SEEKING SOLUTIONS: Antrim purchases sling to help horses and other large livestock
Published: 07-17-2024 11:43 AM |
Sharon Westen realized soon after moving to New Hampshire that there are fewer services for horses than what she was used to in the densely populated suburbs outside Dallas.
“In Dallas, there are equine vets and farriers and horse stuff all over the place. I realized, coming here, that, with just a smaller population, some of these things are not as common, and I wondered: how many of the fire departments actually know how to rescue horses?” Westen said.
Westen and her husband, JR, divide their time between Antrim and Dallas, and opened Monarch Hills Farm, a 140-acre property Holt Hill Road, in 2018. The fields – which used to be part of the original Tenney Farm – are now dotted with “retired” horses, who all formerly competed in equestrian events or racing, and Westen also boards horses.
Westen knew she was going to need help when she found her 23-year-old Friesian mare, Hannah, cast in her stall. Hannah, who has a sleep disorder, had collapsed against the wall of her stall and couldn’t get her legs free to stand up or roll over. Westen’s husband and barn help weren’t home, so she called the Antrim Fire Department.
“I had to call Marshall to help me get her up,” Westen said, referring to Antrim Fire Chief Marshall Gale. “And luckily, we got her up, and Marshall is wonderful and he’s comfortable around horses. But it got me thinking – how many fire departments around here actually know how to rescue horses?”
Westen has seen her share of horse emergencies.
“I have seen really terrible incidents with horses falling through unsafe floors, or putting their hooves through rotten trailer floors. Some people don’t ever wash out their trailers, and the urine eventually rots the floors. The worst is when that happens when the trailer is moving,” Westen said.
Dr. Maureen Sullivan of Monadnock Equine Veterinary Services, an equine veterinary practice based in Marlborough, noted she had been called to help get horses out of all kinds of situations, including out of a pool. Jenny Fritz, a longtime Francestown firefighter, said that in 25 years with the department, she has seen six or seven horse rescue situations.
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“We’ve seen them sick, or cast, down in their stalls. One time we had a horse who had put its legs through a bridge with cement pylons. The vet had to come and tranquilize her, and I gave her oxygen and her head, and someone else went underneath and bandaged her legs, and we pulled her out,” Fritz recalled.
Westen approached Gale and asked if he would have any interest in purchasing the Loops Large Animal Sling, an equine rescue loop kit, for the Antrim Fire Department, to be shared with departments throughout the area. Westen said if the department would purchase the sling, which costs about $500, she would host a training event for area fire departments using Hannah. The sling can also be used for other large livestock, such as cows, llamas or alpacas.
Gale considered the idea, and decided it would be a good investment for the department.
“Keene just rescued that horse in New Ipswich with this sling; they have the equipment,” Gale said, referring to Ben Franklin, a horse that had fallen through the floor of his barn and was stuck in his stall. “They are really the resource for any large animal rescues in the region. They get called in for anything like this in the region, but we’re pretty spread out, and it seems like there are more and more horse owners in the area in recent years.”
Greg Seymour, the deputy fire chief in Keene, said the department has done more than 20 rescues in the past three to four years, mostly during the spring and winter. Most of the incidents, he said, take place outside the city.
“They come in spurts,” he said. “By far, we do more horses than anything else.”
Rescues are time-consuming and manpower-intensive, Seymour said, and over the years, firefighters have come to realize they don’t know everything.
“We’ve learned a great deal from horse-owners and veterinarians,” he said. “We learn something new each time.”
The Loops sling, which was developed by large-animal veterinarians at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, is designed to safely support the animal’s skeleton for full-body lift in an emergency situation. Sullivan cautioned the volunteers during the training clinic that in most cases, horses in an emergency situation will need sedation before they can be moved. At the training event, Sullivan demonstrated how to safely loop and knot a rope around a horse’s tail.
“Yes, you can pull them by the tail in an emergency, but there is a right way to do it, and you have to be careful,” Sullivan told the firefighters. “You want to avoid the head and the hooves, and typically, a horse will need sedation going into a sling.”
The Loops Large Animal Sling includes emergency anesthesia with instructions, but Sullivan cautioned that an equine vet should be called in for emergencies whenever possible.
To Westen’s delight, fire departments from Antrim, Hancock, Bennington and Francestown all responded to her invitation to the training event, with about 20 volunteers taking part. The firefighters and EMTs took turns learning to fasten the sling around Hannah, as well as the correct procedure for tying a rope to a horse’s tail.
Most of the volunteers seemed comfortable around horses, and Meredith Shepard and Zachary Andersen of the Antrim FD even let Hannah snuffle their two-month-old daughter, Morgan.
Seymour said his officers do a lot of training, and it is important to know animal anatomy and behavior, as well as building instruction. Being able to use excavators and tractors is also important, as well as remembering that rescuers are dealing with animals weighing thousands of pounds.
"There’s a lot more to it than just having the equipment,” he said. “You never know how an injured or sick animal is going to react when you start to move them.”
Also, Seymour said horses rarely fall in convenient places to rescue them.
“Most of the time, you have to engineer something,” he said.
Along with knowing the equipment, Seymour said his main piece of advice would be to develop relationships within the animal and veterinary community to have resources available to help people make informed decisions about their animals.
Gale said he can recall three horse rescues over the years, all involving horses who needed to be lifted and put back on their feet.
“The hardest thing is when you can’t get them up on their own,” Gale said. “I just thought, it would be really good to have this basic equipment, to have this basic training, so we can respond to emergencies like this. There are more and more people with horses around here, and people really love them, and of course, they are really valuable animals. This is just a valuable service we can provide to our community, and we can spread this knowledge to other departments, as well.”