An Affordable Round Pen Option

Round pens are great for training and lungeing. Unfortunately, all those panels needed to create one can add up quickly. This summer my husband came up with a cost effective alternative to the traditional round pen.

We used poly tape and t-posts left over from fencing our pasture a few years ago. The round pen is, of course, not "hot" or hooked up to an electric current. However, we did include two strands of the poly tape to create a strong visual barrier. For most horses, this visual barrier is all you need. Especially if you use poly tape around your pasture and it is hot. The horse will associate the pasture poly tape with the round pen poly tape and assume both are electrified.

To cut the cost even more, we simply picked up a rubber gate handle for poly tape fencing at our local farm supply store. Since we already had the left over t-posts and poly tape we only had to buy more t-post caps, tape connectors, and the rubber gate handle. The grand total we spent was $10.00.




I am very satisfied with my round pen, and it has served its purpose well. The only problem I have with the round pen is that my cow uses it as a scratching post and play pen. So about once a week I have to go put the fence caps all back on. But if you don't have a nutty cow in your pasture this shouldn't be a problem for you.

Saving Money on Wormer

Frugal Equestrian doesn't have to be an oxymoron. I'll regularly be posting about how to save money on all your horse's needs. One of the money pits of regular horse ownership is buying wormer every month or two.

If you buy your wormer at your local feed store the average cost is between $7 and $12 a tube. Over the course of the year that adds up to quite a bit - especially if you have multiple horses. Valley Vet offers a package of rotational wormers (enough to worm one horse every other month for a year) that costs $33.80 - plus shipping. That figures out to be about $5.63 a tube for name brand wormer (the ivermectiin is generic, but all the others are name brand). If you pay an average of $10 a tube and worm once a month you'd be saving around $80 per horse a year with shipping included. Not to mention the gas would you save by not making extra trips to the feed store.

Here is the link to the Premium Wormer Pack at ValleyVet.com: http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=584eb085-1ac4-4111-b25c-a5e25af4b8c7