Max's Mom -
Ang C - hmmmmm.... where to start.
Yep - what no one tells anyone when they get into horses is that they can be the most self-destructive creatures around. Most owners seem to have no clue - and have no problems either (at least the ones that I've met)... until they have problems and then they usually "spiral"... or multiply. Just the way that the law of averages seem to work...
To be perfectly honest - I look back and of all the injuries I've had w/ horses over the years to include when I was a tot learning to ride a shetland in IA in the 60's, the lessons and horse we owned in HI in the early 70s, then the horses we owned in CO and the various farms, farmettes and ranches I worked on during that time frame as well - the most injuries ive dealt with have been eye injuries. They seem to happen most often to horses in smaller set ups - simply because a horse is a big creature.
I'll never forget the day I visited a friend of mine who was a riding instructor/horse trainer. She and her hubby had just had the new barn finished and had moved the boarder horses in from their paddocks/pastures for the afternoon/night. Not 10 minutes later, standing outside of the stall of one of the boarders' large ponies - we both are sprayed in blood as the mare has rubbed her eye on the brand new (great barn colors!) water bucket and it's hanger - and caught her eyelid just right and ripped part of it off!! OF COURSE - Murphy's Law kicks in quite handily - it's after hours on a weekend and not only is the owner's vet not available but neither is the trainer's/barn owners, nor mine! Three back up vets later - we get an unfamiliar face who is not only new to the area but appears to be a pretty new vet and very uncomfortable around horses and ponies. Yeah, that was a great weekend!! Luckily the mare was an "old campaigner" and was pretty calm during all this (a good thing as when the owner arrived she totally flipped out), the new vet got some great experience w/ a steady, calm pony and an upset owner (who then decided that her pony needed to be boarded else where at a "better barn")... O - her eye wasn't damaged and she healed just fine and at the new barn did a similar injury to the other eye in another area of the pasture just 3 weeks later - didn't ever hear how that one turned out. The mare just liked rubbing her head/face/eyes on whatever was handy when she had an itch. I have a lot of stories - some of the "goriest" ones have had the easiest/best healing! One of the first horse vets we had in CO when I was a "teeny-bopper" is now the head of the Vet Program at CSU (or was when I last checked). Another vet that I rode with a couple of summers on farm calls - also in CO - was the head vet at the track in Denver (now called the Arapahoe Race Track - wasn't what it was called then) for many, many years and live about 1 mile down the road from us for the 10 years we lived in Parker, CO. Again, some of the experiences and happenings - almost unbelievable.
As to fencing w/ t-posts - I've used quite a number of combinations over the years. For us, it's cheaper and easier to not use any "toppers" - just use the post as is and make sure it's tall enough to prevent problems (however, understand I'm 5'6" tall and I've had a 39" pony buck higher than my head - so wouldn't matter how tall the posts were). Here's one of the toppers' that are common here in NC and that really add up when you are constantly replacing them as ponies pull them off the posts (w/ the hot wire on) and break them -
T-Post Cap by Safe Fence Here's another - our ponies thought these tasted really good. After the 3rd stomach pump (colic treatments - 3 different ponies) I got rid of 5 acres of these!!
T-Post Safety Cap by Premier 1. They were also hard to put on after driving the posts into the ground w/ the hand held post driver (changes the shape of the top of the post) and shredded if you put them on first and then drove the posts into the ground. I used something similar to this one for a short time - but it wasn't called
Patriot (I think I'd remember that w/ the # of our family who have been active duty service members!). The design was different 10 yrs ago - but this is the replacement. Didn't try this one -
Gallagher insulated post topper.
Understand - my destructive ponies had that as part of their personalities. Most weren't destructive - but it only takes one!! Our Shetland stallion passed that on to about 1/2 of his sons and daughters that we bred and raised... so between 1996 and now we've had about 15 different mares, geldings and stallions that were like that... They love to PLAY and they are very inquisitive and explore EVERYTHING w/ their mouths. They were also the ones who played - with the other ponies/horses, with people, were intelligent and ez to train (knew what u wanted before u knew u wanted it, LOL) and enjoyed life and did great as riding ponies, hunter/jumper ponies and as driving ponies. The last purebred son of our stallion is coming 2 yrs old (our jr stallion that we aren't in a hurry to castrate yet) and his previous son that we still own is a 1/2 arab/1/2 shetland gelding that figured out how to open the bird feeders that were on the fence posts adjacent to his pasture (AHHH - corn and seeds!!) and also how to open the bedroom window that "his" girl slept in and stick his head in and nibble on her body (woke her up regularly!)... Some of those same ponies were also THE BESTEST BABY SITTERS & COMPANIONS during turbulent times while our 3 daughters were growing up!
Here is the plan for "raising" our short fence into "proper" fencing... With every 20 posts costing $200 (right now & not including the tape), it will take a WHILE to complete this project - starting w/ the fence line that is along the road and at the entrance to our driveway ... I've put this system up with a friend who leased two of our ponies - it worked great! She only used 3 tape lines but in a couple of sections where our ponies were, she used 4.
Horse Guard Fencing We will use it to make the "short" posts taller and attach 1 line (possibly 2?) to the top to raise the height of the fence. "Pretty", functional and visual... Should be effective deterrent in more ways than one for the larger horses that we currently own as well as others who come to visit. And will turn our "hick" style fencing into a more visually appealing, yet less high maintenance fence (I've said in previous posts that I don't like wood fencing - the other causes of much heartache for us w/ ponies). If we go with brown, I've already noticed that it will be very similar to the fencing in our areas... The tape does need to be checked but overall it's easier to pull/keep tight than other tapes/ropes have been.
