every day up until now I have done a check before leaving of stall doors. Tonight I didn't. I also didn't put the lid on the grain pail properly and I i almost didn't check the camera before going to bed. My mother in law's horse Kitty found her door was unlatched after about 8 hours (I don't know how she didn't realize it sooner, or how two other people who stood in front of the doors didn't notice it.)
Ignore the yellow box, it's the motion sensor.
After a few minutes Topaz decided that he didn't like her eating his food.
she was only out for about 45 minutes, and only eating for about 30 minutes of that time but she possibly ate about 12lbs of Nutrena Stock and Stable pellet. :-(
She's ok. The BO or her husband go every few hours to check on all of the horses water and the first horse out goes out at 5am and their owner checks on everyone. I'll also be making camera checks to look for signs of colic. I always check-- I don't know why I didn't check tonight.
It happens. We get so used to a routine that we don't even think about it. Many times I've gone back to the barn to check on something I didn't remember doing but had done.
For a while I was thinking I didn't secure the latches only to find my sheep, who roams the aisle at night, was flipping them up. I now have little snaps to prevent it.
UGH I know that feeling I have done that before also, I had been talking on phone and hurrying and thought I locked it. Luckily all they got into was the baled hay so they didnt get too much but they were out all night. When I built my new barn I remedied this as all my stalls open into a large concrete breezeway with a large gravel run entrance that is all fenced and gated and my feed room is totally separate and locked behind its own door, the breezeway and run never have ANYthing left in them so they would be in for some serious boredom if they got out here now lol Hope the mare is ok and didnt get too awful much. Fingers crossed.
I've got some pretty funny stories about stall locks....
There is a mini at our barn named Peanut (he is ADORABLE!) and he learned to unlock his stall by pawing at the stall door which loosens the latch and if he paws enough it will shake the latch out the hole. We now have the snap a bolt that was cut off from a lead rope around it. When they first got Peanut, they had to cut the stall door because it was too tall and he could only put his nose on the top of it! It was so cute!
And one time my barn owner was training a horse named Bud, and he had the stall at the end, which at the time had the latch that was easy to move, and he kept getting out! At some kind of event at the barn, I think it was a birthday party, one of the parents walked into the barn isle from the round pen to see him out of his stall eating the hay on the floor!
At least she didn't go through and let everyone else out. We have had a few horses escape and let their companions out too.
We had some dude walk through our barn and flip every stall latch up. Only a couple of geldings and our nicest stud colt got out. They get along well enough. Luckily they missed our older stallions stall. His door blends into the wall in the dark. Posted via Mobile Device
We had some dude walk through our barn and flip every stall latch up. Only a couple of geldings and our nicest stud colt got out. They get along well enough. Luckily they missed our older stallions stall. His door blends into the wall in the dark. Posted via Mobile Device
A guy went in there at night and just opened all the stalls? What and idiot!
At my barn there is a big ol' Friesian gelding who was a stud 6 months before my BO bought him, and they haven't had time to finish his training. My instructor broke her foot when she was training a barrel horse and the owners didn't tell her the mare goes crazy on her cycle. She fell on my instructor and broke her foot. Anyways, the Friesian, Bacchus, one night he got out (I can't remember how). They said it was scary to have a big horse running around in the middle of the night who sometimes can be aggressive (the were trying to sell him last year because they couldn't get anywhere in his training; while training sometimes he would accept being corrected and other times he would retaliate, still had studdy behavior). I would be scared too!
HAHAHA well get this, a couple years ago I went for a ride on my mare by myself, I came back, took her saddle off/bridle and then came in. In the evening before I went out to feed the horses their supper I noticed a horse out in the yard LOL I forgot to put her back in the pasture!!!! Good thing she sticks around because I do let the horses out in the yard but who knows what I was thinking that day!
I arrived at my barn one day to find one of the school ponies happily munching on a hay bale right outside of her stall. She looked up, saw me, realized she had been made, and took off down the aisle. It didn't take me too long to corner her and get her halter on her, and I was pretty amused by her reaction, but she could have easily just wandered out of the barn and down the street if no one noticed she was out! The stall cleaner that didn't latch her door properly got a good talking to from the BO that day.
We not only clipped stall doors, but had a rule that all feed and hay must be kept in a separate stall with it's own lock on it. That way, should some Houdini horse figure out how to escape, it would be that much harder for it to eat itself to death. Glad your horse is ok!
There is a grain room, but it is small and the barn is full now so I volunteered to keep my grain by my stall since my stall is in an annex room that was added on to the barn after the original build. it's wider than the rest of the barn, I like it because I have a lot of storage space.
She seemed a little depressed today, but that might be because I didn't let her have any grain for breakfast. Hay all day.
The idea of one of my horses getting out and eating themselves sick scares me so bad that I keep all feed that is near them (other than hay, of course) in large sealed "twist top" containers.
I was out at the barn the other night & I had the truck lights pointed into my mares stall so I could see as I was mixing supplements. I kept hearing the "snap snap" of twigs but assumed it was just little critters. As I'm bent over I see this THING coming towards me! I could hardly see anything past the headlights. I actually made one of those girly yelps. Apparently someone hadn't latched the gate for the BM's mare who is hugely in foal and she was having a nice little walk about. She must have been munching in the hay barn when she heard me and decided to sneak up on me. Have me the fright of my life! I don't know how she snuck up on me since she's due next month and is the size of a small hippo. She happily munched the tree next to where I had been and went back to her stall willingly. Posted via Mobile Device
I have forgotten to lock the corral gate before too. One time my horse got out in the middle of the night and my mule started calling really loud. So I had to go outside and put him back in. It's actually happened a lot. lol
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