Being in NH we don't normally see hurricanes, about 4 years ago we had a super cell with a tornado (it's still controversial if it touched down or not) and my family lucked out and it avoided us.  The news is now showing Irene is going to go right through NH.

 Does anyone know where the best place for my two horses would be?  I'm going to have gone back to school on the seacoast (joy) but I want to have a plan set up for my parents.  I'm sure they're probably going to leave our cows outside as they tend to go down into the woods and just bed down and sit it out and we don't have any young calves on the ground.  But my horses rarely go in the woods and have been known to stand outside in the pasture enjoying the wet grass during storms.  I also don't have a barn that I can put them in as they are both too tall for our cow barn so they have lived happily in a run in shed, I can lock them in the pen with the shed, it's about the size of a small turnout pen, and they will have the barn on the NE side.  I also do not leave halters on them so I really have no way of putting ID tags on the, however one of my horses is a registered Thoroughbred and I have his papers so I have his tatoo for ID, my mare is registered, but not tatooed, branded or microchipped that I know of (she was given to me but her owners lost her papers so I have her registration # from the IBHA only).

I'm going to go update their pictures in a minute (I'll have to wait for someone to get home tonight if I want a picture of my TB's tatoo, but I'm going to make sure I include a picture of my mare's scars (she has one on her rear where she went and scratched her butt on a tree, and then she has another on her girth on her left side where our vet removed a tumor last year.  I know if the horses do get out and have any say they will at least try to stay together.  I thought about seeing if I could board them for a few days at a friend's barn until the storm passed, but the barn sits at the bottom of the hill so it would be more likely to flood than my pasture, and my mare has never in her life been stalled and has enough problems being put into the trailer where she has about the size of a stall so I think they would be better off at home than with my friend.

Is there anything else I should do to get them ready since I won't be able to see them myself until Thursday (my parents are going on vacation if they keep their plans and I'm driving home from school at night to take care of the animals and then driving back to school in the am).

The BEST place for horses during a hurricane is somewhere the hurricane isn't.

 http://dressagewannabes.blogspot.com/2011/08/yep-we-floridians-put-luggage-tags-on.html

 A friend of mine wrote up a good post on how to mark horses if you are not evacuating them from hurricane paths.  DO  braid id tags into manes and tails and if chances of fence downings (trees, etc) are good, do paint horses.  

Ours will likely stay in Saturday night when the storm is passing through, but it looks like we will just maybe tag an edge, so it should not be anything abnormal.  But as FH says, if the winds are high (over 50 mph or so) you certainly don't want them locking in a building that is not VERY structurally sound.  

You can also spray paint (or use a grease marker that won't come off with water), your cell phone number with area code on both sides of each horse.

If you can't evacuate them to somewhere that is out of harm's way, I would leave them out and trust that your alpha-dominant horse will gather them in the place he deems the safest.  How safe that is will depend on how wide the storm is and how many acres of moving room your horses have.

 I watched my alpha-dominant horse gather everyone in three different places in one day for three severe thunderstorms that came thru.  Observing the direction of the lightening in each storm that day, I realized his 20-something self knew a whole lot more than me.  And when he gives the silent command to gather, they had better gather or incur the wrath of his teeth if he has to come after them.

Say your Prayers first, trust your alpha horse second, and implement all the "I want my horses back, here's my number" suggestions.

All of you on the eastern seaboard are in my thoughts and prayers----------------

 Wherever you would want them for a big rainstorm would be appropriate. I thnk by the time it gets to NH, Irene will not be much different from a nor'easter. (I've been in both those and Ike)

When Ike was coming, one barn near me evacuated (to a place far away - somewhere near Austin), but the horses at my barn stayed put (in their stalls). If you are not likely to be flooded, and your building is sturdy enough for a nor'easter, you probably don't need to worry.

I have complete faith in the shed they have, my dad built it when we got my first horses and used brand new telephone poles (we have a friend who used to work for the phone company and helped us out).  The roof is metal and the pen is filled with sand that gets a new dump truck load (or 2) from a friend of ours so it's about 1.5 feet above the pasture and things slope down away from their shelter.  The shelter was also built strategically for Northeaster storms, so the winds tend to go around the shelter and push things out rather than in.

As for the alpha dominant horse, I do worry a little as he's been known to stand up to bears, and stand in the middle of the pasture next to a crane that died in the middle in the middle of lightning storms, but he takes care of me on trail rides, we were actually right in the middle of the super cell on a trail ride 4 years ago, and when we figured out what was going on (no cell service) we started working our way back to our friend's barn who was closest, needless to say he put his head down took the bit and took off for home where he slowed down once we hit our fields and then I found out the storm/tornado went straight through my friend's house where we were going.

I'm not sure my mom will go for the painting of my horses or putting id tags on them (she is the one who will be caring for them when it's supposed to hit), however; my former 4-H club and I have started a data base for all the local horses with pictures, owner information, care info, any special needs, phone numbers for their vets along with best ways to approach, catch and handle the horses (for my alpha horse the directions state food, (carrots, grain, oatmeal (warm) and molassees, or hay are great motivators) for my mare the directions say to try to get the other horse first and then walk away as she will follow and to not try to approach her first as she will run, though candy wrappers, and baby talk sometimes will work, it also says to pat her and brush her before haltering) we've also included tips for loading onto trailers if necessary (for example my TB will load into anything, but is reluctant to leave his buddy, for my mare it says she's scared of ramps and tight quarters, if available step up stock trailers are best, but putting her tight on the butt of another horse can sometimes convince her to load, it also says that she loves cows and they are a good way to relax her).  We've given this to the surrounding police departments so they know who to call if the horse's get out.  Thankfully for me, the local departments and my town know my horses extremely well (we've done a lot of volunteer work with them).

 One suggestion I heard for marking (from CA people during the fires last year) was grease pencil - black or white depending on the color horse. Just flip the mane up and write your cell number along the neck. It will come off easy enough (or so I hear) when you scrub, but not from just rain. I htink you can get them at hardware stores.

If you're taking pictures, be sure to pull their upper and lower lips up or down and look for unique markings.

Two of my horses have very unique markings so far into their lower lips that you can't see them just at a general glance.  I have pictures of those lip markings added to the picture I.D. pile:)

Well, I live in eastern NC, the most current model puts the eye coming almost over me. We are gonna get plowed. That said, the blog Solo posted has wonderful advice on labeling and such. My barn is in the main pasture, which is solidly fenced. My 3 will be wearing labeled breakaway halters and ID tags in their tails. I am lucky in that I live out in the middle of nowhere QH-ville and a lot of people recognize other people's horses. An ancient Morab(he has been with me long enough everybody recognizes him), a 16h TB, and an amber champagne App stand out a bit from all the chestnut QHs so if worst comes to worst and they all take a 'vacation' as wild free ponees I have a higher likelihood of them returning to me, as they look different and are tagged.  The stalls in my barn will be open, and I have scraped/limed/super filled them with shavings, so they have a comfy place to stay if it doesn't get super bad. I will not shut them in in case the barn dies. (I will be shutting my wild boar in, but I doubt the majority of people are worrying about what to do with a 300lb tusked pet pig...). I am stocked up on all of their food and supplements, and have batteries and flashlights and such stocked everywhere. My main pasture does have an old tree on one boarder, so I can only hope it will stay up, but if it comes down, as I said, the horses are labeled. I doubt you will really need to worry to much about it once Miss Irene ventures up that way, but it is always nice to be prepared. Make sure to have water/food for the humans, and little things like super clean the house the day before the storm hits (for me, today) so that you can wash clothes, vacuum etc in case you have no electricity for awhile. My house and barn are always at their cleanest before a storm hits!

thanks for the reminder about the mounting block, I ran around yesterday and thought I had picked everything up, but I just remembered I have a very light step stool I use for a mounting block out in my ring across the street along with 2 sets of jump standards and 2 landscape timbers.  I don't really have anywhere to put the jumps so I guess they'll just have to camp out in my stock trailer even though I just emptied it of everything minus my other heavy mounting block (people don't walk off at shows with the heavy blocks :D)

Oh, and if you have electric fence, turn it off. If you still have electricity and  the fence gets knocked down/in water that is not good. Chances are if the storm is blowing your fence of the posts then you have no electricity anymore anyway, but I don't take chances. Well, I am off to have a hurricane! Hopefully your horses won't be very affected by Miss Irene!

The latest model shows it going off to the VT/NH border, my horses are in Loudon (just outside of Concord) and I'm in Durham (basically on the seacost near Portsmouth).  My parents will probably run out and unplug the fences when it gets closer/worse as we have our 12 beef cows in the pasture so they could pick the best spot to weather the storm (they have over 25 acres of fenced area with woods and open areas to choose from) but we have 1 steer that likes to wander.

We still have power in Durham, though the lights do flicker every once in a while.

 

Thanks for the blog shout-out, guys! Fortunately, I didn't have to follow my own advice, since the only bit of Irene we saw was the extreme outer bands; but I hope maybe it gave a few ideas to some people who aren't used to dealing with hurricanes.

Here's a link to where you can buy the agricultural greasepaint sticks -- http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_product_group.html?cguid=44EA3A57-2C53-435E-AA09-B86BAA22DAA1 They also have spray-paint that is safe to use on animals (but, personally, I would stick to the paint sticks). They also sell them at KV Vet.

A fellow boarder also mentioned to me that she's buying reflective strips for her horses' halters and reflective leg strips to put on them for the next storm. Such a great idea! I wouldn't want my horse to be loose after the storm and get hit by a fire truck or something at night.

Also, this http://www.floridahorse.com/hurricane/hurricane.html is a great link with lots of info for horse owners preparing for a hurricane.

I know this is a bit late, but, hey, Tropical Depression 12 is gaining strength, so make sure you're prepared!

And, Alana, please check in -- we want to know you and your ponies are alright.

 

 

Frizzle:

And, Alana, please check in -- we want to know you and your ponies are alright

So glad to hear you guys made it through alright, CG! Yes, you're very lucky that you had so little damage. That's a huge relief, I'm sure! And it sounds like the ponies made it through unscathed (although good thing Tac was out by himself while he was swinging branches around, lol -- what a funny guy!). Be careful during your clean-up -- after one hurricane, I was out in the yard clearing branches and ended up with a rusty nail in my toe. Not fun! Well, make sure ya get some rest and eat some well-deserved emergency M&Ms!!