“Cisco’s escaped!” were the words I heard when I answered my phone.
Chills ran down my spine as those words from my husband Howie echoed in my brain. Panicked, I spun our Toyota Rav4 around and raced back to our farm, which was less than a mile from a major highway. We had just gotten that beautiful horse only a few hours ago…
Before we bought our farm, we had chickens and ducks at our home. But I really wanted horses, which were not allowed where we lived. A friend offered to lease her horse and pony to me, and we thought that was a great idea to “try before you buy” and learn about horse care to see if we could do it.
That worked out great and fired up my desire even more to have our own horses. But first we’d need our very own farm!
We went searching and found an old farm that was in our price range but needed a lot of TLC. It was rundown and overgrown, but there was a special vibe to it, and we knew we could turn it into something wonderful. So we went for it!
The house was not livable at first, but Howie and I had the luxury of still living in our home two towns away. Every weekday Howie would go to the farm to renovate while I went to work. On the weekends we’d both go and work together on buildings, fencing or clearing the land. Each night we would return to our home to make plans for the next day.
When the stalls in the barn were done, we purchased our first horse, Cisco. He was a gorgeous boy, 7 years old, a black and white Tennessee Walker/Morgan cross. He was well-trained, cooperative, and very pleasant, a real people-pleaser horse.
We had Cisco brought in on a Saturday so we would both be at the farm. He trailered beautifully, was easily led into the barn, and seemed to like his new digs. We checked on him often during the day but gave him plenty of time to get used to his new surroundings on his own as well.
Horses are social animals and do best in a herd of at least two. Cisco came from a herd of several horses. That day he was the only horse on the farm.
This was the first time he was truly alone with no other horses around. Looking back, we should have known he would be lonely, confused, and maybe even a little bit scared.
He was no doubt thinking:
“Where am I?”
“Where is the rest of my herd?”
“Where are my owners?”
“Who are these strange people?”
”Did I do something wrong?”
“Did my owners abandon me?”
And then… he must have smelled the mare (female horse) that lived about a quarter mile away, across the street and down another road. Horses can smell other horses from miles away.
Cisco, although gelded (neutered), was still a boy. And boys will be boys, even if their equipment isn’t in full working order! I bet you can see where this is going…
I left the farm first that afternoon to go home and take care of our cats and poultry. I made it about halfway there before I got that frantic call from Howie:
“Cisco’s escaped!”
Howie had gone into the barn to check on Cisco and left the door unlatched. Cisco spotted his opportunity to find that mare, and out the door he went!
Howie tried to hold onto Cisco’s tail(!) as he went out the door, but 1100 pounds of horse vs. 200+ pounds of human wins every time. He saw Cisco go across the street to the sound of cars screeching to a halt, run down the road, come back up the road, and race down to a pond!
He watched in horror, envisioning a drowning horse. He had called to Cisco but he hadn’t responded since we were both strangers to him.
Instead, Cisco tapped the ice with his front foot three times, apparently to check how frozen the pond really was. Satisfied that it was sufficiently solid, he scampered across the pond, never slipping on the ice, and went up the other side and disappeared into the woods!
By the time I returned, Howie had driven around the neighborhood but not found Cisco. I notified the police, so they would be on the lookout. We were terrified that Cisco might find his way onto the highway, as horses in the wild typically travel 20 or more miles in a day, so a mile would be nothing.
We were trying to figure out what to do next when one of the neighbors came by. He had wanted to see the new horse but had been told by his neighbor that a “beautiful black horse, it must be new around here” had run by. He told us about another neighbor who lived in the direction that Cisco went, the one who, unbeknownst to us, had a mare.
A mare! That’s probably where Cisco went!
So down the road we went to that neighbor, a person we had never met. We didn’t know if we would be greeted pleasantly or not, but we needed to find Cisco. Visions of him on that highway were haunting us!
We trespassed into the front yard, wondering if we were going to meet with a hello or a rifle, but we had to try to retrieve our horse.
And there, in the backyard outside a fenced paddock, was Cisco chatting with the mare!
Howie knocked on the door while I went towards Cisco. Luckily, he had a halter on, and I had a lead rope with me, but I was afraid the sight of the rope might scare him off. Cisco was nervous, he knew he had done wrong by escaping, and he wasn’t sure what I was going to do to him.
The neighbor was wonderful though, talking softly and bringing an apple, hoping to entice Cisco. Cisco was suspicious, apparently he had never had an apple before! But it distracted him enough for me to quickly clip the rope onto his halter. I would never in a million years be able to do that again, but no matter, I had him!
At that point Cisco calmed down and, once he saw we weren’t going to yell at him or punish him, looked at us innocently like “What’s the problem?”.
I walked him back to our barn, on a country road with luckily not much traffic, with no problem at all. It was like he had been ours forever and it had only been a few hours. All was forgiven and he dived into his hay in his new stall, not a care in the world!
That was the first and last time Cisco escaped (knock on wood). A month later we purchased Dusty, a palomino quarter horse, as his “brother”. They hooked up immediately and are inseparable to this day, which was lucky for all of us. He also has an escape story of his own, but that’s a story for another day!
Myth Busted: Don’t Feed Your Barn Cats, They’ll Hunt Better
No, No, No!!
It’s a common myth that if you have barn cats for rodent control, you shouldn’t feed them. It’s often thought that they need to be hungry in order to hunt.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
An adult cat needs 200-300 balanced calories per day to survive. That’s 8-12 mice per day! If your barn/shed/outdoor area is that infested, you need an exterminator, not a cat!
An outdoor cat who is not provided with food and water will quickly lose weight and muscle, become weak, and be incapable of hunting.
A well-fed cat does not lose the instinct to hunt unless he has no prey drive. The difference is that a well-fed cat will be healthy, strong, able to hunt, and most importantly will probably not devour its prey.
This is important as many people use poison on rodents. And that poison can get into your cat’s system when he eats his catch, leading to an almost certain painful death. And cats aren’t the only predators that eat mice. Wildlife like foxes and birds of prey like hawks do too, and can also lose their lives from that poisoned last meal.
The best solution is non-lethal – preventing the rodents from getting into your areas and causing damage or contamination. The MSPCA has tips here on how to do that.
However if all else fails and you need to trap, I’ve found the best and most humane trap is an electronic rodent trap. These electrocute the rodent, so no poison is necessary to harm other wildlife. They use ordinary batteries so there are no power cords to trip over.
I recommend and use Owltra traps. They are easy to set up, made so you don’t have to touch the body, and kill humanely.
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