Re: RC: Houdini Horse - Help!

["Nancy Mitts" <mitts_n@hotmail.com>]

Adrienne,
My husband says to ground one of your wires instead of having it 
electrified. If they're spaced so the horse has to touch both wires at the 
same time he'll get bit hard no matter how dry the ground is. It's what they 
have to do where it's always very dry.

Nancy Mitts


>From: "Corti, Adrienne" <CortiAM@mso.umt.edu>
>To: "'ridecamp@endurance.net'" <ridecamp@endurance.net>
>Subject: RC:  Houdini Horse - Help!
>Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 22:29:02 -0600
>
>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!"
>
>
>

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