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	Company Profile: FLOWTECH

What Type of Fencing Should I Use?

Jacquie Haylett's

I AM PURCHASING 2.5 ACRES OF LAND. WHAT IS THE SAFEST TYPE OF FENCING FOR MY 2 THOROUGHBREDS - THEY BOTH TEND TO CHEW WOOD AND ONE OF THEM IS INCLINED TO JUMP OUT IF LEFT ON HER OWN OR IF THERE IS MORE GRASS ON THE OTHER SIDE. THE FIELD LACKS SHADE, I AM GOING TO BUY A FIELD SHELTER BUT AM CONSIDERING PLANTING A COUPLE OF TREES TO GIVE SHADE - WHAT TYPE OF TREE WOULD BE SUITABLE?

Baden Powell - Fieldguard

Dear Jacquie,

In reply to your query. If horses had been invented in the past fifty years no one in their right mind who valued their animals would have thought to enclose them using wood or wire. Wood is very brittle and if a horse goes through it it leaves jagged ends that can lance through a horse like a hot knife through butter. Equally horses need to grind their teeth down and what better than to chew wood. So a wood fence is dangerous, expensive to install and needs constant maintainance/preventive barriers from chewing. Chewing can lead to the dread wind sucking!

Horses are creatures of flight and, therefore, are long sighted. When panicked they physically cannot see barriers of less than 2" thickness in their flight. What chance does a fleeing horse have of seeing any form of wire (barbed, plain or high tensile)? The short answer is none and they get cut to ribbons. Equally horses are colour blind and, like deer, they are unable to see bright colours clearly so any fence of white or yellow is out or, at leat to be treated with caution. What does one use that is visible, strong, safe and non injurous?

Well the answers are a mutitude but the two most practical are either plastic strips, plastic rails (of which there are at least four sold in the UK) or woven nylon webbing - universally with filaments added so they can be electrifield. Currently there are something like 20 different 'electric tape' products sold and they vary in price, durability, thickness and quality. With all tapes/ropes when they are electricfied they give off a magnetic field that the sesitive whiskers of horses can feel.

Some of them also flap in the breeze so horses are aware of this blur. DO NOT be lulled by tapes of less than 2". Horses just do not see them. Also do not consider any form of electric rope or string as the nylon filaments in them are tremendously strong and if a horse becomes entangled they will cause as much injury as wire. In short, they may be cheap but they are LETHAL.

We are a stud farm and have been breeding horses for over 300 years. Our French partners were once the largest horse breeders in Europe and between us we invented electric tape - but did not patent it. The result is that there are many such products now available from which to choose and upon which we cannot comment.

However the French and ourselves do market our own self designed, self developed and self woven tapes and they have been the largest selling wide tape in Europe for the past ten years and in the U.S.A. for the past three years. If you do wish to know more about our product please do look at our web site which is www.fieldguard.com or e mail us on info@fieldguard.com

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