing and holy bleeping cow, what to do? What to do? The first dudes came from a Craigslist ad. They were very nice, and seemed eager to work, said they could do the job right away, but their "quote" was basically a one liner on a page of paper saying 750 feet of five strand electric braid fencing. I don't know if they are insured, have an actual business, have ever done fencing before, not much about them really - $2500. So then then I called someone who is highly recommended and also backed up for work probably not able to get to it for another 3-4 weeks. He wants $8600! Gasp, gasp, choke! I asked him for more of a breakdown, and $1500 is just for tear-down of the existing fence which is all T-posts. Another $250 is for hauling everything away. The rest is wood posts every 20 feet and four strand electric braid. That still just seems quite high to me ... this is all for just a 1/2 acre paddock, not the 2 acre pasture or the 5 acre pasture! Yikes!!

So for now I'm under the gun to get my horses HERE from the boarding barn, because she's got someone lined up to take their spots. They need to move out by 7/16. So I've bought some supplies, and I'm going to see how hard it is for me to do a replace a few of the shortest and/or leaning-est T-posts, to kind of shore up what's there. I think I will also spend the fence budget money on a 60 foot round pen (panels), so that way if I get desperate I've at least got some kind of corral to throw the big guys into, if the fencing should really be a problem.

Meanwhile, I also got thinking hard about being able to go out for lessons or trail riding. Jacques doesn't like to be alone. I mean he has uber panic meltdowns if he's out of sight of other horses, will scream his head off and pace and kick stall walls until he can see someone again. So you know what that means right? I need another horse! Went to look at a Clydesdale mare today who's just 30 minutes away and has had a pretty decent career as a broodmare but not catching anymore. She was in good health and pretty respectful, picked up her feet well, etc. It felt funny evaluating her just to be pasture pet instead of thinking "can she be an everything I want her to be horse?!" Their asking price is about right for a horse they aren't guaranteeing can do much of anything ... low for a registered clyde but a tad high for a pasture pet.

Then there's a "rescue" also around here that I've been talking to a little bit. He's got two Percheron mares, each one with a variety of issues, like blind in one eye and long term abscess that's not been clearing. But he's clear about his intentions ... he buys at auction and fixes what he can and resells, but his main goal is to save what he can from slaughter, not to make a profit. So I haven't gone to see him yet, but I would consider one of the mares.

What I dislike about both options is - MARE. I'm worried about how herd dynamics may go... Jacques loves the ladies and will be a jerk to Reggie about that. Reggie on the other hand seems to have eyes only for Jacques. They have been kept with mares before and are currently in a 3 gelding to 2 mare herd mix, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that everything could be fine. But I still have a personal preference for geldings and think a gelding would be best.

Well, that's an update, I could talk your ear off some more but I actually need to get some jobby job work done tonight, so that's all I could tap out in about 15 minutes.

!

Well I had a rather disappointing night last night. I've had possession for a full month and for some reason just kept putting off testing of the electric fence. I guess I just kept finding other things I felt were more important. But last night I got out there with a tester.  Turns out the signal is weak from the start out for about 20 feet, then stops dead at the first gate. So 750 feet of fence and only 20 of it electified. Great. Just great.

Update!

HL4L - you were right!!! I did some reading up on basic troublueshooting of electric, and one of the main things suggested was clearing weeds. Well the lady moved out in April/May so the weeds were pretty bad. Since I'm going cheap and don't have a fancy mower and no tractor, I was out tehre with a push mower taking down all the tall grass below the fence. But in the process, I spotted a broken insulator just the third post out, instant grounding. Once I got that fixed, the voltage went up quite a bit. Then once I finished the mowing, the voltage went up even more.

If I'm reading my tester correctly, I take the "2.2" displayed on screena nd multiply that by 1000 to get 2200 volts.

And yes, I ordered some 8 foot T posts from True Value, and was going to try ordering from other places with differing costs, but I do like these which seem to be a quality heavy steel. I bought a T post puller and a bunch of T post toppers. I think if I just get my interior paddock areas beefed up a littel bit more with these taller heavier posts and some better tape or rope I will be pretty happy.

So I bit the bullet and brought the horses home on Saturday. Knocking on a plank of wood, no problems since they got here. Still using the original fencing with no improvements yet.

Lady_M  how is the farm doing???