Disappearing Wire

For those who have horses, you know how deadly a stray piece of electric fence wire can be. We have had our worst horse injuries come from a piece of wire getting loose in our pastures. Electric fence wire can escape the fence posts in a number of ways but usually it is the horses themselves that break these devils loose with their own foolishness.

On one occasion we found empty t-posts right before dark where one strand of wire was missing. While searching the field for the wire my DH discovered a very horrible leg injury on my gelding, the injury was so bad that he couldn't walk and we had to take the trailer to bring him to the house for first aid. Darkness fell before the wire could be found and the search was to be resumed the next morning by me.

As soon as dawn broke, I was walking the grid in the upper pasture until I came to a group of horses with a young filly's leg shooting blood out two feet with every heart beat. I summoned help, got a disposable diaper (a must for all horse owners) and some vet wrap and returned to the scene. Once the bleeding had stopped and I knew help was on the way, I left the filly standing where she was and started the search again. My top priority was finding that stupid piece of wire.

It took a long time to find it but I finally did and we doctored the two injured horses several times per day for three months. Both fully recovered with only slight scarring. Time and space does not permit me to tell you the endless heartbreaking stories of horses that I know of who have been injured and even put down because of electric fence wire and high tinsel wire.

Alright, now that you understand the dangers of wire around horses, this is what happened on Saturday morning. When I awoke, I heard banging around in the barn. I looked out to find Cooter in the barn wrecking havoc. I snatched him up and drug him back to the goat lot only to find that the whole bottom strand of electric fence wire was missing between his lot and the lower horse pasture. Gadzooks! I said, and turned him loose in the lot anyway.

I started searching for the missing wire immediately and could not find it, it was not in any of the usually hiding places. Now bear in mind that the lower horse pasture is where the big round bales of hay are fed and we have had a lot of rain. There was no way that I could walk out in that deep mud soup to look for a piece of wire.

I went to the house and got my binoculars, I stood out there on firm ground for about an hour combing the pasture. First I searched every horse's legs with my super vision because that is always a good place to find wire. No luck, I couldn't see it anywhere.

When my DH got home he started walking through the mud looking for the wire, he walked back and forth many, many times without finding the 100 feet of wire. I suggested that perhaps it was buried in the thick mud but he doesn't think that there is any way 100 feet of wire could be totally covered with mud.

So now we have a mystery, what happened to the wire? Neither of us will rest easy until we figure this one out.