Firefighters Rescue Senior Horse Stuck in Hay Feeder

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Here’s another incident to add to the long list of horses finding creative ways to get themselves into trouble.

Firefighters near Windsor, Colorado, were called to the rescue on Thursday morning when a 25-year-old horse named Katie was found trapped in her own hay feeder, which appears to be made from a modified tractor tire. Two different fire crews came to the scene: The Loveland Fire Rescue Authority and Windsor Severance Fire Rescue.

There were no witnesses around when Katie got trapped within the tire, so neither the fire crews nor her owners know how she ended up there or how long she’d been stuck. She may have fallen or perhaps simply decided to lie down on her hay, as some horses do in winter. However she got there, she was wedged in and couldn’t get back up again on her own.

According to reports, it took at least 15 people an hour to get Katie back on her feet using a specially designed harness and a ladder truck. The horse had no apparent injuries from the ordeal, and a vet examined her afterwards and said she was OK. According to a Facebook post from Loveland Fire Rescue Authority, Katie had been sick with an unspecified illness this week and the vet had already been scheduled to visit her on Thursday prior to her run-in with the tire.

Rescuing horses from the tricky predicaments they sometimes get into can be a delicate and challenging situation. Fortunately for Katie, fire crews in the area have been trained in large animal rescue as part of their role in an agricultural community.


Leslie Potter is a writer and photographer based in Lexington, Kentucky. www.lesliepotterphoto.com

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Leslie Potter is a graduate of William Woods University where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Equestrian Science with a concentration in saddle seat riding and a minor in Journalism/Mass Communications. She is currently a writer and photographer in Lexington, Ky.Potter worked as a barn manager and riding instructor and was a freelance reporter and photographer for the Horsemen's Yankee Pedlar and Saddle Horse Report before moving to Lexington to join Horse Illustrated as Web Editor from 2008 to 2019. Her current equestrian pursuits include being a grown-up lesson kid at an eventing barn and trail riding with her senior Morgan gelding, Snoopy.

2 COMMENTS

  1. This type of feeder should never be used for livestock.
    I have known and heard of several cases of animals getting cast upside down in these inside-out tractor tire feeders and dying because of it.

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