In light of Hurricane Sandy and winter looming for us in Colorado, its time to look at how horse owners should prepare when rough weather is predicted for their area.
Barn Preparation
Keeping your horses in the barn has both pros and cons. It will keep the horses dry, and out of mud, away from falling trees and lightning, and other hazardous conditions that may cause injury. However it may end up trapping the horses in hazardous conditions if the barn floods or collapses. This choice is dependent on the horses, the barn, and outdoor conditions that need to be evaluated by an experienced professional.
If you are going to keep your horses in the barn, make sure you have easy to open doors and that the barn is not prone to fires or flooding. If you are going to keep your horses outdoors, have some sort of identification on the horses so that if your horses escape, they can be returned to you.
If possible, you should have any horse trailers on the property attached to a truck and ready to evacuate horses in case evacuations become mandatory. You may also want to pack extra hay and grain for the horses, water, buckets, supplements, and other daily supplies.
Horse Preparation
To prepare your horses for an emergency you need to attach contact information to your horses in case they get loose to end up in a large herd of horses at a rescue facility
Ways to identify your horses include:
- Halters with contact info written on halter or tied to halter
- Tying a plastic bag with contact info into the mane
- Shaving a contact phone number into the hair
- Tying an ID tag with contact info around the horse’s neck
Where ever you keep your horses, they should be easy to catch in case staying at your barn becomes a non-viable option. Your horses should be trained to load into a trailer and your trailer should be ready for the horses.
You should also have an emergency vet kit on hand.
Included in this kit should be:
- Basic first aid stuff for treating wounds and small injuries
- Banamine and Bute
- Contact info for several vets in the area
Evacuation procedures
If the authorities have declared mandatory evacuations, get your horses out as quickly as possible. You don’t want to be in the way if emergency services are entering the area and mandatory evacuations mean that your area will be in danger. If evacuations are voluntary, then you need to asses the situation. Is your barn and property in an area that will be prone to issues, low ground, lots of trees, or hard to get out of? Or is it in a defensible area where your horses are likely to be safe during the emergency? You should then evaluate what your evacuation options are. Do you have a friends place you can take your animals to? Where are the government evacuation shelters? Is there are safe place to take your horses?
When evacuating your horses, make sure they have contact info attached to them and make sure you have identification and health papers with you.
If you don’t have a horse trailer, there are services available to help you evacuate your horses during an emergency.
Evacuation services:
Horse Evacuations East is for the eastern US but they may have contacts in other parts of the country as well.
Fleet of Angels is a national organization that will transport horses in an emergency or to help with rescue efforts to find horses new homes:
People Preparation
- Charge your cell phone and make sure you have the ability to charge it with you.
- Make sure everyone in the barn has a contact info for the people at the barn.
- If someone else is trailering your horses, make sure you have their phone number and they have yours.
- Have an emergency kit for yourself including food, water, first aid, and change of clothes.
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