Natural Resources RANCHING
but objects can be replaced. You can’t replace a life.” If some want to stay to fi ght the fi re, make sure those
who can’t are evacuated. Harrison says to prioritize belongings in advance. “Are there important papers that you need to have with you, or do they need to be in town in the safety deposit box? Should fi re overrun your property, the last thing you want to be doing is loading up heirlooms.” When it comes to livestock, cattle and horses are
different. Unlock gates so cattle can escape, but horses have to have the barn door or corral gate closed behind them. This was vividly brought out one day to Dr. Mike Martin, DVM, a professor with the Texas A&M Depart- ment of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Martin performs country practice and fi eld service, and got a call early in the morning from a client with a stable about a mile from the hospital. “A passerby had seen a fi re starting in one of their
barns,” Martin says. He arrived about 90 minutes after the stable people had been summoned, and had the task of sorting through the horses to determine which ones needed to go to the hospital. “The person that had gone in there to open stall doors remarked about how it was diffi cult to get a
Unlock gates so cattle can escape, but horses have to have the
barn door or corral gate closed behind them.
horse to leave its stall,” he recalls. “There was smoke and fl ames down the hallway but the horses wouldn’t leave.” They had to put halters on the horses. If they just opened the stall doors, the horses would come out a little ways, and then head back into the stalls. Martin knows a lot about horses, but puzzles over
what it is about them that would cause them to retreat into danger. “They’re very gregarious,” he says. “They want to be with the herd. When there’s danger, a lot of times they seek help. They want to get somewhere where another horse can help them out of a problem.”
Livestock burn injuries Burn treatment can also be problematic. Martin
talked with a retired veterinarian who had a racetrack practice, who said they used a burn medication called Silvadene (silver sulfadiazine). As he was examining the injured horses at the corral, Martin says, “You
66 The Cattleman August 2016
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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