Firefighters Rescue Senior Horse Stuck in Hay Feeder

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