Vinyl, wood or split rail
All three are post-and-rail. They differ in what they hold and the upkeep. Need wire or cattle panels? See the wire fence page.
- Vinyl ranch rail. Comes in two-, three- and four-rail styles. The photos here show white three-rail. No paint, no rot. A hard hit tends to pop a rail out of the post instead of splintering it. No jagged break, but a loose rail can let a horse out.
- Wood rail. Boards or rails on wood posts, stained, painted or left natural. It's the classic paddock fence, and you can fix it one board at a time. Horses like to chew it.
- Split rail. Rough-split rails set into holes cut through the posts, usually two or three high. It's more a boundary and a look than a horse fence. Add wire mesh and it can hold a dog.
What makes a fence horse-safe
What lives inside matters as much as the material, so tell Beau if it's horses, a stallion, foals, goats or dogs.
- Height. Most horse guides put the top rail at 4.5 to 5 feet, and taller for a stallion or a horse that jumps.
- Easy to see. Horses run into what they can't see. Rails show up. One strand of smooth wire doesn't. Keep barbed wire away from horses.
- Nothing to catch. No gaps where a hoof or head can get stuck, and no nail heads or bolt ends sticking out.
- Rails on the horse side. Fastened to the inside of the posts, a rail gets pushed into the post when a horse leans, not off it.
- No tight corners in small paddocks, so a horse can't get pinned by a bossier one.
- A hot wire if you need it. An electric wire offset on the inside keeps horses off the rails and cuts down on chewing.
In Beau’s words
4x6 gate posts with anti sag cable with 2x4 bracing