On an old family farm...?

Question

If they wanted to encircle their crops with wooden or chain link fencing, what would be the logical type of fence material to use - it must prevent horses from grazing, and allow tractors to pass, when necessary.

Answer 1

Electric fence, it takes very little juice to turn a horse, 2,000 volts is plenty.  Posts can be less expensive plastic, composite or fiberglass and can be spaced much farther apart when supporting one or two strands of hi-tensile wire.  If near a source of electricity, powerful, less expensive 120 volt energizers can be used or if far away from power, a solar powered energizer can be used.  It's also much quicker and easier to build and very much less expensive than conventional barbed wire or woven wire fence.  

Electric fence isn't dangerous, it certainly hurts but the duration of the electrical pulse is so short, no physical harm occurs.  I've accidently touched my 8,000 volt sheep fence on more than one occasion and yes it hurts, but I'm still alive and kicking.

Check out Kencove or Premier on the web for fencing supplies and energizers as well as Parmak and Zareba for medium priced, excellent quality, American built energizers.  The German, Australian and New Zealand built energizers are excellent units, but you pay dearly for the name.  American units are a better buy for the buck.  

One other thing, energizers are commonly rated in Joules, miles of fence or acres.  There is no standard for comparison and therefore, the published numbers mean very little.

Answer 2

You have several options to use here. Chain length would be very expensive and much more fence than you would actually need. A wooden fence is also very expensive and costly to maintain as well. Wooden fences are used for aesthetic value. If you have the money and want a fence that looks great, a wooden one would work very well. Electric fencing is the cheapest and easiest to put up and they work very well if you keep them up properly.  Woven wire fences are the types used on most conventional farms with one or two strands of barbed wire on top. They are fairly expensive to put up but will give you many years of maintenance free fencing. Barbed wire fences with three to five strands of wire  is a cheaper version of the woven wire fence, that will give you years of low maintenance fencing. Many farmers use some combination of different types of fences, such as woven wire around the border of the farm and electric fences to make temporary fields to control grazing etc.

Regardless of the fence you use, you can put gates or cattle guards to facilitate the entrance of tractors and other vehicles.

Answer 3

My farm has no horses, but my neighbor does. He has a wooden fence with an electric fence to keep the horses away from the wooden fence.

Why? the woden fence is too costly to let horses get  close to it. My farm, across the fence, has no fence on the opposite side, so that if a horse were to get past the electric fence, it would be out on the highway in no time. (The person who owned my farm lost the farm as a result of his horse getting onto the highway and causing major personal injury.)

If the cropland is well fenced so that your horses would not be in peril should they get out, I think I would go for electric fencing.

One solution I would rigorously avoid is page wire fencing with barbed wire. Most horse owners would feel like shooting anyone who used that system,  Horses all too often become entangled in that fence, get their legs cut to the bone, or they are severely lacerated by barbed wire.