My 6 year old
gelding has decided that electric fences are overrated and
should be walked
through whenever the urge strikes him. As
background,
he has always been
skilled at leaving a place that has become boring to
him; gates taken
off hinges or unlatched, door frames removed from stalls,
halters slipped,
safety knots untied - the list goes on. All done in a
calm
and calculating
manner.
At endurance rides
he would walk "under" his metal fence panels and go
visiting unless I
staked the panels down in a zillion places. I switched
to
three strands of 1
inch tape electric fence and that has worked. But
with
this latest
routine I'm especially worried about containing him at rides next
year.
He is less
creative with his "free time" when in hard training but being in
fire swept Western
Montana the only riding we're doing is in the arena and
he's bored.
Our property (15 acres) is perimeter fenced with post and rails
and an electric
fence separates dry pasture (trees) from pasture (green grass).
The horses are fed
hay in the morning in "the trees" and let into the pasture for
2-3 hours to graze
in the evening.
Part of the
problem with the fence is the dry, dry ground. We were down to
about 3 kv with
the old charger and ground rod. He would just put his
head
under the 1 inch
wide electric tape and walk under. For the past four
days
we have (1) gotten
a new fencer and 7 foot ground rod driven in all 7 feet
about a foot back
from the creek (2) added a strand of electric braided wire
(3) watered the
ground where he's been going through (4) watered the horse
before putting him
back across and fixing the !@#**! fence.
This morning he
got into the pasture and for some bizarre reason pulled
the
plug on the
automatic water trough. Thank goodness we found it before
it
drained the well
and burned up the pump.
He's back in "the
trees" again tonight. We know the voltage is up to 6 kv and
he now has
to break
the braided strand with his legs when trying to slip under the
electric tape with
his head.
If he's back in
the pasture tomorrow morning I think my husband will shoot
him - if I don't
first. He's been in this set-up for 3 summers now (they have
free run of the
entire place in the winter) but this is the first year its been so
dry and the first
summer he's not been working hard 3-4 days a week.
Any suggestions? Sell him to the circus?
Adrienne - "Why
did I buy a Morgan?"
Yeti - "What's a
glue factory, Mom?"
Harley - "How does
he do that?"
Splash - "Man,
doesn't that hurt?"
Rock - "Cool, show
me how!"