HorseSafetyFirst

How safe is your fencing?

Here is new 3 board fencing
that has been improperly
installed. The gap between the
bottom board and the ground is
far too small and an invitation
for a hoof and even leg to get
trapped underneath.

I see just this one type of
problem repeated so many
times by fence companies that
seem to care more about
keeping the top line of the fence
straight, so it looks good, rather
than following the contour of
the land and keeping the fence
safe for the horses. See the
picture below.

In addition, so many fences are
installed too low. This fence is
only 43 inches high in some
places. A low fence can cause
a horse to flip over it rather than
impeding its progress as it is
designed to do. You will spend
a lot of money in fencing so
why not make it as safe as you
can for your horses?

Has your horse, or a horse under your care, ever been injured and you have
only been left to wonder how it really happened? Unfortunately horses can't talk,
so you have to interpret what transpired from the type of injury and when and
where it might have occurred. "It happened during turn-out" is unfortunately often
used as the best possible explanation.

After personally witnessing many injuries first-hand and hearing many more
horror stories, I started to formulate an opinion that many of them were
probably preventable, and so set out to consider if they could be. This has been
no easy task, partly because there seems to be a culture that says that horses
will always get injured. It is as much an "accident" they stay safe and sound as
get injured.

Since we first brought these wonderful animals in from the wild, we have the
obligation to protect them in their new environment. We are responsible to
provide a safe place for them to live, to feed them, to provide clean water, and
most importantly, keep them safe. Safe from themselves, safe from one
another, safe from all sorts of "natural things", and last but not least, safe from
all sorts of man-made things that we tend to place in their way.

HorseSafetyFirst's goal is to help our clients understand when and how horses
can get injured and then work with them systematically to reduce the chances
and risks of such "accidents" happening to them.