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Check your feed
buckets for horse safety
– I never thought that a feed
bucket could cause harm to any horse,
but I know now and I would like to give
you a heads up on the danger a feed
bucket can cause to your horse.
I have been around
and owned horses most of my life and
although I have seen some pretty unusual
things I have never seen anything quite
like this. Horses are horses and they do
get into some
unpredictable situations, some
which are funny at times and others that
are harmful and costly for your horse
and you. I have been using flatback
feed buckets for years and I have never
had a problem with any of them until
now...
Our horse Brandy
loves her feed as most horses do. She
comes into the
corral area 2 or 3 times a day to check
all the buckets for feed, never mind
that she has 20 acres to graze upon.
Every day she checks the feed buckets
and there is never any feed in them,
except at breakfast and dinner, I guess
she is just hopeful that one day she
will find extra feed in one of the
buckets.
 The
incident: I went out in the morning
to find our horse Brandy dripping with
blood from her muzzle with about 6-8
inches of the skin on her muzzle hanging
down below her muzzle. Of course I
rushed to her side and I could not for
the life of me figure out what had
happened to her.
Photo #1 in
this illustration I tried to show wear
the rip began and ended.
The tear itself was wider, about 1 inch.
Everyone said I should have taken a
picture of the injury and on hindsight,
I wish I would have done so that you
would have been able to see the extent
of the injury but panic always comes
first. It was challenging just tending
to her wound twice a day. She started
going the other direction every time she
saw me, and I didn’t blame her one bit.
The veterinarian was called and I knew
that there was not any way that the vet
would be able to stitch up this wound.
As I was waiting for the veterinarian
gravity was pulling the torn skin longer
and longer and Brandy was becoming very
agitated.
With every toss of
her head her skin was tearing more and
more. Well I made the decision to cut
the extra skin off as much as I could. I
had a one snip chance as I saw it and
believe me when I tell you, that she did
not give me a chance at a second snip...
Brandy took it
better than I did, I felt awful needless
to say. By the time the Veterinarian
got there the skin had torn
approximately 3 more inches longer.
Our Veterinarian didn’t seem too
surprised at the wound but unfortunately
said, it could not be stitched and of
course there would be some deformity and
scarring. He cut the extra (3 to 4
inches) of skin off, cleansed the wound
and put ointment on the injured area,
needless to say he had to tranquilize
her ‘twice’, because she wasn’t having
any of it.
The Veterinarian asked how it happened
and we explained that her nostril had
somehow got caught in the bucket handle,
as that is wear the blood trail started
and the bucket handle was now straight
instead of the usual rounded handle. He
said, “a horse is a horse, and they are
always getting into something, but he
had not heard of this particular type of
incident
before.” There is always a first time!
Photo #2 shows her injury after
7-10 days. We were all relieved to see
her healing so nicely after all she has
been through.
Photo #3 approximately one month
later, this photo shows you how well the
nostril healed although there is some
deformity but hardly any scarring. We
are truly thankful.
Photo #4 is
a photo of our ‘Brandy’. Brandy is an 8
year old Arabian mare. As you can see
the scarring is very minimal, almost
nonexistent. Considering the extent of
the injury, Brandy’s’ nostril still
looks pretty good abet she lost a little
of the flare in the injured nostril.
You can see in
photo # 5 the gap between the handle
and where the handle curves into the
hook, that is where our horse Brandy,
got her nostril caught. I would imagine
that she panicked, what horse wouldn’t.
If the handle would not have been as
straight as a poker afterwards I would
never have believed it myself. How
she got her nostril caught in the gap we
will never know but I wanted to warn
everyone of the possible un-seen
dangers of the feed bucket. I will say
this, I will never look at a feed bucket
in the same way ever again!
All feed buckets vary in style here and
there. Some buckets have rubber
tips on the ends where it curves up into
the hook portion, but I don’t know if
that would have helped or not, maybe her
nostril would have slipped off more
easily but I just couldn’t say. After
the incident I took some
duct tape and wrapped it all around
the portion where the hook curves up and
the gap is, (I am not taking any chances
of this happening again). Duct tape is
great stuff!
Well I hope this
helps to prevent any injury to anyone
else’s horses via a feed bucket. I am
sure they will eventually find something
else to get into but at least they are
safe from the feed bucket danger.
Happy
Trails,
Michele D. Anderson
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