Prepping the pasture for horses

Wolf and I have spent nearly every spare minute the last few weeks prepping our back pasture for horses. 

We removed about 150ft of old fence to the left of this picture. You can see the large roll of fencing in the field from that. Then we moved the fence line over about 25 ft, to get rid of a jog in the line and make even pastures. This new fence line is all brand new wire. The first post on the far left of the picture is the corner of the chicken run. We added the gate and fence all the way down to that far fence line. I learned about H-brace for fences and how to build them (seen to the right of the gate). At the 3rd new pole we ran fence to the left over to the goat area. This created a smaller area that is completely fenced. I have let the goats in there to browse and they were excited to get some tall stuff. Future plans for this area are to extend the chicken run or make a manure compost pile here, or both!

All new fence

The rear of our property line had a fence in terrible shape. It was less than 3ft tall in some places, was barely wired on to the posts, just a mess. In this pic you can see the top wire (which I already pulled back up where it should be, it was originally down with the fence) and way down by the ground you can see the fence. 

Old fence at back of property

By working together and pulling the fence back up, straightening it, and tightening its wire ties we were able to make it look like this. We will add a hot wire to keep the horses from pushing this back down if it becomes a problem.

Repaired fence

This is the middle "stall" of our loafing shed/barn thing. The top of the half door on the left can be fully shut if the weather justifies it. On the right is a gate to keep the goats out of it. The area in front is the goats area. That hole you see in the back is us starting to remove the siding to figure out where to put the door. The horse pasture is behind this building so we needed to give the horses access to shelter without the goats getting access to the pasture. Since the stall to the right of this doesn't have a gate or wall in front, the goats can have that one, and the horses will have this one.

 We took down the plywood to see what we were working with

Then sawzall'd the siding and boards out where we wanted the door.

Now there is a perfect horse opening.

New opening from inside

New opening from back. We will eventually add trim around the whole door.

And of course here is our new horse, Luna, enjoying the back pasture. 

Well worth all the work. :) 

Next large outdoor project will be getting the middle pasture goat proof to increase the area they get to roam, and get the front pasture cow ready by spring.