My Family and I used to live on six acres in the country. Among our pets was a wonderful white horse. He was primarily my daughter's to take care of, but one weekend she was away. In the morning, my teenage son went out to the barn to feed him. Discovering that the oat barrel was empty, he dragged a sixty-pound burlap sack of oats out of the storage room and scooped out the required amount into the food tray.
Often I would walk out to the two-acre pasture connected to the barn and paddock to walk and talk with this horse. We had a wonderful friendship. This particular afternoon I could not find him in either the pasture or the paddock. Puzzled, I walked into the barn and found him munching on the little bit of grain left from the sack pulled out in the morning. Inadvertently, the sack had been placed against the railings that separated the stall area from the work area, and the horse had reached through and helped himself to all of it. He had eaten 60 pounds of grain in one day.
I called a local veterinarian and explained what had happened, asking if this was considered a serious situation and what was usually done in such cases. He said that it was extremely serious and that most likely the horse would not live beyond the next 24 hours.
