Horse Camping with Portable Panels and Electric Tape

A portable electric-tape corral.

Photo by Mandy Lorraine

Question: What's inexpensive, easy to assemble, and and a doorway to a whole new world of enjoyment with your horse?

Answer: A lightweight, portable pen or corral, designed to stow on or in your trailer and to set up with a minimum of fuss at a campground or trailhead. Put one up and you can snug down peacefully in your sleeping bag, knowing your horse has a secure place for the night where he can stretch his legs, watch the scenery as he munches his hay, and lie down to rest.

These enclosures come in two basic types: electric pens and portable panels. Each has advantages and drawbacks, and each works best when you train your horse to accept his pen as his home away from home before you hit the road, then make his first camping trip (and yours!) as stress-free as possible.

Here's how to get started.

ELECTRIC FENCE

What you need:

1. Posts: Can be fiberglass (lightest and lest expensive, but may become splintery with exposure to sunlight), polyprolylene "step-in" (metal tip at base, designed to push into ground with your foot), or metal rods (can be pounded in with a hammer). Fiberglass and metal both require insulators to hold tape or wire; step-in posts are self-insulating.
2. Electric tape or wire: Polyethylene tape with imbedded conductive metal strands comes 1 to 2 inches wide, in white and colors--highly visible. Wider tape makes a more substantial fence, but it's more expensive, and the 2-inch width doesn't fit through all insulators. Poly-coated wire is less expensive but breaks more easily; for visibility, flagging is a must.
3. "Fencer" or electric charger: battery- or solar-powered (solar is bulkier).
4. Gate handle: Insulated handle with metal spring core, hook at one end, and loop at the other for connecting tape or wire, creates a gate at any point in the pen perimeter.

Pluses:

• Flexibility. Complete electric-fencing kits are available, but many campers buy components separately from farm or garden warehouse stores, hardware stores, and catalogues--and occasionally luck out with bargain prices on individual pieces such as the charger. Size and shape of the pen modifies readily to fit available space.
• Affordability. Less than $150 buys everything you need; complete kits go for less than $200.
• Easy storage and handling. One person can easily set up and take down. Tape or wire rolls up for storage. Posts (insulators still attached) bundle together with shock cord, or even slide into boxes designed for golf clubs. Then it all goes in your trailer's tack room or the back of your tow vehicle.

Minuses:

• Easily demolished. A horse panicked by accidental contact with his own pen, or by a disturbance nearby, can forget his reluctance to touch the fence and bolt right through the wire or tape. Or another camper's panicked loose horse can run through your horse's pen.
• It only works with the charger on. Many horses can tell when the fence is electrified and are quick to lean over it for grass when it's not (one reason a spare battery is recommended).
• Less effective if you're blanketing. A blanket insulates your horse against electricty (though the lower tape or wire may contact his legs if he leans on the fence).

PORTABLE PANELS

What you need:

1. Panels: Ready-made panels are available in several weights and styles (both steel and aluminum); one popular type, about 6 feet long by 4 feet high, comes in sets of eight. Or have a local welding shop build panels to your needs.
2. Fasteners for attaching panel ends together securely enough that a horse can't separate two panels by sticking his neck through the bars and lifting.

Pluses:

• No posts--an advantage in hard or rocky ground.
• More likely to keep a spooked horse in, a stampeding horse out. A spooked horse may knock his panel pen out of kilter with kicks or body swipes, but he probably won't demolish it. Runaways are more likely to notice and respect the solid appearance of panels--and not crash through them.
• Stows neatly. Brackets on your trailer exterior can hang panels out of the way. (Exception: 8-foot-wide trailers must carry panels inside.)
• Durable--Panels are low-maintenance and last for years.
• Expandable. Many panel pens are about 12 feet square; depending on available space (and number of panels you have), you can add panels to make a larger pen.

Minuses:

• More difficult to handle. If you're a small person, finding panels light enough for you to move around comfortably yet sturdy enough that your horse respects them can be a challenge. (That's one reason some campers who use lighter-weight panels add a single strand of electric tape around the top.)
• More expensive than electric. Prices vary; a set of four welded-to-order 13-foot galvanized steel panels cost one of our camper experts $250.