By Alayne Renee Blickle

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for your pastures is to create “sacrifice areas” where horses can be comfortably confined.

Creating Safe Barriers

 
Use the safest fencing you can for your paddocks. While wood fencing is attractive, in a confinement area, wood often offers the temptation for chewing. Whatever type of fencing you choose, you may want to reinforce it with some type of electric tape or hotwire as a “psychological barrier.” Horses are hard on fences and will test most types but tend to respect electric fencing.

Building corners and walls should be safe with no protruding objects where the horse could get hurt, like bolt ends, nails, boards, or the tops of metal T-posts. Also watch out for the corners of roofs and the bottom edges of metal building. There should be no wires or cords hanging in the paddock and absolutely no junk, garbage or machinery.

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