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Regular
Posts: 84
| daughter just got married and her husband raises cattle. they built a new barn and he wants to put a cattle guard in the drive way leading up to the barn to keep cattle out and horses in... I hate cattle guards, but was wondering what others think about using one? |
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
   
Location: Kansas | Lots of people in western kansas use them, I don't think I would ever have an issue with them unless my horses decided to be brave and try to walk across it. |
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  That's White "Man" to You
Posts: 5515
| I've lost 2 nice horses to cattle guards. Horses are dumb and self destructive. It's like leaving a suicidal person in a room filled with hanging ropes, knives and loaded guns. |
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 Party Girl
Posts: 12293
Location: Buffalo, Wyoming | I do not have a problem with them and actually like the fact of the extra safety. My horses would probably just jump them anyway!
We have one leading out of our place and if it wasn't for it we would have cows all over the place. |
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | No cattle guard as long as horses around  |
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A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | Whiteboy - 2014-04-23 3:24 PM I've lost 2 nice horses to cattle guards. Horses are dumb and self destructive. It's like leaving a suicidal person in a room filled with hanging ropes, knives and loaded guns.
Boy do I agree with this 100%  |
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A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | We have a cattle guard at our front gate, I filled it in. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| They have a new "gap zap" electric cattle guard. Check it out...http://www.thegapzapper.com/index.html |
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 Expert
Posts: 1898
| No way would I put my horses behind a cattle guard! A friend of ours had a horse almost cut his leg off when he slipped through the rails trying to walk across it. My mom's parents used to run a pack station and she has a video someone took of their whole string jumping the guard, one right after the other. I see horses behind them all the time but it only takes that one horse to make you wish you would have put in a gate, and it's usually the good horse that does something incredibly stupid!
CATTLE guards are made for cattle. |
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 Angel in a Sorrel Coat
Posts: 16030
Location: In a happy place | The best cattle guards I have ever seen are at Jimmie and Bud Monroe's ranch. I hope they don't mind me sharing. I almost get queasy having to walk across one of them. I have not ever asked about measurements but I think I have a pretty good estimate. The hole under the cattle guard is 7 feet deep. The pipes are fairly large and round (not square). And it is probably at least 7 foot across the bars on the top. I do not know of them having had any trouble with these. I think if you will go "the distance" if you know what I mean and dig the hold deep enough and have the top a good distance across you won't have any trouble. |
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Rad Dork
Posts: 5218
Location: Oklahoma | I have not had any horses try to walk them, but I did have one gelding that would jump them. He even jumped one that was closest to the county road that was just a couple hundred feet from the highway.... We got tired of having to open/close gates (over the cattleguard) so he got moved to the back pasture. |
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
| Lisa, I had 2 taken out here at my new place- scared me since my horses are not familiar with them, not worth the risk. |
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 Swiffer PIcker Upper
Posts: 4015
Location: Four Corners Colorado | Never around my horses. After seeing someones foal break its legs and the neighbors gelding get caught in one and having to be cut out it I will never ever have one on my place. I can get out and open gate or put a gate opener on my gate. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 1182
Location: Do I hear Banjos? | Having worked with veterinarians...we would see the worst case scenario naturally....
But I can tell you we put down or treated a LOT of horses that fell through cattle guards. Even ones that had lived with them for years...one day decided to try to go across or jump it. It's just an accident waiting to happen.
A vet I knew liked to say...
"A horse wakes up each day and decides between murder...or scuicide....just depends on the day" |
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 Chicken Chick
Posts: 3562
Location: Texas | We bought a horse that jumped the cattle guard and ran back to the house we bought him from about 2 miles away. Crossing a very busy street in the process. Before we bought him they rode him by our house all the time, I guess that is how he knew where to go. We had to put up a gate, and borrow a horse to keep him from going through the fence. |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| There's nothing worse than hearing a horse groan and half scream when what used to be his legs are trapped in a cattle guard. The white bone splinters, the torn ropy tendons, the ligaments, the blood, the shredded muscle. No thank you. |
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Expert
Posts: 1690
| Never had any problems with them and they are so handy!
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The Resident Destroyer of Liberal Logic
Location: PNW | classicpotatochip - 2014-04-23 6:46 PM
There's nothing worse than hearing a horse groan and half scream when what used to be his legs are trapped in a cattle guard. The white bone splinters, the torn ropy tendons, the ligaments, the blood, the shredded muscle. No thank you.
Ditto.
We have cattle guards on our ranch, FOR CATTLE. On the side of each one is a gate for horses/riders to use when we have to ride out. I WILL NOT teach my horses how to jump one, or put my horse in a situation where it would even be a temptation. Anywhere that our horses are kept has proper gates for their safety.
Horses don't have much for logic-based self preservation skills (remember when that leaf blowing in the wind tried to kill him?!?!). There's no way I would ever rely on a cattle guard to keep my horses in or out of somewhere. |
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The Resident Destroyer of Liberal Logic
Location: PNW | If it is a matter of convenience, invest in an electric gate. I guarantee it would be A LOT cheaper than the vet bills or replacement of a horse. |
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 The Color Specialist
Posts: 7530
Location: Washington. (The DRY side.) | IMO, they are called CATTLE guards for a REASON. It hasn't hurt me yet to open a gate! Might be a pain in the hiney but that is just too bad. Better that than a horse that gets out at best, or ends up dead. |
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| Horses see in black and white ... and what they see in a cattle guard is as lines across the road and do not see the depth at all ....
because they have very poor depth perception .. ever wonder why your horse will put his head down to look at a log, trailer or rock before stepping into or over it ... he is measuring how high it is ...
Once a horse is taught to cross anything that looks like a line ... i.e. street centerlines. parking lot lines, or crosswalks .... it is no longer safe for him to be around a cattleguard ...
Buy you a solar gate opener that requires a remote or pushbutton panel to be used on both sides of the gate ... most have a motion sensor to open them going out of the drive ...
Edited by BARRELHORSE USA 2014-04-24 1:10 AM
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 Certified Snake Wrangler
Posts: 1672
Location: North MS | I read the book "Beauty" as a child. The main character had to shoot his horse due to a cattle gap and a storm i've never cosidered owning or installing one since |
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BHW's Simon Cowell
Location: The Saudia Arabia of Wind Energy, Western Oklahoma | I had friends from up north that called them a "auto gate". LOL I never could figure out if that meant it was a gate for an automobile or a automatic gate. |
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 Half-Eaten Cookies
Posts: 2076
Location: Fort Worth / Springtown | my main barrel horse got loose on a neighbor's property while my dad was working him over there - he took off down their long paved driveway to the gate where the cattle guard is, jumped the cattle guard and continued down the road. That was 10 years ago and the hoof-slide marks of every one of his steps all the way to the cattle guard and over is STILL THERE - everytime I see them, I think of how that could have happened so differently. I would say no to cattleguard! |
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Veteran
Posts: 103
| My neighbor where I used to live on a busy highway had one, and his horses got out all the time. Luckily, none ever got hit but he eventually put up a gate with an electric keypad. Could not trust the cattle guard to keep them in. |
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Location: naz, tx | bluerose2001 - 2014-04-24 1:50 AM I read the book "Beauty" as a child. The main character had to shoot his horse due to a cattle gap and a storm i've never cosidered owning or installing one since This is exactly what I think of too! i read that probably 25 years ago, and I can still remember crying my eyes out when i read that part.
We do have some places that have cattleguards where we run bucking horses. We keep a gate closed on them, but have had one still get a leg stuck in one....
Edited by jjhajek 2014-04-24 9:17 AM
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
| There are different cattle guards.
The one we have the bars are spaced far enough apart that horses can stick their entire leg through without getting caught up, and it is only 3 feet deep.
We had an old appy that would walk across either step on the bars or put his legs through. Sadly he taught our other horses to do this too.
I have also seen the neighbours cows jump over ours.
We can't remove ours as it is property of the oil company, but honestly it is useless.
I would look at installing gate that opens automatically instead of a cattle guard. You can get some that are solar powered |
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 Always Off Topic
Posts: 6382
Location: ND | cattle guards + horses= escapes and high vet bills..... |
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Regular
Posts: 84
| thank you so very much... I emailed this to my daughter with your posts.... I hate cattle guards.... thanks for the input |
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 Ms. Marine
Posts: 4642
Location: Texas | I don't see much use for having a cattleguard when there's going to be horses around. A horse is either going to try to walk across it or jump it. |
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cattleguard or no cattleguard