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Hi Everyone-
Just had to chime in on the containment discussion, as it's always been an
issue for my Fjords :-).
The very first place I boarded, in Woodside, the Fjords were in a large paddock
with redwood fencing. It took them about ten minutes to figure out how to break
the boards, get out and graze. They were on a very large property with
knee-high grass, wild oats, etc. so the temptation was just too great. Each
evening when I arrived, I'd find them in a different location on the property.
Understandably, the ranch manager was pretty upset, and threatened to put
hotwire on their paddock. I agreed that that was best, but she never did it,
and for that and other reasons I left within a month.
The next facility was in Half Moon Bay, and that worked out well for a long
time. The ranch owners were lifetime horse and cattle people, both mellow and
savvy. The boys lived in a pasture which had pretty much cattle fencing (T
posts, wire, etc.) but was fully hotwired, even across the gate. The never
tested the fence and all was well. When the family retired and moved away, the
property was purchased by some city slickers who, among other things, took down
all the hot wire because they thought it was cruel. Needless to say, the Fjords
were soon running rampant on the property and the new owners were upset. I
tried to reason with them, didn't work, I left.
>From there I went to a stable in San Bruno, a nice little self care facility.
>The Fjords had a stall/paddock which I hotwired myself just to avoid the
>inevitable. We were only there a few months, waiting for an opening in a
>pasture.
When the pasture spot opened up, we moved to San Jose. Some of the pasture was
reasonably fenced (cyclone fence) but most of it was T-posts and barbed wire.
This was okay for a while, but soon the Fjords found a weak spot where the wire
was quite low and were letting themselves out regularly. The neighbor called
the ranch manager and said, "If those yellow ponies come into my hay barn one
more time I'm calling animal control!" The ranch manager was very reasonable;
she knew the fencing was inadequate, but it had never been a problem for the
non-Fjords. She ordered a large quantity of Horse Guard electric tape, and it
was sitting in boxes in the barn all ready to be installed the next day when my
Fjord Tommes got out, fell in a sink hole, and died. Suddenly the Fjords'
difficult containment was not just annoying/amusing, it was tragic.
My next facility was in Castro Valley, and the pasture there was 80 acres. The
Fjords never even found the fence, so it was not an issue. I stayed there until
I had the opportunity to live and work on the ranch in Pacifica.
The owner of the Pacifica facility decided to use pipe panels for fencing,
which is great, but they don't hold up very well when they are just sitting on
top of the ground. The Fjords, along with their buddies, a Friesian and a
Percheron, would all lean on the fence at once and down it would go. They
gained a lot of weight eating grass that year!
>From there I moved to Hayward. I knew the ranch owner was savvy when the first
>thing he asked me was, "Do they knock down fences?" "That would be yes," I
>replied. The did well in a pipe panel paddock, although they managed to bend
>the pipes on the longer panels and actually pop some of the welds on the
>shorter ones! Fortunately, the patient ranch owner is an instructor at a
>vocational school, so his students got to practice their welding on the
>damaged fencing...
Now I am in South San Jose on a lovely property with the couple who owns it.
Before bringing my Fjords here, we discussed fencing numerous times, and I
stressed the need for hotwire in the redwood paddock they would be occupying.
Months went by and the hotwire never went up, so I went ahead and moved my boys
here. It wasn't a week before my landlord opened his front door in the morning
to let the dogs out, and there were the Fjords on the front lawn. The next day
they strung the hotwire, but only around part of the paddock, and it only
worked for a few days before shorting out. The next week, one of their horses,
a very nasty mare, kicked the boards of their paddock in half. Fortunately,
they knew better than to go into her area, and they stayed put despite the lack
of fence. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I came home that day and
saw the paddock. My landlady had removed the two splintered bottom boards, and
the Fjords were contained only by the one board on the !
top. As she is saying, "They'll be fine like that," Knute sees me and starts
to duck under the board to come out. They keep saying, "Our horses would never
do that," but their horses are not Fjords...
Brigid Wasson
SF Bay Area, CA
www.eponahorsemanship.com
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