Transcript:

[0:03]

Welcome to this video podcast on emergency preparedness for your horses, and I'm gonna start off with a story.

[0:11]

Why I feel so passionately on why this might be one of the most important podcasts you could ever watch and listen to — because back in 2005, for those of us that lived in the United States, there was this horrific hurricane season. And many of us watched on the television as a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, called Hurricane Katrina, churned towards New Orleans in the U.S. in the southern part of the country.

[0:47]

And for those of you around the world that live near coastal regions, you understand — you know how hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones can be pretty devastating. Well, as we watched the destruction wrought on this big city in the United States, it left a lasting impression on us. What many of us don't remember is just a few weeks after that, another massive hurricane was churning in the Gulf of Mexico, and it was called Hurricane Rita. And I was there in Texas at Texas A&M as a young graduate student, watching this massive storm bear down on us.

[1:34]

And I was 100 miles inland as this storm came bearing towards Houston, Texas. We were trying to get prepared — and our horses prepared. The only thing I could say is we weren’t prepared at all. We were caught with our pants around our ankles as we were not ready for this massive storm to hit that part of Texas.

[2:00]

We had a herd of close to 200 horses at the University and we were scrambling. And me, as a graduate student — a PhD student — I was part of the team to try to figure out: what are we going to do for these horses? How are we going to protect them from damaging winds? Do we leave them in pasture? Do we bring them all in stalls? Do we bring them into the arenas? We were going through all of these things.

[2:34]

I remember I brought my actual clothes basin to use as an emergency water trough for horses. I was bringing everything I could to our barn. And then eventually we set up pens for many of our most vulnerable horses in the arena in anticipation of this massive hurricane — because we had this visual of just a few weeks earlier of the destruction of Katrina.

[2:58]

Also, many horse owners were calling us at the University to see if they could bring their horses there, and we said no — we were at capacity. And so these horse owners eventually had to go up to places like Dallas, Texas, which was many, many hours away — hundreds of miles.

[3:17]

So this left a lasting impression on me — that we weren’t ready like we should have been. And we didn’t have a plan, and that was the big takeaway for me. So as I’ve gone through my career and as I’ve taught many students, but also many horse owners, emergency preparedness is critical for your horses and you.

[3:41]

So we are going to talk about emergency management planning — what it means. And it’s just not preparing for a hurricane, cyclone, typhoon — it’s any type of inclement weather. Whether it’s tornadoes that can strike quickly, wildfires — a big one we’re going to talk a lot about today because those are very fast-moving and can catch you unprepared — flooding, sudden storms, hail, heavy snowstorms during the winter. It depends on where you are in the world, and that’s going to dictate the type of emergency.

[4:23]

If everybody has some sort of emergency plan in place, they’re prepared, and then they can act without scrambling around like we were in Texas close to 20 years ago as I record this. So this is a very pertinent topic for anyone.

[4:41]

And you know, in last week’s podcast I was talking about horse transportation and why horses need to be trained and trailered. It’s important that every horse in the world can be safely loaded onto a trailer and unloaded — because of emergencies like this. It’s not just emergencies where the horse is injured; it’s responding to nature.

[5:08]

All right, another story where this is pertinent — where hurricane we had warning. And I lived in the state of Florida in the United States for 10 years and have dealt with hurricanes, sat through hurricanes passing overhead, preparing our horses for that, and then evacuating from an impending hurricane.

[5:33]

But what about wildfires? That’s another one that almost anybody in the world should be prepared for. So another story was back in 2007 — so again, you know, this is many years ago — and I think it’s because emergency preparedness has become such a big topic that people are better prepared. But if we go back to 2007 in my old hometown in San Diego, I lived near the Del Mar Racetrack, which was right near the ocean.

[6:04]

At the time, I was living on the East Coast of the United States, and my brother, who was still in San Diego, called me and said, “Wow, we have some bad wildfires.” I checked the news — they were in the east part of San Diego County. I thought, okay, you know, that’s typical fire season in California.

[6:23]

Well, living there, there’s these things called the Santa Ana winds, which blow really hot, dry air from the desert out to the ocean. And this was seen, say, in 2019 in Australia with their massive wildfires. There’s wildfires ongoing throughout the planet, so it’s pertinent to wherever you live, again.

[6:46]

But in this story, overnight my brother got an emergency phone call and was told to evacuate — and the fires were just over the hill from his home near the ocean. So these wildfires blew up really fast and moved rapidly towards the coast. Horse owners in east county San Diego were evacuating their horses to the Del Mar Racetrack — that was the collection point for all their horses.

[7:20]

And there were multiple images and news stories of people trying to load their horses on trailers as the fires were bearing down on their properties. I saw pictures and heard about people spray painting their numbers on their horses and letting them go. I mean, just — people were panicking. It was a very scary situation.

[7:43]

What was even scarier about those fires is the collection point at Del Mar — the fires raced through the canyons and they were stopped about a mile away as they were racing towards the horse collection point. So the point is: you need to have a plan. You need to have a plan on what you’re going to do and where you’re going to go.

[8:07]

Now, like I said, all the horses were brought to the Del Mar Racetrack and performance center — so multiple barns — and the firefighters put a wall up and said, “No, you’re not going to go any further.” And it was a pretty safe area — pretty far away from the canyons — but still, the fires got that close. Burned down many homes, things like that.

[8:26]

And it’s — you know — if you’re ready versus not ready, that is the big point. That is really important because if you think about it, just imagine today, if you don’t have an emergency plan for your horses or evacuation — imagine you get a phone call right now saying, “You need to come get your horses. There is a fast-moving fire. They’ve got to go.”

[9:00]

Okay, think about that for a second. How would you react? Okay, if you have a plan, you’re probably, “Okay, I’m going to go. I got this, I got that, I know what I’m going to grab, I know where I’m going to get my trailer, I know where I’m going to go — let’s go,” and you put your plan in action. If you don’t have an emergency plan, what are you thinking right now? “Okay, where… okay, where… I gotta… okay, I’ve got to go get my horses… okay, where’s the truck, where’s the trailer, where am I going to go?”

[9:28]

You start going through all of this, and your anxiety’s through the roof. And it’s scary — it’s really scary. So that is why having a plan is so important — to really check off all those things in your head and know, “Okay, there’s an emergency, I need to go now.”

[9:55]

And that’s in these ones where you don’t have a lot of time. And I’m going to talk about different types of plans because it’s going to be — you know — an emergency may hit, or it depends on where you live in the world. Like, say, where there’s earthquakes — again, California, where I lived, I lived through some earthquakes. But there have been some horrific ones around the planet where you can’t evacuate, right? The earthquake happens — what do you do after a disaster?

[10:14]

So when we’re looking to create an emergency plan, we really need to identify the risk for your area. Then you need to really break this down into two categories — almost maybe three. But one is: do I have time to evacuate? Meaning, you have more than 24 hours — let’s say a hurricane is bearing down on your coastal community — and that is going to give you time to get organized, get your horses safely loaded and evacuated. In the event of something like, say, a wildfire that blows up suddenly and is screaming towards your property, you may only have a few hours.

[11:01]

So that is a different type of plan where you have to spring into action. Again, this is why this is so important — you need to think through it. And then I would say the third one is really what happens if you don’t have any time and you’re picking up the pieces after a disaster. Say an earthquake happens, or overnight a storm comes out of nowhere and there’s a tornado that rips through your area. So you have to think of these things before they happen, so when you have that plan in place mentally, you’re prepared for it.

[11:33]

You also want to share this with others, which I’m going to talk a lot about too — where you talk to your neighbors, you talk to your family, you talk to your friends, you talk to the facility where your horses are at if they’re not on your own property. “This is my plan,” so people know when that happens and when you spring into action.

[11:52]

And you know, looking at the disasters in your area — look at the history. So if I’m going to look at the data from 2023, what are some of the natural disasters that we saw break across the world? Looking at the different types of cyclones and hurricanes — that was big around the world. We had Tropical Cyclone Mocha, Tropical Cyclone Freddy. There was Storm Daniel, which hit Europe — a very intense storm that caused a lot of damage.

[12:30]

And you know, there’s hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, even the Pacific Ocean heading towards coastal California and parts of Mexico. So those were very active in 2023. Then we had a very busy wildfire season — this is becoming news each and every year. I mean, we had the horrific wildfires just a few years ago in Australia; in 2023 you had horrific wildfires in Hawaii, in Maui — wiped out almost a lot of part of Lahaina, Maui. There were wildfires in Africa, in Europe and Greece, again wildfires sprouting up in Australia and other parts of the world.

[13:12]

So that is always ongoing. And then flooding — so these erratic weather patterns that we’re starting to see — you had flooding in Chile, in Congo, in Brazil, and then California again, more floods. So some of those things you can prepare for if you know you’re in a flood zone or if you know heavy rains are coming and you might be in danger, then you might have time to plan. But sometimes these storms just — wow — come out of nowhere. People weren’t expecting them.

[13:46]

Right, that leads me into the ones that you can’t really plan for, that just happen — like the earthquakes. We had a really horrific earthquake in Turkey last year, lost a lot of lives. But that’s more of after a disaster hits, where you can’t plan for it. In Japan, many years ago, the Fukushima tsunami and earthquake. So those do happen — and what do you do after? So all of that, you have to think about and conduct your own risk assessment for where you are. And again, break it into those categories: I have time — I have more than 24 hours to react and prepare and calmly move my horse — but then those ones where you only have a few hours to either evacuate your horse or not, which we’re going to talk about here in a second.

[14:42]

But prepare — because let’s say you live in the Midwestern United States, where really bad tornadoes, tornado alley — what do you do? How do you prepare? What are you going to do with your horse? Are you going to try to trailer them out of the area, or are you going to leave them in a barn? Are you going to put them out in pasture? Again, we’re going to talk about that — and you know, how do you identify your horse and all of that. So these are all things that you really have to consider and think about. A lot of that’s going to depend on your area.

[15:15]

So, resources available to you — you should always look at your local, whether you live — let’s say you live in the USA — there’s county, state, and then regional and national level assistance. In certain countries, it’s just national — could be regional. So look at where you live, and then your government officials or even like SPCA and animal welfare organizations, they should have information on disaster preparedness. And you should talk to them too, so you know them when a disaster does hit — that you have somebody to turn to. Like you can call them and say, “Hey, if we have a disaster, are you the people I need to talk to about my horses?”

[16:04]

And then break down these different types of events: like a hurricane, cyclone, typhoon — that’s going to give you warning. Severe storms — we do have tornado watches or storm watches, you can see them coming, so that might give you some warning. Wildfires can give you some warning if you know they are in the distance but they’re creeping towards your property or where your horses are — that could give you some warning. Those are the types of disasters that you can kind of prepare for and keep apprised of.

[16:43]

But then again, fires can move very rapidly — little warning or no warning. Those, earthquakes, things like that. So as long as you have a plan in place, you will be prepared to act.

[17:01]

So before we get into what should be in your evacuation plan or your emergency preparedness plan, I always say: do not put yourself in danger — ever. Do not do something rash or that’s going to potentially harm you. You are no good to your horse if you get injured or if something severe happens to you. And I know that’s hard — that’s a hard thing for any of us to think about — but you see it time and time again where people are rushing to either help horses or animals and they get injured, and they tie up resources and other things when people’s lives are in danger or other animals’ lives are in danger.

[17:53]

So I say — put that at the top of your plan: do not do anything rash or dumb that could hurt you, because you’re not going to be any help to your horse if you get hurt or something like that. So your first decision really in your situation is: can I, or should I, evacuate my horse? When, where, and how — those are the big three. When do I evacuate? Where do I evacuate? And how?

[18:23]

Again, that’s going to be based on your own individual situation or risk assessment. You know, if a disaster is either slowly coming towards you or you’re acting quickly, you need to ask yourself: can I safely trailer my horses out of here? Or do I have to leave them behind — and then, what do I need to do to help them survive a disaster or an emergency that’s impending?

[18:50]

If you are going to evacuate — so when is a decision, which we’ll talk about in a second — but where? Where are you going to go? You load your horse up on a trailer, hook it up, and drive off — you need to know where you’re going. Now, where you take your horse again is going to depend on where you live in the world, it’s going to depend on your country. Or like, you know, I can go back to the United States because I dealt a lot with this then — where in the U.S. can I take my horse? And there’s a lot of state agencies, regional agencies that take in horses — and this is going to be pretty similar whether it’s Australia, parts of Europe, or Asia, or wherever you live — your country, your officials will have animal emergency collection points where people can go with horses.

[19:49]

Just as an example — because I helped develop this in South Carolina when I was the extension specialist there — that was, again, early in my career. Hurricane Rita — when I hit South Carolina I said, “Hey, where are we on hurricane preparedness?” And the state officials said, “Hey, that’s a good question, Chris, we need to develop a really robust plan,” because they had been talking about it again after Katrina and Rita and all these other hurricanes were hitting the U.S. So in South Carolina they have many facilities inland, off the coast, that can take horses. And on their website they have a list of many facilities, and the facilities opened up too during emergencies.

[20:31]

I remember that too well. We did have a hurricane come through, and all these barns kept calling saying, “Hey, I can take 10 horses.” Where we were, we said we could take 30 horses. And we had phone numbers, points of contact, people to call. This is an important point — you want to make a reservation. Don’t just show up with your horses and expect them to have space for them. You call ahead and say, “Hey, I have these many horses, do you have space for them?” Sometimes they’ll say, “Leave a message,” and they’ll get back to you, because again, there’s a lot going on.

[21:02]

But there’s barns here — I’m looking on my list — 50 to 60 stalls there, a training track in parts of South Carolina, 50 to 60 stalls. And because South Carolina is in the United States, each state is different, but they do have facilities across the border in other states. So, in this example, North Carolina — there were places where people could take horses if they were evacuating South Carolina due to an emergency, or the state of Georgia, or even down to Florida. When I lived in Florida, a lot of people would evacuate their horses up into Georgia or Alabama or other parts of the country when there were hurricanes approaching.

[21:52]

So that is going to dictate some things — where you’re going. So know where to go. Now, if you have a fire bearing down on your facility, obviously you don’t have time to call somebody. Hey — get your horses, get to safety, get somewhere safe, then call your state agencies or find out where you can take these horses. And you know, pay attention to the news and all of that, where they’ll be able to tell you, “Okay, there’s a collection point for horses.” Then maybe you have to go to another barn or somewhere else in the surrounding area.

[22:22]

Obviously, in a situation like that, don’t call first and spend hours on the phone trying to find somewhere to go. But the point is — have an idea of where you can go, and know your evacuation route. That’s another big point, because when I go back to Hurricane Rita that was approaching Houston, Texas — and again, all in our consciousness was all this horrible stuff that happened with Hurricane Katrina — the roads were packed, packed with traffic. So, know where you’re going to go with your horses, because you don’t want to get stuck in a place where you can’t go anywhere with your horse. And again, these tropical storms — it’s hot, it’s humid — all those things you have to take into consideration.

[23:17]

So that brings it into: when do you evacuate? Generally, they say 48 hours before a hurricane hits — evacuate early. Evacuate sooner rather than later, because you don’t want to get stuck in that traffic and things that can hamper you — high winds, especially with tropical storms. But that can be frustrating, because again, I have so much experience with hurricanes. When I was in Florida, it was Hurricane Matthew — Category 5 storm bearing down on us, and it was going to go right over Gainesville, Florida. So me and my family, we evacuated to Mobile, Alabama. We got up, packed, and left last minute. That hurricane took a right turn and just went up the coast of Florida and Georgia and then back out to sea. So it didn’t strike us, didn’t cause any damage, didn’t hurt anything.

[24:21]

The horses — some were stalled, some were left out in pasture — we could evacuate with them out of there. But the point was, we left two days before it hit, and it took a right turn and didn’t affect us. So that could be frustrating. But again, your individual situation is going to dictate if you do that. But it’s better safe than sorry, because I have sat through Category 3 hurricanes where trees were bending in half, and I kind of wished we did evacuate for that one.

[24:51]

So, know your route, know where you’re going, have a backup route in case one gets blocked for any reason — especially like with fires and things like that. Have hay ready to go — how much hay depends on how much you can bring — but you want to bring their feed. You don’t want to have your horse’s diet drastically changed. But a lot of these facilities are saying you need to bring your own hay, your own feed, your own bedding if you can — but have that ready to go. Things like having your records of your horse, their vaccination records, negative Coggins test — that is a big one for the United States, where they have to be negative to equine infectious anemia.

[25:40]

I remember back then there were a couple facilities that would take horses that didn’t have Coggins tests, but they were very rare. I wouldn’t plan on that — so for those, at least check your laws where you are. Some other things — okay, so I’m going to evacuate. I’ve got to bring my feed, I’ll bring some water for the trip in case you get stuck in that traffic and you need to pull over and water your horses. And because it’s hot — again, tropical storms — bringing all the records I can. So have that ready — like people say, in a Ziploc bag and all of that.

[26:19]

Then, this is the big one — is your horse prepared? Does your horse have all their vaccinations, which is important — but also, are they prepared to load onto a trailer? And this is why I get so passionate about the transportation one, because you can imagine hurricanes: “Okay, I’m gonna evacuate, I have two days.” Horses that are stubborn to get on trailers — I have time, I have time to calmly work them to where they will safely load onto that trailer.

[26:54]

Imagine that fire is bearing down on your property and you better get on that trailer now or we are dead — you are dead, the barn’s going to burn down. We are excited, I’m anxious, I’m stressed, I’m running around grabbing the halter, “Where’s the trailer?” — pull the trailer up, grab the horse, there’s smoke. The horse can smell, so the horse already has heightened awareness, already really kind of agitated. And here I come, and I’m agitated — “Let’s go, let’s go, Bucky, let’s go! Oh, here’s the trailer, let’s go!” — and they’re not used to getting on a trailer. I’ve worked with horses that won’t want to get on a trailer, and there’s nothing I can do to force them on there safely.

[27:39]

So again, when it comes to this emergency preparedness, this is why it’s so important that your horse knows how to load on a trailer quietly and safely, and they trust you — especially in an emergency. And so that even goes into, say you need to go to the vet hospital and the horse is injured, and you’re trying to get them on the trailer because you need to save their life. So that’s such a key, important reminder when it comes to this — making sure your horses can get on those trailers safely and quietly, so in times of stress, like during an emergency, they can get on.

[28:26]

Okay, so then you can get your horse on the trailer and go to where you need to go with them. And depending on the emergency, depending on the storms, when can you come home? When can you bring them back? That’s going to all depend on your local agencies, your national agencies, saying it’s safe for you to come home. Maybe you — and I’m going to talk about what you do after a storm or after something hits — you just don’t drive up and let them out. You’ve really got to look at your fence line, look at all that stuff. But the point is — get out, get to safety, your horse is safe in a facility away from the emergency area where you evacuated safely, and then you can ride out any storm or anything that’s going to happen.

[29:09]

Now, let’s say you can’t evacuate. Let’s say you don’t have access to a trailer, or your horse refuses to load, or you don’t have time, or for whatever reason you cannot evacuate with your horse — what should you do? You can try to modify fences on your property if at all possible. So if there’s — again, depending on where you live in the world — if they can find a little bit higher ground in case of flooding, or if there’s high winds they can find a lower area where they can kind of get out of the wind. I mean, horses are pretty smart — they know how to ride out storms.

[29:50]

But the big question is — should I put them in a barn or not? And that is a question I’ve always had during inclement weather: do we leave the horses outside or do we put them inside? And nobody I’ve ever asked — I’ve asked my professors when I was a student, my colleagues when I was a professor — you know, what do we do? And you read it — doesn’t matter where you are in the world — I’ve checked multiple nationalities’ emergency preparedness sites, they all say the same thing: it’s going to depend on your situation and your facility.

[30:35]

I always thought, if you have a very poorly built barn — old wooden structure that you breathe on and it looks like it’s going to fall down — I would never put a horse in there. But some of these really strong concrete-built structures can withstand winds. The roofs are very well built, or like even in Florida we had hurricane-proof roofs that were strapped down — they were, you know, because that’s hurricane all the time — so we had to build facilities that could withstand it. It’s just going to depend on your own situation. But some of these pole barns or concrete barns can be safe.

[31:21]

But then you have to look at the trees and the power lines around the barn or the facility. Can they fall on the barn? Can they hurt the horses? Could they spark a fire? That again is going to depend on your situation. But if your property has really strong fences, then maybe the horses might be safer out there — if you can modify the fences a little bit, so they have places where they can take cover, a little low-lying area, things like that. But then you have to think of floods, or if it’s an electric storm — horses do get hit with lightning.

[31:59]

So that one’s always frustrated me, because I’ve always felt like I wanted to tell horse owners, “This is what you should do,” and I can’t. In that situation, that is you conducting your own risk assessment — what is best for my horse — and then make that decision, and then get out of there. The one thing is: do not stay in the barn during the storm with your horse.

[32:28]

Another story — I was conducting a research project at Clemson University in South Carolina, and we had just ultrasounded a bunch of mares. I had got up in my truck, storm’s brewing overhead, didn’t know we were in a tornado warning. It was kind of rare for that area of the country to have tornadoes, but the sky looked pretty nasty, and we had some bad rain. And so I got in my truck and left. And then my graduate student told me, “Wow, Dr. Morton, five minutes after you left we saw a tornado just go right over the barn — literally right over the barn.” It wasn’t a massive tornado, but it was a tornado that went over the barn and touched down on the Clemson campus. I was like, “Oh my goodness.” I just imagine if we were in the barn and a tornado hit — we’d just have to take cover and pray that things would be okay. But you don’t want to be in the barn with your horses if you can.

[33:26]

Another thing you have to think about is protecting your property. So, if you have time to prepare, this is something to think about. Again, thinking of tropical storms or approaching storms, or even knowing fires are coming — you want to protect your property the best you can. Turn off the power to the facility if you can, circuit breaker — because that’s one thing that can spark barn fires. Make sure the barn’s clean of debris, the gutters are clean, there aren’t things that could — especially if you’re in an area that has a lot of wildfires — you want to make sure that area is policed up so sparks don’t come in and spark a fire, especially if your horses are there.

[34:16]

They always say keep at least two weeks of feed up and dry. You don’t want your feed to get wet or rained on because if it gets moldy, it’s no good — never feed horses moldy hay. So you want to make sure you have at least two weeks of hay and feed in a dry area, up off the ground. Water — that is a big thing that people don’t think about; they just take it for granted. We take it for granted that our faucets work and the water’s clean. But during certain storms, water pipes break, flooding can cause storm runoff, and waste runoff from sewer systems can get into the water supply. So you want to have enough water for your horses for at least a few days. Fill up trash cans or any large containers to have an emergency supply of water for your horses if you need it.

[35:12]

Have an emergency care kit — so you want your first aid kit with wraps and bandages and tape, and all the things. Extra halters and lead ropes, all those normal things you would have in emergency response — scissors, safe scissors to cut some of these things — any medications or salves that you might use. Emergency barn kit — some people recommend having a chainsaw with fuel in case you have to cut down any branches or trees in the way. Any emergency fencing — think about that — fences blow down, do we have anything we could put across to keep our horses contained? And all of that. Flashlights, batteries — because you could be without power for a while. You may have a backup generator if you can afford it, or your facility has one, to run the lights and run the things you need for the farm.

[36:16]

This one was from Australia, because they dealt with a lot of fires: reduce fire hazards before the fire season starts. So they recommend you remove all fire fuel such as excess grass, sticks, leaf litter, for at least 30 meters around the building — so that’s like 100 feet — you want to make sure there’s nothing there. Store hay, straw, shavings, scrap wood, fuel supplies, and chemicals away from important buildings — that should be standard. You don’t want any of that where you stall your horses because that could lead to a fire. Clean roof surfaces and gutters — yeah, because a lot of leaves get in there. You can create fire breaks — again, work with your local officials too, if you’re in a fire-prone area. I’m thinking California, the hills — make sure there’s fire breaks near your facility. No smoking signs. And then fire-resistant plants on your property is a big one too — so things that won’t catch fire and spread it to your horses.

[37:32]

All right, so again — if you leave your horses behind, make sure your property’s fine, the horses are fine. Then, when you leave, you need to make sure your horse has ID on them somehow, and you have ID of your horse. Because we know from — at least in the United States, and this was really old, I mean this was 30 years ago — but Hurricane Andrew was a really bad hurricane that hit Florida. 80% of the horses that they found — because fences went down, horses were loose everywhere — they couldn’t reunite them with their owners because the horse had no identification and the owners had no proof of ownership. So they had a real hard time reuniting horses with their owners. That led to changes as far as what we should do, how we should identify our animals.

[38:26]

Now, we do have permanent ID with horses — we have, obviously, freeze brands, which you see in some places; lip tattoos with our Thoroughbreds; microchips — that’s a big one now, where you can microchip your horses, and I highly recommend that. So that is one way to permanently identify them with a microchip. But let’s say they don’t have any of that — how do we prevent the horse from getting loose and not being able to find their way home, or how do they find you?

[39:05]

So here are some things that they recommend you can do. Some say use a halter tag or a neck collar. Now, with a nylon halter, horses can get it caught up in debris. Also, with a neck collar — these plastic ones…

[39:30]

So I would use some caution with that, but you can — if you do have, say, a leather halter that the horse could break if it got caught on debris — you could put your ID or phone number or something on there so that if the horse is found, they’ll be able to get a hold of you. Right? If the horse got loose. Again, if you’re leaving your horses behind, some people say you can weave luggage tags into their manes and tails — that’s very popular. They can get waterproof ones and put your contact info on there; you can weave it into their mane, or their tail, or both.

[40:08]

Some clip your phone numbers into their coat. I’ve seen — I actually got some pushback from this — but in the wildfires in California, I actually saw people spray painting their phone numbers on their horses that they had to leave behind because they had no warning and had to pray and hope the horses were fine. And I had an older person come up to me and say, “You shouldn’t tell people that because their skin could absorb that paint and it’s harmful to them.” I was like, “You’d probably have to bathe them in that spray paint to really make an effect,” but I said, “Yes, ma’am, I understand your concern, and maybe there are other ways we can do it.” But, you know, if you’re in an emergency and you don’t have time to do something, I don’t know — make your own decision on that one.

[41:02]

Permanent marker on their hooves — you can write your phone numbers on there, but again, that could get scuffed off or washed off. But there has to be some way for them, when they find a horse, to say, “Okay, here’s a phone number, here’s somebody I can call that can identify or claim this animal.” I will say again — off the Australia website when they’re talking about wildfires — they were saying remove halters, especially the synthetic fibers, because they can melt and get really hot, and that could really harm your horse. So again, or getting stuck on debris — that’s why I said leather halters. Horses can break them easier than, say, a synthetic halter.

[41:44]

So that’s the horse carrying identification. Then you need proof of ownership too. So how can you do that? I mean, obviously you have registration papers, but take pictures with other people around your horse. Have all their vaccination records, your vet records, Coggins test if you need that — have all that in a plastic-proof bag so it doesn’t get wet or rained on. That way you can say, “Yep, that’s my horse — see that one over there that you caught because it got loose somehow, fences down or whatever? Yep, that’s my horse.” Here you go — and they’re able to unite you with your animal.

[42:28]

Okay, so that’s again — the horses are behind, make sure they have ID on them and then you have identification proof of ownership. So now let’s talk about after a disaster hits. Now, this could be you had no warning, like an earthquake, or, “Wow, I left my horse behind and a hurricane rolled through,” or cyclone, or typhoon, or tornado hit last night. “I need to go look at my facility.” Or, you know, “I did evacuate with my horse, but we’re coming back home.” So all of this applies to all those situations.

[43:03]

First — always be very, very careful coming back to your property, especially if it’s a barn facility or things like that. Couple things: power lines — they do get knocked down all the time during big storms, they can electrocute you and your horse, so you want to be very, very cautious. Plus, if your horse was left behind, they could be frantic, they could be injured — you’ve got to be very, very careful.

[43:36]

Okay, but if you get back to your property or you’ve left them behind, try to find them so you can make sure they’re still there. If not, then you need to call your local officials and say, “I have this horse loose; this is what they look like.” But also look for any injuries that they might have and treat them with first aid or contact your veterinarian if you need to. Be very careful though, because injured animals can be very dangerous — especially these large horses — but also other types of animals. One thing they talk about — flooding — snakes. Snakes look for high ground, so if you live in an area with snakes, be very careful when you get back to your property.

[44:17]

So, you know, when cleaning up — again, caution. Always check the integrity of your fences, integrity of your horse facilities in case there’s any sort of damage. Make sure your fences are still up, and if they’re down, make sure your horses are accounted for. Any hay that gets wet — get rid of it. Dispose of it; it won’t be good, it can get moldy and really cause a lot of problems for your horse.

[44:52]

All right, so again, if your horse gets loose, contact your local officials. Let them know how many horses, what they look like, where they were last seen, and then they can advise you if it’s safe to go look for them in certain areas. But again — I know it’s frantic, I can only imagine the anxiety that you might feel — just be very careful. Don’t go screaming off looking for your animals in the brush or certain areas, especially if there’s floods or electric lines are down — all of that. So you’ve got to take care of yourself first. I know that’s hard for a lot of us sometimes — put yourself first. Do things smartly, because again, if you get hurt you can’t help your animals.

[45:36]

So overall, preparation is the most important thing. This wasn’t as robust as I can make it in a video podcast, but it’s something that you want to research more for your particular area in the world — because a lot of that is going to depend on or dictate how you look at your emergency plan and decide what you can do.

[46:04]

The other most important thing again is — communicate your plan. Write it down, type it up, email it to yourself, have it on your phone, send it to your friends, send it to your family, talk to the people at your facility if you’re boarding or you have other horses, other horse owners — so they know what your plan is. And if you ever need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it. But knowing your community, your resources available to you in your part of the world, is a big piece of this. So it takes a little bit of digging on your part to say, “Okay, I live in Miami, Florida — I’ve got three horses at this facility, I need to know what to do if we have a hurricane approaching.”

[46:55]

Or you can go, “I live in Queensland, Australia, out in the Outback, and we’ve got massive fires coming our way — I need to know where I can take our horses.” Or, “I live in Europe and I’m near Liverpool, north of England, and we’ve got a massive storm brewing off the coast — you know, some flooding maybe possibly — where can I take my horse?” It’s going to depend on where you live, but research it, write it down, communicate it — because once you have that knowledge and preparedness, it’s going to go a long way in helping you and your horses.

[47:40]

Okay, so last thing — always go, you can go to madbarn.com, you can find more information on anything horse-related. Again, that “Learn” tab — you can look at the articles, over 500 now. But also, if you don’t mind, click “Follow” — that always helps. Follow this — we’re going to keep producing this content. Any questions, any comments, any personal stories that you’ve had with your emergency preparedness or you’ve had to put plans into place, email me — podcast@madbarn.com. I always appreciate the interaction. Thank you for watching. Get those plans put together — you’re going to thank me. Hopefully you won’t have to use them one day, but as long as you have it in place in case, you’ll be able to do the best for your horses. So take care and see you soon.