A new fence material to consider

We met with the owner of the horse sport firm last night to discuss the construction of our fence. Although he annoyed me with his opinions on things that have nothing to do with fencing ("You must build your horse a 10 meter square sacrifice area so that it's easier to clean in winter" and "Gravel hurts horses' hooves!") I was excited to hear a new fencing option I hadn't considered before.

It's called "Equi-wire" or "Dura Zaun" depending on the manufacturer, and it's a polymer coated electric wire. It looks just like your TV cable, thick and rubbery. It is supposed to be extremely safe, and when I pressed my hand into the fence (they have sample fences), it flexes because there are springs on each strand. Supposedly you can have your power go out, and your horse won't challenge the fence because it's so stable. From what I saw, we may not even need to turn it on, hehehe: ) Although horses can hurt themselves on anything, this material seems very low risk.

I'll still get my wooden rail fence by the road and by our barn, but for at least two sides of our field, especially the side down by the creek where it's possible to lose him if he runs through, I think we'll get this Equiwire fence. Why not the entire field? We have a budget, and our neighbors have solid fencing or solid trees on one long side of our field, making escape virtually impossible, so I'd like to string up regular electric rope on that side. The photo is the fence we've ordered for along the road and by our barn. Pretty huh?

I'm happy my man is motivated to do it right to save money in the future. My man wants them to do as many concrete-based posts as possible, even parts we were going to do ourselves, because they are the professionals. I just figured we'd be out replacing posts every month, as a normal part of life, but he wants this done right, right now. It was a blessing for me that my truck sold finally, and although I wasn't planning on spending all the money on a fence (and geotextile and gravel), it might be prudent to have the professionals do as much as possible when they come out with their heavy equipment.

Problem: the company has a booth at Equitana next month, and they'll be too busy to install fencing until April, possibly. Or, I could get lucky and the ground will thaw, and they can do it in February. *rubs hands* Oh, my fence, how I dream of having you...

Before I forget, I wanted to mention in all my experience here, looking at horse farms and looking in fencing catalogs, I've never seen horse-safe mesh fencing. Diamondmesh, no-climb, whatever you call it, you know what I mean. The mesh most horse farms back home use because a horse can't get a hoof in. That does not exist in this region of Germany. I don't know why, but you just can't find it. Most of the horse fencing I see is a double or triple strand of electric wire. At least in this state, almost all horse farms use electric. I finally saw my first wooden rail fence recently, and got very excited. You also don't see Tposts here - I saw them in a catalog, but they're so expensive, no one uses them that I've seen. Fencing describes a land - take New Hampshire for example, with its classy stone wall fencing in almost every yard. I guess horses are so expensive here, there's nothing left over for fancy fencing.