I like to follow the Nevada Animal Emergency Network because they always post in depth photos and stories to their rescues (which isn’t always easy when there is so much going on at once…). And, I know they perform excellent, ethical and well-trained protocols. The Horse and Man Foundation Bucket Fund has gifted them with several pieces of equipment over the years (Thank you, donors!).
Here is a recent post from the Nevada Animal Emergency Network about a wild stallion who had wire wrapped around his foot.
THE CALL.
Cathy got some good images of the crew in action today (10/5) dealing with a range stallion that had about ten feet of fence wire entangled around his right hind pastern.
A resident allowed us to herd the band of horses into her yard where we shortened the length of the wire by cutting it. (As we would confine them, the other horses would step on the trailing wire, complicating things.) Then we set up a trap, and after reducing the numbers of the horse in the trap to three, I was able to get the wire unwound and the horses all back on the range.
It might sound simple but this was a wild stallion and it took cool, calm, trained coordination by everyone on the team to make this job a success.
More details are provided in the image captions. (BTW, this was our 5th call of the day.)
A view of the wire around the stallion’s leg.
Closer view of the twisting issue that we had to deal with.
Hard to see but you can make out the wire trailing behind the horse.
Testing the stallion’s reactivity when handling the wire. (It needed to be shortened as much as possible before moving the horses into a confined space.)
Getting as close as he will let me to try to shorten the wire so there will be less to be stepped on by the other horses.
Finally getting a cut, about 5 feet behind the horse.
Starting to construct the trap corral.
The trap needed to be deep so the horses would enter it.
A view of the completed trap. We were able to safely sort out all but three horses that were very closely bonded. So we proceeded to remove the wire with three horses in the trap.
Testing reactivity inside the trap. (The rest of the horses were nearby, hanging out in the next-door neighbor’s yard. We let the horses in the trap settle as close as possible to the others.) The stallion would give to a light tug on the wire and not try to kick.
Another view of “testing” reactivity before reaching into the”kill zone” with a hook.
Unwrapping the twists using a “yellow hook.” Once he settled, the stallion actually let me hold the long piece of wire in order to undo the twist.
Mission accomplished, then the horses were let back out.
THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK, NAEN!
