Check-out Cathy Rivers newest blog post! Often over-looked horsemanship lesson! Great info!

  Cathy Rivers, www.bighorsedreams.com

June 19th 2012

At some point in your horse ownership life there will come a time when you won’t be able to make it home to feed the horses. Are you prepared? What if you can’t do feeding and chores for 2 weeks or more? Are you prepared? What if you are at the Emergency Room and it is taking all your energy to just cope with an injury? Are you prepared?

This doesn’t have to be a horse related injury, which is what happened to me three weeks ago. You could be stranded away from home due to weather. Stuck across country because of airline difficulties. Overwhelmed and completely pre-occupied by the death or injury of a loved one.

Many of you probably have Care and Feeding Instructions written out for when you go away for holidays and vacations. But this assumes you are able to train your interim helper beforehand and they have agreed to assist you. An even bigger assumption is they can reach you by phone if they have questions.

Do you have a plan that can be activated with one phone call, in the event you are detained indefinitely from feeding and caring for your horses? Here are some tips for putting an Emergency Backup Care and Feeding Plan in place.

• Make arrangements with at least 2 to 3 people to be your Emergency Care and Feeding Coordinators. Put their contact information in your cell phone AND make sure each of them do the same. Train your Emergency Coordinators on how feeding and chores are done on your farm. Have them handle all your horses and see if there are any issues.
• Keep your Care and Feeding Instructions current and posted in the feed room.
• On a farm diagram, clearly describe each horse, their paddock and their stall. (I have 3 horses, all related, all growing and changing, that look identical. However, they have different feed requirements so it is very important that my helpers can identify who is who.)
• Clearly label all feed, grain, and supplements. People coming to care for your horses may not be familiar with your products; if they are non-horse people they will need highly detailed descriptions. Don’t expect them to know alfalfa from grass hay.
• Anytime there is a change in the farm routine make a note of it on your care and feeding instructions. (At the time of my accident, I had a young horse stalled and recovering from colic surgery. I did not have her care instructions updated which put her health in jeopardy)
• Overstate the obvious. Assume helpers and volunteers coming onto your property know zero about horse care. Be detailed about:  checking and filling water troughs and buckets twice a day, locking gates and stall doors, how to measure a serving of hay, how to measure a scoop of grain, keeping the electric fence plugged in.
• Would any of your horses be hard for a novice to handle? A horse with a dominating personality? A pregnant mare? A colic-prone horse? Get very clear about your plans for how such horses are to be cared for. Do they stay outside only? Do they stay inside only?  Do they get transported to another facility that is more experienced?

Creating an Emergency Care and Feeding Plan will benefit you in more ways than you can imagine. Firstly, it allows your horses to get the care they need immediately. Even a short period of time without water can be disastrous for a horse. And it allows you and all your helpers to move through this period of time with more confidence and assurance that things are getting done right at the farm.

Copyright © 2012 Big Horse Dreams, Inc.