Long time friend and brilliant rider lost her 15 year old mare when barn help failed to secure a gate. Mare and foal got into the feed room. Fatal colic for the mare, foal is not doing well. Wish I could do more for her than say how sorry I am she lost her horse.
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Heartbreaking. Even more so because of how preventable. I’m so sorry for your friend
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@Victorious Thank you. We lost one of our old-timers two weeks ago to fast growing bone cancer. It was hard. It must be devastating to lose a young horse with so much potential.
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I don’t understand how feed bins are ever that easily accessible. Crap happens. Someone doesn’t latch a gate securely (or at all), a horse jumps a fence, whatever, and it’s not even always human oversight.
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@JB --I am with you! Thinking about it after my friend’s disastrous experience, I considered: At my farm, there’s a pasture gate with a chain/clip and a rope over a post (both). There is a sliding barn door, and a feed room door with a latch that only opens into the aisle. Should a horse get himself through the gate, he is confined to the barn lot. If he manages to slide open the (16’ tall, 13’ wide) barn doors, he is confined to the aisle. To access the feed, he’d need to turn the latch 180 degrees and PULL open the door while holding the latch open.
When I was a kid, I had a horse “get into the feed,” by pushing open a door that opened IN to the feed room. Every since then, my feed room doors always open out so a horse can’t push them open.
100% secure? Probably not, but it would take more than an unlocked gate for my horses to get into the feed.
I don’t know my friend’s set up; but considering how valuable her horses are, I suspect she stables them in the barn at night. Once out of the stall (although her brother’s note did say “gate was left open,” then the feed might have been accessible (clearly was).
I know my place could be improved, most readily by adding fire extinguishers to the barn and more necessary, a fire alarm that would trigger in the house or my phone. One of those things on my list to do.
Hindsight is always . . .
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That happened to me a long time ago. 2 horses and a weanling were able to access my feed barrel when they got out ( one of my small kids didn’t latch the gate properly) .
Thankfully I didn’t have a lot of feed in the barrel. Vet came and tubed all 3 and it was several tense days as I watched them. Thankfully none of them had any complications.
I let the kids watch the vet tube them and he was telling them what may happen to the horses and from that day on all 3 never went through a gate anywhere without latching it securely.
My feed is behind closed doors now as well.
How tragic for your friend @Foxglove
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My horses have free access to the outside of the barn, as the barn is inside perimeter fencing. I can close a gate to fence off the smaller barn area, but usually don’t do that.
Exterior stall doors are latched closed. On the off chance someone will mess with a latch to the point they can open the door (never happened in 20 years, but never say never, one DID learn to let himself OUT, but nobody’s messing trying to get in lol), the interior stall half door is closed with a double-end snap.
Both ends of the aisle have a wooden bar across. The far end which can be removed, is double-end snapped to a secure screw eye. The front end which swings, has the opening end also double-end snapped to a secure screw eye
If, somehow, they managed to break into the barn, the feed room door has a “slot” latch, I don’t know what it’s called. A piece that can rotate slides through a slot, so you rotate 90* to secure it, and THEN, when we’re not outside/are sleeping/not here, a lock goes through that, so there’s really zero way a horse can open that door.
It doesn’t take much to truly secure feed bins.
@Foxglove My sympathies to your friend for the heartbreaking loss.
I hope the foal can recover.
My First Ever Horsey Rave happened in the dead of Winter, near 20yrs ago.
After a dinner out w/friends, I came home to my horses - at the time teenaged TB & TWH - in the aisle, feed bins (30gal galvanized trash cans) tipped & emptied, treat bag shredded, stacked hay bales pillaged, opened & pooped on.
Both gave me those “What?!!?” faces & meandered back into the (unlatched)stall they’d come out of.
No rush 
Luckily not full bins of grain - at the time I fed a 50/50 mix of steam-rolled & steam-crimped oats.
But I spent most of that night curled up in a wool cooler, barncat on my lap, watching for any sign of colic or founder.
Cue elevated heartrate (me 
) when the Walker decided to stand outside in the snow & I feared he was trying to cool laminitic feet.
We all survived.
& I wish I could claim that was a One Of, but Nope 
I’ve had a couple more break-ins, blame for all squarely on me forgetting to latch a stall, or not making sure the service door is securely shut.
Latest escapade didn’t involve feed, but TWO unlatched gates.
Result of my dumping the wheelbarrow outside my drylot that surrounds the front of the barn.
A chore I routinely do while horses are occupied with their grain, in stalls.
First the 12’ 5-bar in back of the barn’s big front slider. Allowing access into the aisle where feed bins are stored on pallets in my “feedroom” area near the service door.
Fortunately (?) the other gate was the 12’ one at the front of the drylot, accessing the rest of the property & a mere 50’ from the road.
That one was ajar, but appeared to not have opened enough to allow current Herd - 16h horse, 13h pony & 34" mini - egress.
And Milagro! all 3 came strolling in from pasture to meet me. Because: Breakfast!
Maybe they hadn’t noticed the gates? 
That hope was crushed as I saw the gravel pad trailers are parked on next to drylot had hoofprints, along with the path leading from that pad to the gate. Hoofprints in all 3 sizes both places 
So, they’d been out & then went back in.
I’m trying to make certain I follow a set routine Every.Single.TIME! that assures stalls are securely shut along with service door & any gate opened is closed​:crossed_fingers:
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My feed is secured behind a fence and on the back porch so I can close the porch door as well. I have since moved most of my feed into the house in a cooler. Between the heat, and humidity, it’s safer in the house. My tack also ends up in the house because I really need an air conditioned feed and tack room… But I have room in the house so it works.
I know someone who does not secure their feed (and granted they only keep one feed bag in the barn, but that’s still a chance I wouldn’t want to take.)
