Horse Problem - Fence Building - How to build wood fences for your horse farm

I've finished clearing my wooded area for a new arena. I have a 100' x 200' area cleared and finally I've dug up all  the stumps. I was planning on putting up a wood fence around this for an arena.

I remember you said you used "white oak?" Where do you get that? I also remember you saying that you made your arena fence height 4' 6" exactly?  Why is that?  Why not 5 feet?  I think I need to put something up where I won't be concerned about my horse jumping it.

I've planned my fence on some graph paper. I was originally thinking 8 foot spacing between posts and 3 rails. What size post do you recommend and how far apart? Did you concrete the posts in the ground? What size board panels did you use (2 x 8's???).  Did you nail them up or bolt them together? Thanks.

But just my two cents worth before you read Daryl's response here...Yes, 5 feet high fencing around your arena is definitely better/more ideal than the 4''7" we did there, and we only did that because: we had one long side that had existing posts already that we felt we could still use (once straightened by tractor) so that meant: less post drilling (the hardest part of wood fence building!)! And among those existing posts, the tallest one was about 4'7", so that became our targeted height to remain even all around. But if you're starting from scratch building an arena fence, go for 5 feet, but that means: you probably need to have a 4-board fence, not 3, or you'll have too large gaps between boards that horses can put their heads between, which you want to avoid.

But let me allow Daryl to give you better instructions/details on all that. He's the expert there! Below is Daryl's "Wood Fence Building 101" step-by-step instructions on how we built our wood fences here at our training center; think of it as "what we learned from the school of hard knocks" -- and actually got pretty good at it, in the end!

Daryl Scott's Step-by-Step How to Build Wood Fencing at Your Horse Farm

Regarding your fence questions...I don't think that there is any one perfect answer, but after working a bit with a very experienced fence builder to get the hang of it, we then evolved a system that seems to have worked well for us here at the Virginia Natural Horsemanship Training Center (and we've now put up about 2 miles of fence board!). Here is what we did and what we learned along the way:

Fence Boards: White Oak: may be a bit harder to find, but is much more resistant to rot, and is a very hard wood that lasts a long time without splintering, cracking, etc. We used 12-foot long boards that are 6 inches wide by 1 inch thick. They can sometimes be found in 16 foot lengths, but this is much more expensive per board foot, much more difficult to handle, and I think requires the posts to be spaced too widely apart to be strong enough for horse fencing (especially around the arena). Call some of the lumber mills around and ask if they have the white oak fence boards. I had to call dozens of them but finally found a place a couple of hours away that cut white oak every so often and would deliver.

Incidentally when you order the boards, you will order in "board feet." A bundle of 1000 board feet will run you about $550-$600 (not including any delivery charges). The important thing to know is that "board feet" are measures of 12 inches wide (i.e. a square foot) -- so, since these boards are 6 inches wide, that means that there are actually about 2000 LINEAR FEET of boards in 1000 board feet of 6-inch fence boards.

Fence Posts: treated 7-foot posts, 4-5 inches in diameter. This allows about 2 to 2 1/2 feet into the ground with plenty left above ground. If you want a bit taller above ground, you can also get these in 7 1/2 foot lengths, as well. Southern States, Tractor Supply, and even Lowes/Home Depot and many lumber yards have these and will deliver.

Nails: galvanized 3 1/2-inch ring shank nails. This length allows plenty of bite through the board and into the post. We used a Paslode Cordless Nail Gun (uses gas canisters + rechargeable battery power) to drive these -- although, you often still need to hand-hammer the last inch or so. Two nails per board per post works fine.

Post Holes: You really need a good auger, or "post hole digger" to dig these post holes. We used a 6-inch (wide) auger mounted on the PTO on the back of our tractor. If you are only fencing the arena area, you may not need to buy this (a bit pricey), but you will definitely want to rent one. I would not advise that "two-man" hand held type auger, since auguring can get pretty exciting when you hit a rock or stump -- definitely better mounted on a stable tractor! Even then be careful with this thing -- we've heard some pretty nasty stories about people getting hurt with them!

Digging holes this way is a two person job -- one to drive the tractor, position the auger, engage the auger, lower the auger and control the drilling speed, and the other to stand behind the auger and guide it with the pole that extends off the top of the auger. For really hard ground, you may need to really push down on the pole, and it may bend. We found that the "tamper" (described below) can also be inserted at the top of the auger to give you a longer/stronger pole for pushing down the auger bit when needed.

Speaking of augers, depending on how many holes you drill and what you happen to hit (rocks!), there are two replaceable parts that can wear down quickly and make the going tougher as they get dull: 1) the "cutting blades" which are the two little blades bolted to the bottom of the auger, and 2) the auger tip, which is the corkscrew-looking thing at the tip. We found out the hard way that it is much easier to replace these occasionally to make drilling much easier.

Post Spacing: you'll want to place the posts on six foot centers, so that one 12-foot board effectively goes across three posts. The "12 foot" boards actually seem to vary from about 12'1" to 12'4", plus as you drill the holes, things may shift a little, so trying to hit 6-foot centers usually works best to make sure that the boards reach with a little to spare. Then, you use a chain saw after nailing the boards in place to trim the ends even with the final post center so that you are ready for the next run of boards.

Other misc. equipment that you'll need:

Manual post-hole "shovel": This is the old-fashioned manual one that looks like two small shovels bolted together that you'll need to remove loose dirt from the bottom of the hole after using the auger (stuff falls back in as you remove the auger).

Tamper: this is the long (about 6-foot) heavy metal pole with a pointed blade on one end and a blunt end on the other. After you drill the hole (about 2 to 2 1/2 feet), clean the hole out with the post-hole shovel and drop in a post; then you need to fill dirt back around the post in the remaining hole area, and pack it down securely all around the base of the post with the blunt end of the tamper. Before doing this, you may want to use a smaller stick (or actually I found an old dressage whip works nicely!) and kind of poke the dirt down around the sides of the post before tamping, since the tamper may not get dirt to pack all the way down to the bottom of the hole if used first (tends to pack around the surface first leaving some air at the bottom of the hole, and therefore leaving the pole a little wobbly).

By the way, no cement is needed in the holes for board fencing, and the boards actually serve to "stiffen" the whole fence line as you go. For some "tension" type fencing (high tension flexible vinyl, for example) they do require cement for some posts, to take the stress of stretching the fencing material -- but this is not needed with board fencing.

Level: needless to say you need to check the level of each post in two vertical directions to make sure that it is "straight up" before final burying/tamping into place.

We actually found a 2-people approach worked best there for this stage: 1 person levels the pole with a carpenter's level and once leveled, holds it steady in place; 2nd person down on knees, uses the stick to filter dirt down into the cracks and then secures all dirt around the pole, burying it firmly before then tamping it into place with the heavy tamper. This also speeds along the process using 2 people, because once the pole is buried firmly, while the 2nd person then tamps it into place, the 1st person has already moved on to leveling the next pole in line.

Hanging the Boards:

• Once the line of posts are set, you can nail up the boards next -- this is actually the relatively easier & faster part of fence building as compared to setting the posts themselves. It is also the most satisfying since once you nail up the boards, it instantly looks like a fence instead of a bunch of poles in the ground! Again, the 2-people approach, we found, works best, as each person holds an end of the heavy 12-foot board. We have found that the best way to approach this stage of the fence building is to measure to where you want the top of the upper board and mark a small line for that with a permanent marker. Line the board up to this marked line and nail-up this board first, and then measure down from the bottom of this board to where you want the top of the next board to be, etc., until all boards are in-place. Don't try to make marks for all 3 or 4 boards at once (we learned!), since the width of the boards vary a little from piece-to-piece (plus some can have a slight warp to them), so by measuring as you go along, you keep the spacing more uniform between boards.
• Board direction: ideally you want the "smooth side" of the fence (the side that you nail the boards onto) facing the contained horses for both safety and for strength, not horses on the post side, so if the horses lean on/bump into a board, the board presses against the post. If nailed the other way around (from the "outside" of the area where you are containing the horses), then a horse could potentially just "pop-off" a board by leaning on it.
• "Batten Boards": Not sure what these are really called but these are the small cut board pieces that you see sometimes nailed vertically up-and-down the horizontal board seams and at each post. These are optional, and mostly for aesthetics to cover any odd gaps at the end of boards. We chose NOT to add them since they just create an additional obstacle for horses to brush up against/potentially scrape themselves on, and in the case of the arena, a rider's foot is less likely to get hung up there by accident if the surface is smooth all around on the inside of the arena. Plus, for a large area of fencing, these batten boards can add significantly to the overall board & project cost. Again, this is a matter of taste -- we just decided that the smoother finish without these was our preference all around for the majority of our fenced areas.
• Board Spacing & Number of Boards: This is determined somewhat according to taste and depends somewhat on expected usage (is it the pasture for the "tame boys" or is it the paddock for the "wild boys"?).

As for number of boards for fences, we chose throughout our training center the following:

• 4 boards for some property perimeter fence lines (where we were not really sure what might eventually be on the property on the other side).
• 3 boards for the majority of our internal pasture/paddock fencing that is within the property, and where our more-trained horses stay.
• 4 boards, and a slightly higher fence, for the arena as you never know what you'll have in there for training or clinics! Five feet is the ideal there, but we went with 4-feet, 7-inches because of existing posts on one side, lessening the amount of drilling we had to do there.
• 4 boards, and our highest fence (5 feet), for the paddock off of our 6-foot high round pen, since this may be a holding pen or work area for the least trained/wilder horses that come here that could potentially attempt to go over a shorter fence line.
• As for fence height and spacing, again this is personal taste, but we chose here at the VNHTC:
• Main larger pastures and barn paddock: 3 boards; 4-feet, 4-inches to top of highest board, then about 9 inches spaced between each remaining board.
• 200-foot by 100-foot Riding Arena: 4 boards; 4-feet, 7-inches to top of highest board, then about 7 1/2 inches between each remaining board. (horse less likely to put a head through the boards)
• Round Pen Paddock (connected off our 60-foot round pen): 5 feet to top of highest board; then about 8 1/2 inches between each remaining board.

Other Odds & Ends:

• Post Tops: once the boards are on, the only remaining task is to chain-saw off the tops of the posts that remain above the top board. The easiest way to do this is to saw from the post side, with a slight angle down away from the fence board, so that the tops of the posts end up slanted so they don't collect water (causing rot). This also evens out the final fencing for a nice, uniform line and look.
• "Overlapping board pattern": this is an option where you "alternate" the starting point for the 12-foot board sections so that not all seams between the rows of boards end up on the same post. We tried this at first, and although it may potentially add a little bit of strength, we found that on hilly areas, for example, it also makes for some very odd gaps/spacing between boards. We found that taking the time to set the posts securely and firmly and then keeping all of the rows of boards with uniform starts and ends still resulted in excellent strength while making the gap between boards much more consistent. I'd only recommend the "alternating" approach where you have a very level run of fencing.

Final Note: There is another method that some people use to set posts, and that is to "drive" the posts. If the ground is soft enough, you may be able to cut a wedge on the end of each post with a chain saw, and then "drive" them into the ground using a front-loader on a tractor to pound them in. Or, you can also drill a smaller post hole (say with a 3-inch wide auger), and likewise drive the posts in the same way with a tractor front-loader. Our ground here in Virginia was much too packed (clay usually) or too rocky just below the surface for this route, so we chose to just drill the larger post hole (with 6-inch wide tractor auger), drop in the post, and tamp the dirt back around it very tightly. After the dirt settles a bit, we've found this to create just as solid a post/fence as the "driving" approach, and it seemed to be the best route for our soil conditions here

I hope this "from the trenches" information helps you with your upcoming arena wood fencing project, and any other wood fencing you'd like to do on your horse farm. After laying down over 2 miles of fencing here, all by ourselves -- Sylvia and I at our Virginia Natural Horsemanship Training Center -- we have to say we've gotten pretty good at it, very fast at it, and the fences came out quite solid and, we think, very aesthetically pleasing. Opting not to paint them, but leave them natural cuts down on future farm maintenance (as painted fences have to be repainted every couple of years), and we rather like the natural wood look for our center. Good luck with your project and let us know if we can be of any further help to you there!

Daryl Scott

C .E.O.

Virginia Natural Horsemanship Training Center LLC

Blacksburg, Virginia

 

 

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