Barn fire

[Riverrose28]

Every year we are asked to bring two minis to an annual animal fair, it is to benefit the Snow Flake Society that is a horse rescue in Southern Maryland. It is great fun for us as you all know that everyone loves seeing and petting the horses. Well this is about that, but one of the volunteers came by yesterday to ask if I would do this again this year and told me about a fellow horse person that suffered from a recent barn fire. It was caused by a faulty water bucket heater that she had on while she went to work. She lost her barn, her tack and all of her winter hay. I am trying to let you guys know, please inspect your bucket heaters if you use them. You don't want this to happen to you. All of her ponies are safe they were turned out for the day.

 

[TheCaseFamily00]

Thanks for the heads up,so scary. I'm sorry to hear of their loss,so glad the animals are safe.

 

[Miniv]

God was looking out for her four-legged family that day.

We try to protect our kids and do what we can but it isn't always enough. Many of us in the north have heated buckets and heated water troughs, so all we can do is check them regularly. Often, the horses will tell us that something isn't right.

 

[fourluckyhorseshoes]

The lady I bought Treasure from had this happen to her- lost her barn and many nice stallions

. I heard its important to get good extension cords when running wiring through the barn.

 

[Magic]

The lady I bought Treasure from had this happen to her- lost her barn and many nice stallions

. I heard its important to get good extension cords when running wiring through the barn.

Actually, extension cords can be a big problem. Rodents (or horses!) can chew through them and cause a short, or moisture or damage to the cord can also. The best thing to do is have power routed within steel cables and have outlets installed with CFCI's. If you must use extension cords, make sure that they are designated for outdoor use, and then run them through pvc pipe to protect them from chewing, moisture, and other damage. Heaters that are safe for plastic buckets will turn off when/if the bucket runs dry, or if it is pulled out of the container. We tie our outside heaters (with a length of pvc pipe for the cord to be in) securely to the fence next to the heater so the horses can't possibly pull them out. It makes it much more time consuming when we need to dump the water to clean the water container but it's worth it. The heaters in our automatic waterers are plugged in underneath, inside the shell of the heaters to hardwired outlets.

A barn fire is one of my worst fears. When I was younger a neighbor had a barn fire and I will never forget the scene afterwards... I wish that barn fires would never happen to anyone, ever again.