We used to have a very nice hitching post made out of two 12 ft long telephone poles, sunk five feet in the ground and cemented, with a timber across the two
poles that was a utility pole about 3/4 of the diameter of the telephone poles. Made a rather sturdy H-shaped hitching post.
I grew up seeing that on my family's property and at all the horsemen's camps we've been to. However, when we hired a guy to do some maintenance on our front pasture, he HIT our hitching post with his tractor and cracked one pole and loosened the other. We just ended up tearing it down and trimming it down to ground level and putting our roundbale feeder overtop of where it used to be.
Well now I have a mare who I want to send to a local trainer (I've contemplated selling her, but I'm going to put her through at least 60 days training if not 90 or 120 days first, and if we still don't work out, at least she has that training on her), but she has been iffy about being tied since I got her and I do NOT want to send her to a trainer if she is iffy about tying (also, we're working on trailering better as well, because that's another thing I think she should know before she goes). I've always been told to let the horse figure it out, so if she yanks back and pulls a few times, she ought to learn better. When I boarded her last year, she had a fit while tied and I just waited till she finished and stepped back up to the post, but the BO told me I was NOT to tie my mare up any more. She didn't want her fighting with the line and breaking her neck in her barn.
Fast forward to now. She isn't terrible at tying, but she does like to test it, and I'd like to have something I can actually tie her to to let her figure out how it works. I've only tied her a handful of times due to the BO's "rules", but now I'm back on the family farm and we have no hitching post! We have old creosote posts from where the fenceline used to run, but they aren't tall enough, and our tree windbreak is all scrubby and thin trunked stuff.
What would be your all's suggestions on building a hitching post? I was set on rebuilding our old hitching post, but can't find enough damn telephone poles and the utility company no longer sells unservicable ones ("Liability" was their reason). I bought one 12 foot long, 10" diameter one this week for $10, and fenced off the area I want to put a post/pole so I could go ahead and start diggin the hole. Should I hold off until I can get more poles, or would the 12 ft pole sunk 4 or 5 feet in the ground and cemented by itself work just as well? Also, if I went with the single post route, would an eye screw set up high to tie the leadrope to work, or should I look for a tying ring? I'd like to see your all's hitching posts/tying poles too! I haven't seen very many sorts really. Most people in these parts actually do cross ties, but we have no where to secure those for now.
Sorry for the novel of a post.
I grew up seeing that on my family's property and at all the horsemen's camps we've been to. However, when we hired a guy to do some maintenance on our front pasture, he HIT our hitching post with his tractor and cracked one pole and loosened the other. We just ended up tearing it down and trimming it down to ground level and putting our roundbale feeder overtop of where it used to be.
Well now I have a mare who I want to send to a local trainer (I've contemplated selling her, but I'm going to put her through at least 60 days training if not 90 or 120 days first, and if we still don't work out, at least she has that training on her), but she has been iffy about being tied since I got her and I do NOT want to send her to a trainer if she is iffy about tying (also, we're working on trailering better as well, because that's another thing I think she should know before she goes). I've always been told to let the horse figure it out, so if she yanks back and pulls a few times, she ought to learn better. When I boarded her last year, she had a fit while tied and I just waited till she finished and stepped back up to the post, but the BO told me I was NOT to tie my mare up any more. She didn't want her fighting with the line and breaking her neck in her barn.
Fast forward to now. She isn't terrible at tying, but she does like to test it, and I'd like to have something I can actually tie her to to let her figure out how it works. I've only tied her a handful of times due to the BO's "rules", but now I'm back on the family farm and we have no hitching post! We have old creosote posts from where the fenceline used to run, but they aren't tall enough, and our tree windbreak is all scrubby and thin trunked stuff.
What would be your all's suggestions on building a hitching post? I was set on rebuilding our old hitching post, but can't find enough damn telephone poles and the utility company no longer sells unservicable ones ("Liability" was their reason). I bought one 12 foot long, 10" diameter one this week for $10, and fenced off the area I want to put a post/pole so I could go ahead and start diggin the hole. Should I hold off until I can get more poles, or would the 12 ft pole sunk 4 or 5 feet in the ground and cemented by itself work just as well? Also, if I went with the single post route, would an eye screw set up high to tie the leadrope to work, or should I look for a tying ring? I'd like to see your all's hitching posts/tying poles too! I haven't seen very many sorts really. Most people in these parts actually do cross ties, but we have no where to secure those for now.
Sorry for the novel of a post.
