"Oh Good You're Here...a little help, please." From our series: Always Fun on the Farm!

     You never have a camera when you need one. Apache, fondly known as Knucklehead, was found trapped in a hay ring today.  The look on his face was priceless, "Oh good you're here. I seem to be in a predicament."

      Now, I am contemplating, "Do I run to the house and get my camera so I can get a pic to post on facebook or do I help him get out before he does something stupid?" I decide the house is too far away and

he may think I've left him for good and try something stupid. So I decide to stay.
      He keeps looking at me like, "Well? Do something."
      I ponder his dilemna for a moment. "Hmmm?" I think. "He got all four feet inside the hay ring somehow but he can't get himself out. How in the world did he get in? Did he just walk in or did he jump in? Was he chased in? Or did he just leisurely step in?
Did the other other horses get together and lift the ring up and put it over him?" Who knows?

     Then I contemplate my dilemna. "How do I get him out?" Well, if you don't learn anything else on my blog today you are going to learn how to get a horse out of a hay ring. 

     Step 1: Tell them to remain calm.

     Step 2: Ask the horse to stand quietly parallel to the line of the hay ring you are holding. 

     Step 3: Lift the hay ring off the ground as high as you can. 

     Step 4: Peek your head under the ring and ask the horse to lower his head and turn toward you while moving forward under the ring. 

     Step 5: If you were successful tell the horse, "If you do this again, you better plan to get yourself out, Knucklehead." If not, repeat at step 1. 

      

     I followed the steps and once I learned step 2 (Apache taught me that), we were successful at Step 1.  After a few failed attempts, he stopped raising his head over the hay ring when I lifted and turned sideways letting me hold the ring up over my head. Apache was quite calm considering his predicament, I had imagined all sorts of ways this could have went wrong. However, I was able to convince him to exit out under the ring without further incident. 

     When Apache's human grandmother heard about the story she laughed, "Oh yea, I got that call when he was three. 'Apache got himself stuck in the hay ring.'" Apparently, when he was little the Knucklehead liked to climb in any hay ring with a low hay bale and bed down in the middle of the ring. This explains why he was so calm. Apparently its not his first hay ring entrapment. "Dear Pachey, You're too big to lay down in the hay ring."