This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 12/17/99 7:19:29 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< "Forewarned is forearmed." I made a promise right there to check every inch of my pens and pastures for ANYTHING that could cause that sort of injury to a horse. I went home, went out to the pens, and picked up sticks, old branches, etc. (Also be sure your board fences are strong enough not to explode into splinters if a horse hits them. Ours are hemlock, and when they break they don't break into long splinters, they just seem to "pull" apart along a rounded grain line.) >> Mary, I just had to respond to your post. I have always done as you mentioned, put my imagination in high gear, looked at enclosures where we put our horses, and tried to see anything that they might possibly get hurt on, etc., but dadgummed if they won't find something to get themselves into trouble that I couldn't even imagine. I have come to the conclusion that horses lay awake at night from the moment they draw their first breath, trying to figure out how to commit suicide!! I swear that if you put them in a padded cell, they would eat the padding, colic, and die!! I have seen horses get themselves into the darndest predicaments!! When we lived in MT., had several paddocks about 30'x50' made of post and rail with hot wire. I used old bathtubs in several paddocks for waterers. Tubs were set under the bottom rail so that one tub could serve 2 paddocks. I used this setup for many years with absolutely no problem. One day my state champion cutting mare decided to do a rollback on the edge of the tub. I still cannot figure out how she did this in such a small area and with so little of the tube exposed in her paddock??!! She totally severed one tendon in a hind leg and severed the other one half way through. It was HORRID! When she tried to stand up, because the hind leg had NO support, it curled up under her like a banana. This tub had a small lip about 1/2 inch high that ran along 2 of it's sides. Guess that's where it attached to the bathroom wall. It was not sharp so didn't give it much thought. I managed to heal this mare and chose not to put her down, but it was a long, and very expensive process. She became just a broodmare. What a shame. Hope never to go through anything like that ever, but know something could happen on any given day, no matter how hard we work at keeping our horses out of harm's way. Gayle Ware Field of Dreams Eugene, OR
