Anyone experienced fatal accidents with livestock hay feeders?

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Three herbs

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Earlier this year my yearling died when he put his head through metal bars on a hay feeder, and then turned to put his head through the next door bars, and when he tried to get his head back it was trapped and he broke his neck.

I had thought that this type of housing for youngsters was safe - ie where they are in large barns and can have ad lib haylage or hay in livestock style feeders.

Is my incident a common problem or very rare? Or is it something people who keep youngsters in group housing are wary of so block off every other feeding position?

I look forward to hearing your experiences.
 
Not a horse but once was riding through a field with sheep and found one that had managed to get its leg caught in a hay feeder It was quite gruesome as it had cut down to the bone. Some walkers tried to help but couldn't release it and it took a lot of ringing around to find the owners. Not sure if the sheep survived.
 
Not a horse, but we lost a heifer in a ring feeder the same way as your youngster, OP. It was the first time my dad had seen an accident like that in 60-odd years of keeping cattle. Although, of course cattle tend to crush and push each other at the feeder and we think she'd got stuck and then been pushed the other way and this was how she got her neck broken.

My dad and I rescued another heifer who stuck her head into the feeder just as the silage bale was dropped into it. Normally they wait for it to fall but this one was too eager, and the bale fell on her head and trapped her under it. It was really awful. We had no tools and were too far away to go back to the farm to get anything to dig with before she suffocated, so we were both in the feeder pulling the silage away, but it's such wet, tangly stuff that it would only come out in handfuls. I remember my finger ends feeling like they were on fire because digging the silage out was literally tearing my fingernails off, and we had to keep digging. We managed to clear a gap down to her nose so she could breathe and then gradually removed the layers from on top of her head, the whole time trying to keep the others from pushing her sideways and breaking her neck in the bars. Really horrible. But thankfully she survived.
 
Three herbs said:
Earlier this year my yearling died when he put his head through metal bars on a hay feeder, and then turned to put his head through the next door bars, and when he tried to get his head back it was trapped and he broke his neck.

I had thought that this type of housing for youngsters was safe - ie where they are in large barns and can have ad lib haylage or hay in livestock style feeders.

Is my incident a common problem or very rare? Or is it something people who keep youngsters in group housing are wary of so block off every other feeding position?

I look forward to hearing your experiences.
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Sorry to say that I experienced this exact same accident.

The foal was very weak at birth but I struggled to get it to the mare's udder every three hours to attempt to get it to suck, then topped it up on the bottle. She survived against all the odds and by the time she was a yearling, she had caught up and was a pretty thing.

Then one day I came out to find she had got her head caught in the hay rack. I got her out, propped her up with a couple of bales, and called the vet. The vet took one look and recommended pts saying he thought she was probably brain damaged.

I later modified the hay rack by welding in some more bars and I still have it. It is the type of rack with a sort of cradle where the bale lies on it's side. If bad luck can happen, it will. Just one of those things, turn the page, learn from it, and get on with the next job.
 
It's a freak accident really but that doesn't help you.

I have been a shepherd looking after thousands of sheep for approaching 20 years. Once in those years I have had a sheep do exactly as you described in a rylock fence. I keep them all in fields surrounded by rylock fences and on occasion they get their heads stuck. To managed to then put their head back through the next hole would I have said, would have been completely impossible yet this ewe achieved it and killed herself in the process. I've never heard of this situation occurring with any other persons sheep either. To this day I don't know how she managed it but she was a serial offender for getting her head stuck in a fence.

You can try to risk assess everything but unfortunately with animals accidents can still happen.
 
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