When you own a horse, you want to make sure you’re keeping them in the safest horse corral panel. You’re not only passionate about your animals, but you also have a great deal of money invested in them. We try to feed them the best feeds we can afford, due diligence on dental work, keep vaccinations and shoeing on a timely schedule – it’s an endless list that’s almost like having another family member!
But none of these matters if we don’t house them in a safe and sturdy environment. We don’t want them to get wound up in wire, punctures, or get a foot hung up in the fence and most importantly, not tear the fence down and get out. So we ask ourselves, how do we choose the safest horse corral panels?
Portable Corral Panels vs. Permanent Fencing
First, there is a difference between portable panels and permanent fencing. When you are using portable panels as permanent fencing, most often you see them wired to t-posts for support.
Unfortunately, this does not give the sturdiness that it may appear. If your horse would get a leg caught in the fence and struggle to get it out, it can end up pulling the panels down onto themselves.
This is especially true with panels that have rounded corners that allow a “V” where two panels join. The horse can get its foot hung up on the top or bottom of these types of panels. Similarly, if your horse was running frantically in its pen, it could crash into the panels and tear them down.
For these reasons when choosing the safest horse corral panels, I prefer continuous fence panels that are either welded to pipe posts or lag screwed in with mounting clips to wood posts.
For me, this is the closest proximity we have lived to a very busy highway. When I close the gate to my horse pen, it means everything to me to know that my horses are not getting out and loose on the highway. Our pens are 60’ x 80’ with a shelter and I am confident they are safe inside my continuous fence panel pen. There are no sharp edges to get cut or punctured on, the top line of the fencing is one consistent line with no “V” indentions. When I latch the gate to my horse pen, I feel to the best of my ability my horses are safe.
Stalling With a Portable Panel
Another factor concerning safety in choosing the safest horse corral panels is when you are using portable panels for stalling. Oftentimes, when you see stalls set up with portable panels, the size of the panels are 12’ x 12’ or 10’ x 10’. When they are set up like this most often no type of posts is used for added support.
What happens when a horse lies down and decides to roll in the stall is it can easily get its legs hung up in the panels. Then the horse panics and ends up tearing the panels down onto itself. The panels may be supported together by pins or lightweight chains on the ends but that is no match to a frantically struggling horse.
On the other hand, if you used continuous fence panels to build your stalls you can build the stall to whatever size you would like. You can cut the continuous fence panel at any length and then use the remainder on the next side of the stall. The panels are then welded to pipe posts or mounted to wood posts. You will have a permanent stall that is stout and sturdy with no sharp edges making them safer horse stalls.
Often many portable panels are built with very thin-walled tubing resulting in a very lightweight flimsy panel. If they are easy to move around and handle then that means they are made out of very lightweight material. Not the safest for horse corral panels. I have actually seen a horse bolt through a lightweight panel, forming a V when the horse hit it with his chest and smashed it to the ground. Needless to say, he got out and was loose.
Tying Your Horse to the Corral Panel
Another top issue when selecting the safest horse corral panels, portable versus permanent is the safety to tie a horse to them.
Using portable panels as your fencing, there is no way around it. Someone will tie a horse to a panel. If that horse spooks and pulls back, there is no way to keep the panels from coming down. Often when this happens the horse that pulled back, pulls that panel loose and then is running wild dragging a panel behind it. No matter how you try to offer alternatives to tie to, someone always ends up tying their horse to the panels.
When using continuous fence panels, you can be calmer and more at ease knowing if a horse tied to the fence pulls back, the fence isn’t going anywhere.
Think About Your Gate Design
This may sound outlandish but I have yet another reason when selecting the safest horse corral panels is the gate design. On our farm, we once had a 4-year-old mare stick her head through the bars of a portable panel gate, and as she picked her head up, she picked the 4’ walk-through gate with her. She was able to do this because the hinges didn’t have any type of locking system.
All I could see was the worst possible wreck. She went to take off with the gate and then started spinning around with it slinging on her neck. My husband hollered “Whoa!” and, unbelievably, she came to a stop and let us take the gate off. I couldn’t believe that as spooky as she was, she listened to him and stopped.
With Tough Bar Fence gate system, the hinge is welded to the post or bolted to a wood post and will slip in-between the top and bottom collars of the gate. Then a pin slides down all three securing them in place. This makes it the safest horse corral panel!
Need help installing the safest horse corral panel on your farm? Let Tough Bar Fence help! Our industry professionals offer the best quality fences and services around. Contact us today!