MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

Good afternoon. Welcome to my other ideas to grow with virtual conference. My name is probably I will see you guys. And I am an educator with the MSU Extension Dairy Team. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this session for sperm emergency preparedness. Today, we will hear from Tom Guthrie and Dr. Christine Skelly. If you want to learn more about other backgrounds, I invite you to please visit the, my ideas to grow with website and click on their session. Before we get started, we'd like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors who are shown now on the screen due to the books. Well, there you can see it again. Strategies LLC and MNC extension. Through your generous support, we're able to offer this event at no charge to participants. Now let's jump into today's presentation. Let's begin. Tom, Dr. Skelly. The floor is yours. Well, welcome, everyone. So as Paula said, my name is Tom Guthrie. Obviously, I worked for Michigan State University Extension. I serve as a statewide equine educator and I'm based in the Jackson County Office. Chris, do you want to give a little brief background on you? I'm sure My name is Christine Skelly. I am at on campus at Michigan State University in the Department of Animal Science. My primary appointment is extension. So I work with the horse industry, work with organizations like Michigan Horse Council, Farm Bureau, as well as people throughout the field. And then I also teach within the department. So what we're going to talk a little bit about tonight, I've got the discussion item here on the right-hand side of the screen. Emergency and disaster events will go through talking a little bit about bonfire or burn fires, extreme weather, evacuation plans. And then finally, we'll wrap up with a project that Dr. Schelling and Paula and myself and other colleagues from MSU Extension has been working on is called the Israel emergency response to accidents involving livestock program. So we'll go ahead and dive into this right here. So first of all, we thought we'd just be a good idea to go back through what an emergency is and that would be a sudden, urgent, unexpected events require an immediate action, usually requiring help. Such as like a bonfire or horse related accident or illness. These situations obviously can be very chaotic very quickly. Then we've got a disaster. Calamitous event, especially want occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damaged or hardship. Those might be cases where sufficient resources are not available. So we're looking at things like hurricane or flooding, or even potentially a wildfire. And then finally we've got disaster and emergency management, DEM. And that's the discipline of understanding dealing with an avoiding risk or trying to minimize risk. The bus that we can playing for different scenarios, really, he can break this down into four pieces. So the first one on the top left there is people in livestock stay in place. You may have an event where it's just not possible to relocate. Everybody just has to stay in place. Another one would be evacuated people only. Down on the left-hand corner there evacuated people and some livestock. So there might be a situation or a time frame or period where you can get everyone out plus some livestock, but you might not be able to have the time to get all the livestock out. Then finally, evacuated people and all livestock. Chris, if there's anything that you want to add to this, just jump right in, okay, You bet. All right. So this one is your slide, Chris. All right. So we're gonna start talking a bit more about emergencies that happen right on the farm like barn fires for instance. So the first step is to develop a plan with first responders and community boards. It is really important to try to get emergency. Responders, maybe somebody from the fire department to come out, walk through your farm scenario with you. There, you can show them the farm layout. Get them oriented to the livestock on the farm. If you have people living on or near the barn, you can show those residency is develop your emergency contacts, know where your water sources is. If you're living way out, you may be relying on wetlands, small pond as a water source. You need to know where those are located. Where electrical and gas shut up, shut off would be evacuation routes, as well as animal shelters. So sometimes emergency responders may ask you to put this information and a canister that they know where the location of that canister is as they enter your farmland. That way, whoever is first to respond can get access to that information even if you aren't present. That's potentially one way. These before meetings before an emergency meeting. Okay. Tom. Okay. Here would be a contact information sheet and at the end, we're gonna give you links if you would like to get onto or to print off these contact sheets. So you want to definitely have your your veterinarian and maybe if there's more than one veterinarian in your area, have the other names as well. In order of your preference. You should have your police and fire department on hand. If you have some friends that are knowledgeable in horses, you may want to include their phone numbers as well. If you need contact with horse trailer information, let's say you've got more horses on the farm then you can Holloway and one load. You may want to put potentially other people that can haul for you on there, as well as your own contact information and any special instructions that go along with your horse. Alright, time. So when we talk about bonfires or barn fires, the most important thing is to try to decrease your risk of having a fire on your farm. Most barn fires are going to start either through the electrical systems or combustion combustible materials like Hey, so first let's address electrical systems because probably I'd say Tom, when you and I go and walk through Barnes, electrical systems can range from one end of the spectrum to the other pretty, pretty drastically. You want to make sure that your electrical system was first put in by a certified electrician, not a neighbor, not a contractor, but a certified electrician. You also want to ensure that even though your barn is indoors, you want to use outdoor grade because there's a lot of moisture and dust this associated with horse barns. So making sure you have top of the line grade for your electrical is extremely important. You want to make sure all wires are, are encased and metal conduit. You never want any exposed wires, even if you have fire or fans and heat are set up, all of those wires should be in conduit, no exposed wires. Check out your circuit breaker panel that should always look very clean and pristine if you're seeing any signs of melting or smoke with them. As you look at that panel or any signs of age, that panel should be replaced. It's always best to hard wire any fans or heat sources through the barn versus just plugging one. And a lot of fires are caused because of fans and heaters. So just keep that in mind. Using industrial fans is an extremely important. You don't want to just use those lightweight home fans. If you need to give your horse a little bit more air during the summer, you want to make sure their industrial grade. All of your light. Should be encasing. And Tom, maybe you could point to on the left side there, the light and the casing. You want to make sure that if it breaks or shatters, that those pieces and any sparks that might ensue are encased. Your water heaters need to be very well-grounded and don't take it for granted that once grounded, they always stay grounded. You want to unplug any unnecessary appliances like radios, coffee makers before you leave the barn and the day or when they're not in use. Okay, Tom, then the next thing we talked about was combustible material, like your hay, like your shavings. It is always always best to store those materials in another building under another cover, not where your housing, livestock, because these will spontaneously combust at times and you may lose and out building, but that's so much better than losing your livestock. Along with that, you also want to remove any other flammable material from the barn like fuel combustion, combustible equipment, even rags like with linseed oil. If you're cleaning tack or using linseed oil for something, you want to keep those rags in a trash can with the lid on just in case they were to combust. You always want to keep your Gators, tractors, and another building, not where you're styling your horses. You also want to make sure if you look at that bottom picture, you want to make sure that your alleyways are perfectly clean and clear. Having tack boxes, buckets, wheelbarrows in the alleyway is really just going to trip up if you need to get your horses fast and get them out of that barn fast. And also think about if you have if there's smoke going through that alleyway, do you really want to risk tripping over an obstacle in the way as you're trying to get to your horse. Obviously, every barn has a no smoking policy that should go unsaid, but it probably does need to be set. Said you need to have signs very visible throughout to make sure your guests know that that's the case and keep the areas around your barn modes. So if you do end up with a Grassfire, you want to try to keep all of your buildings where your livestock are housed. Very pristine from Alon standpoint so that that Grassfire doesn't encroach your buildings. Alright, Tom. Some more risk management. Have a fire extinguisher that is large enough to actually put out a small bonfire. Kitchen extinguishers are too small, so you need to get a heavy-duty. And again, this is something that your if somebody from the fire department comes and inspects your barn, they can help you with mics sure. That you know how to use the fire extinguisher. That sounds a little simplistic and maybe you know how to use it. But people who are helping you at the barn don't. So make sure everybody who potentially would be there to put out a small fire can use this fire extinguisher. Make sure that fire extinguisher is kept up to date as well. And if you do have to use a fire extinguisher, don't think, Oh, I can put this out myself. Don't worry about calling the fire department. The fire department would much rather have you call even if they come and you've already put out the fire. But too often these small fires, especially in a barn, can take off really, really quick. So have somebody call the fire department right away. Some other other aspects that you can can have at your barn would include fire alarms, sprinkler systems. These are hard to keep running in a barn because of all the dust associated with barns. Work with somebody to get some that would be a reliable for you. Then lightening rods. I would talk with your builder on lightning rods, whether that's something that you want on your barn or not. Okay, Tom. Okay. So we've done we've done our best to prevent a fire. Now let's think about if the worst happens. And we do have a fire, fire at our barn. First and foremost, humans safety needs to come first. Do not enter a burning structure. You probably won't be able to anyway because the heat, but you don't want to go into a smoky structure with loft on fire because you don't know when it's going to go down. Basically, when these fires start in a barn because of the combustible material, given the size of the barn, you're usually looking at between maybe five to seven to 8 min of the potential to go in and pull out some horses depending on your setup. So that's not very long. And if you go in there afterwards, it's just gonna be too unsafe to get in and get out. Make sure your emergency numbers and your barn address are posted someplace outside of the barn, obviously, where all of your workers can see it. And I say barn address because how many times are we down the barn? But maybe our borders are our workers don't know the heart address to it. So make sure you have that address bold so that when somebody calls, they can give the correct address for that fire. You never want to lock stalls, locked or barns up. Some people do that because of security, but that's not really giving anybody a fair chance to help the horse is of the worst were to happen. The stalls Ignite. You have less than 30 s to rescue a horse. That's the sad heart fat. So you want to be really, really careful. Alright, Tom. And Tom, if you've got anything to add, just jump right in. I'm not sure. Well, okay. So now we're going to talk about rescues. You want to house your high priority horses closest to the exits. That's a little harsh. You want to think about saving them all. But the reality is, depending on how many people are there to help, you, may only be able to get to one or two horses. You want to go through training though with your workers, with your boarders, how to get horses out? Where are you going to take them? If you look in the lower left-hand corner there, you see our on our short I'll the door is partially open and right outside that door is an arena that we could take horses out. This was at the MSU horse farm. We could take the horses out and put them in that little enclosed space. You have to be able to have a place that you're going to take the horse too. Because if you just let them out, horses will try running back into the barn. And even if they weren't running back to the barn, they potentially are going to get in the way of your first responders. So you need to have a place to take the horses to. The closer the better. Just because it gives you a little bit more time to get back to the barn and try to pull another horse out. So kinda think about those plans that you have for the horse, horses if you are able to pull them out of the barn. Let's see. If you look at the picture above on this. I've never been one for dutch doors are outside doors. But the more I learn about barn fires, the more it starts making sense to me. Having these outside doors on your horses style gives you the best option of trying to get them out of the stall and keystone of an emergency. So just something to consider if you're thinking about building a barn. Okay. I think I covered that. Yeah. So yeah. So this is and I want to just give a trigger warning here. This was a fairly recent fire and Nebraska 2022, and unfortunately one individual lost their life and this fire. So if this isn't, There's no bad pictures except for a burning building. But if this is going to be any kind of trigger, just turn down the sound. While we're watching this video. Sure. I don't do. Fire chief confirmed within the last hour that one person is dead after a fire severely damaged a horse barn there, Bennington this morning. They have not yet confirmed the identity of the body. Fire crews from more than a dozen fire departments from four counties were called into fight the fire. Or John Chapman with the latest developments, firefighters searched the facility for hours trying to find the person who was unaccounted for. The building is large. They had a lot of ground to cover. We're asked me to be in about 35,000 to 40,000 sq ft. It's a big horse arena. There are several stables and then three apartments inside the book-building grid class and lives across the street from the horse barn. He got a call this morning around 06:00, warning him up the fire flames were on the west side of the building and the east side of the building. I know they store hay and bulk shavings on the east side with one apartment and that was engulfed in flames. Firefighters say there were also horses in the facility when the fire broke out, there were neighbors who rushed in trying to save some of the horses, kind of guide into gear and went over and started rounding up horses and seeing if we could pull or sets out or not. And I was not the first person there, but the first person that was there about, I guess quarter after six. So they tried to get as many horses as they could, but it was just too hot and they couldn't get in. Official say, nine horses died in the fire and one firefighters suffering from Burns had to be taken to the hospital on your side and Douglas County, I'm John Chapman, Six News members of the Nebraska State tarsals officer on the scene and they're working out to figure out exactly. So. The reason I showed this video clip is it kind of shows the importance of keeping your combustible materials outside of your barn. You heard that they had they were storing hay and shavings, which is very, very common. There, there may be some ways you can do that in a more safe fashion if you have firewall protection and if you have living quarters and a barn, you should always have firewall protection between the stable area and the living quarters. But the other the other important factor in this case, unfortunately, is by the time people got to the fire, it was too hot to go in and leave leave that part to the professionals and just take care of the pupil first. Alright, Tom. Alright, thanks Chris. We're going to switch gears a little bit here and talk, and talk about planning for extreme weather. More specifically tornadoes. You can see that we have two pictures on the screen here. The top one is the tornado coming. And then you can see down below there's a, there was a farm destroyed and dozens of horses killed that were being housed in the barn. So obviously with tornadoes, you have high winds. They're just very unpredictable. Today we have better weather models that help us determine like, yes, we have a severe storm coming, but we just never really fully know what path that, that potential storm could take or the tornado could take. So there's always a little bit of debate on keeping horses inside versus outside. And so that really depends on Barnes stability. When you're looking at trying to keep them in the barn? Um, if they're outside, there's potential debris that you have to deal with blowing around on the outside. But typically, you turn your horses out for tornado just because if they're housed in the barn, they really have no chance if the tornado hits the barn. Right? So it's just one of those considerations that might all depend on two, if you have if you have a large pastured area where the horses or have the ability to move around and potentially avoid any oncoming risk. The other one here, this side is all too familiar from just a couple of weeks ago, I guess. Well, yeah, the ice storm that was that was a miserable Yvette. This picture kinda looked like it was taken around my place because, I mean, they were just branches falling everywhere. So in this type of situation, this is where we might consider housing horses securely indoors to reduce the risk from any type of slipping from the ice. Um, it keeps them dry. This type of weathers, the one that really worries me the most about having horses outdoors is that sleep the rain type of mixture because they can get wet. And, you know, if if your horses are out and they've got a full winter coat, there's potential for that, for that insulating factor to be flattened by the ice. And so if they're indoors is also reduces the risk of any falling objects, icicle, branches, wires, anything like that. So that's one consideration that, you know, you want to think about. If you have it where your power lines are running to, and have you done a good job of pruning any of those trees or the power company has done a good job with pruning any of those trees around your power source going to potentially you're borrowing or anything like that. So those wires come down and could potentially have some start some issues. So horses are inside. Let's say that you've got running shelters form outside and the pasture. Yeah. They might seek shelter in there, but if it's doing something like hailing, that can that can scare horses out of the shelter, which is really not what we're wanting in this case. And then the other point here is removed snow from your roof. Right? Up here in Michigan. We're used to getting quite significant snowfalls. So we want to build for that maximum snow load on your roof. And so we've got a short video here that will show you. I can get it going here and then we'll talk about it afterwards. Jail for action. Do is Westmoreland County Bureau Chief. Jennifer immediately spoke to the owner about how it all happened. By the grace of God. The horses are okay and seth rebuilt. Bill Lascaux surveys the damage to his 30-year old barn and Mount Pleasant township, Westmoreland County. All of that he can live with because he's five horses are okay. The roof of the bond collapsed under the weight of more than 3 ft of snow, trapping the animals inside overnight. There was beams actually hanging down in the stalls. They had enough room to stand and move a little bit, but more snow could have knocked it down or they could attorney got cut and it was it was a long night for hours. Lascaux tried to free the horses or at least to find tools that could help him break open the stalls. I'll walk down each stall and determined to be okay for the night. And like I said this morning, I called the fire department because my friend said try them in. They came up and basically saved me and my horses. It's unbelievable. I haven't seen a winter up here like this in 30 years. Even though the barn didn't survive the snow, the horses seem to like it. In fact, we caught a few shots of them looking like they were having fun. You never know, they spent an entire night in danger. Now the owner says he does plan to rebuild this barn only this time with a steeper roof in Mount Pleasant township, Westmoreland County. I'm Jennifer Amelie channel for action, new shell for action. So if you kinda look really close at the pictures of the barn, it did have a flat roof, which that's not it gives the snow nowhere to go as far as falling off the pitch of the roof. In addition to that, looking from inside the stall view, it appeared that the trust is we're pretty far apart. So that steel was trying to hold the weight of that snow. Right. So that's what we're talking about when we cut it comes down to building for the snow load, right? You wanna make sure that you have the correct specifications to be able to handle the environmental conditions on dependent on where your farm is located. Because Westmoreland County. Okay. So the next one is planning for extreme weather and floods. If possible, move horses to high ground or evacuate them if you have time to do that and I'll typically with flooding. I mean, you have a little bit of leeway most of the time here. To be able to make a plan to try to get the horse is sick in a secure location, you know, but there are some cases where you may live in an area where you get flash flooding. Okay. I worked in Missouri for a short period of time and there was a property where there was a creek running through it and we were warned as me being someone from around that area. I was warned that if it starts to rain, you get across the creek because the neighbor and his wife were driving their truck across the creek and flash flood came through and it swept the truck completely away. And so they were scrambling to get out of it. So this is something to keep in mind and you're probably aware of that and, you know, the areas where you live, what's possible where As far as flash flooding is concerned. So obviously we don't want to keep horses in low-lying areas. As far as our housing. You want to give them a chance to move to high ground or swim. And if you know the floods coming and they have an opportunity to get on high ground, It's always good idea to ID all of them as well. And that can be large grease paint, cell numbers on the side or tags with your phone number or whatever the case may be if those horses end up somewhere where they're not supposed to be. So we've got another video here that will I will show you on horses and cows stranded by floodwaters, Colorado flooding, stranding animals in Weld County. This horse up to its knees and water nearby, a herd of cows standing together in the floodwaters. Now we've been getting a lot of calls about these animals and we are trying to find out how they're doing tonight. Seven news reporter molly Hendrickson live in Weld County, had a farm. Were other horses also caught up in that flutter? Yeah. We're at county road of 50 for about 2 mi east of evans. We do have some good news. The bad news here is that the road is still washed out, you can see, but the good news is if you may remember a little bit before seven tonight, we place this cone next to where the water was on the road. It's actually receded quite a bit here. So that's some good news. Now let me show you those horses that we've been following in the distance. Just bear with us while we get that shot focused in. They are still there tonight. Still just kind of hanging tight. Buy that house huddled there. You can see that the water has receded by looking at that Volkswagen in the distance. But we are seeing this all over the place. Take a look. There's the images that are both captivated us and broken our hearts. Floodwaters taking over homes, miles of farmland destroyed, and animals like these huddled near this house left behind. Well, they tried to get the horses out of it. They cut the fences and stuff. Of course, there's rules spooky. Larry Magnusson and his family lived next door, their houses. Okay. But the 140 acres of alfalfa fields they own now underwater, we'd been through this before. Not this bad, but we've been through this before. Can we brought the Chasm and then this morning when we got up and it just kept getting worse all day, we have to hay fields over there. They're totally plotted. The water has overtaken County Road 50 for cutting them off from Evans nearby cruise cut out the wall of this canal to relieve pressure is applied. The ocean out the record high Platte River, not yet crusted as the sun sets, hear the sound of the National Guard, both a reminder and warning. This isn't over yet. And back here, ally, we've been watching some of these little critters. There was actually a okay, so you can see what was really captivating on the first shot there with the horse. You noticed that horse had went to write to a corner of a fence fence line where it appeared that the horse was trying to move to higher ground, but got to the corner of the fence line and there was no other place to go. In addition to that, the horses the horses that were around the house right there, they will move to higher ground if they have the opportunity to. Another, another point that was mentioned in the video that I took note of is the farmer that they talked to had mentioned that they had been through this before, right? So if you live within a floodplain, you have the idea of okay, this is coming. We need to start planning ahead, right? Make the arrangements to get the horses out or have a place where they can get to higher ground to get away from the danger. I think the other point that really resonates to me with that video too, is that the one set of animals for two spooky for the, for the owners to get to so that they could get them out. So one thing as same thing with fire prevention or, or fires, any of these emergencies. You really want to have a Baroque horse that's used to being handled by more than one person. That can easily be led with just a rope around their neck, you know, ideally. And that can go a long way. That's easy to load on a trailer if you have to evacuate all of that. And the other point too is where do you go? I mean, do you have do you have an arrangement? If the flood you know, there's potential for flooding where you're going to work in a house, those horses, neighboring property, someplace 10 mi away, whatever the case may be. So having those options available before it takes place would also be a good step. Alright, so what happens if you do need to stay in place? Obviously, in a lot of these type of situations, you may be without power. So having a generator on the premises with enough fuel for two weeks, ideally, can be extremely important to just keeping up with the duties on your farm. You need to also have a reliable heat source for humans. And these scenarios, how are you going to keep housing? Where people can stay and help take care of the animals. You want to always account for two weeks of feed supply as well as two-week metal medical supply. If you do need to stay in place. And when I think of feed, I don't necessarily think I have to have two weeks of grain, but I know I need at least two weeks of hay to provide a lot of our horses can do just fine without the grain, without the supplements. But what they need is hey, and freshwater. So making sure you can provide that to them is going to be essential as well as if there's any medical supplies that they're going to need. Make sure you have two weeks of that as well. Alright? So if you can't stay in place and you need to evacuate, you need to make sure that you have your records in one place. Preferably you have all of these records, a copy of these records in your in your trailer and your truck, or an a folder that's really easy to get to. As you're leaving. Make sure you provide your Coggin's vaccination. Registration papers and pictures of your horse are really important. So sometimes you end up taking your horse to a location where there may be a lot more incoming horses of evacuating from the same same disaster that you're getting away from as well. These type of situations, unfortunately, could also be taken advantage of by people that want to steal horses. That's why it's really important to have your horse identified. When they're there. Make sure you also have emergency numbers in your pocket on your phone, on your partner's phone, on your workers phones that you can get to very easily. Make sure you bring your charger. We're so dependent on our phones, and unfortunately they don't self charge yet. So make sure that you have charger two-way radios may come in handy if you've still got your old CB. Bring that on out. As you, as you think about what you need. You also want to have a first aid kit and we've got a link to help you get that put together if you don't already have one. And again, we're talking about feed and water supply. Now, if it's me and I'm taking my horse to fairgrounds and somebody else, then it's gonna be in charge of feed and watering that horse. I'm not going to give them any grain to feed my horse. I'm just going to give them, hey, because I don't know how well versed this person might be and following directions of feeding horses. And I don't want my horse to be dealing with green overload while they're at the center. Some things to think about as you go through the process. And here's an evacuation emergency contact. You want to have some options, okay, so you may say, Oh, well, if this happens, I'm going to go this direction of this happens. I'm going to go this direction. Have multiple ways to leave, to evacuate multiple roads because one road may be shut down and you need to switch gears. But also have multiple places where you think you can bring your horse to. Some communities are really good about establishing fairgrounds and whatnot as emergency sanctuaries. Okay, Tom, plan for the unexpected. So your truck needs to always have fuel in it. Your trailer needs to always have good tires. You need to be able to hook easily up to your trailer and all kinds of weather. Unfortunately, emergencies aren't picky of when they occur. Again, make sure you have your paperwork, multiple escape routes, multiple shelter options, that your animal can be Aidid. Okay, Tom, you know, one thing about this too, I was going to make a comment about the snowfall. Always makes sure that, you know, if you have somebody snow plowing your place, make sure you're not boxing your trailer in. From where you're plowing the snow. I mean, I've seen this before where the trailer is is is essentially not accessible because of the snow where they pushed it. So just keep that in mind as well. Alright, so let's say you need to leave some livestock. And this could happen because you just don't have enough room in your trailer during a disaster, other trailers may be unused by other people as well. So if you do need to leave livestock on the farm, make sure you leave. Contact and animal information up. I have seen a big, you know, where people will spray pan on walls and stuff for their phone to phone number before they leave. So that people can actually look through binoculars and see those phone numbers and give them a call. Try to provide water and a forged source. That may not be an option. As Tom was saying, turnout the horses on high ground. I do know and I have no experience with wildfires in this area. But in California we saw a lot of horses that were just left loose to try to fend for themselves. And some of them actually were able to make it out of the fire. So letting the horse uses their own census sometimes makes a lot of sense. Okay, Tom, from a horse ID standpoint, a grease stick. If you look at the horse, the little box skinner, down at the bottom here with the long phone number on it that was most likely put on there with using a grease stick. And this is a real common method of identifying cattle. But it's really great because it's water resistant. So it's going to last for a while on the horse. And here, you don't have to get right up to the horse to identify it. You can be at a distance and see that number and call that number. And other ways are bands. If you do leave halter on your horse mixture, it's a breakaway halter or leather halter. Tying a little tag in the horses mane is another good idea. Tattooing and micro chip. You need an expert horseman to look for those. And you need to have the right equipment for the microchip that was put into place. Alright. Here's another evacuation checklist. Again, this will be on a link that we give to you at the end of this presentation. Alright, Tom. So in summary, I think many of the issues that Tom and I have talked about are weather-related hazards. So keeping track of the weather, listening to the warnings and when people say you need to evacuate, doing that, rather than waiting to see what happens. As always, best scenario. Have a plan with your workers, any borders that you may have with your neighbors or even community. If there's a lot of horse farms within your community, get together and discuss how you might work through some of these different scenarios as well. But having the noaa weather radio app alerts is really important, especially when we're talking about tornadoes and whatnot. So getting that heads-up can make a big difference. And how you deal with certain situations. Alright? Okay. So we'll talk, I'll talk real briefly about our emergency response to accidents involving livestock program that a group of MSU Extension colleagues have been working on. So we realized that there was a lot of livestock traffic up and down our major highways. What would you do in case of an accident that involve, let's say, a load of pigs or a load, uh, cattle or someone holding their horses up to trail ride up north, or to a horse show, whatever the case may be. And so realizing that most first responders may have limited animal large animal handling experience. Okay. So we kinda wanted to try to help them understand a little bit more about how to handle this specific species. And teach them a little bit more about their behavior. Because like an accident involving horses is definitely not going to be the same as an accident involving a load of finishing hogs go into market, let's say e.g. so this program here has four components. It has in-person trainings. Though. That's usually a day-long training that we bring people in, give them exposure to handling animals, talk about the various different scenarios and factors involved in an accident. We took all that information, put it into a virtual training modules that's available online. We do individual consultations. And then finally, the last piece of that is getting some equipped emergency response trailers out through the state to be able to respond to these types of accidents. So this picture here is just a picture. You can see Dr. Skelly up here in the left-hand corner, and she's working with a first responder on how to halt or a horse. Just that basic tried to give them. We're not trying to make professionals out of them, but we want to really try to give them the basic understanding of how to handle the horse and more about their behavior. And then down here at the bottom you can see that we're talking about how to tie a quick release knot. And we actually put the first responders into the back of a horse trailer and locked him in there so they can kinda see how all the gating works. And if they ever come up onto a situation that involves forces, what they might expect to see inside the horse trailer. Here's just the virtual training modules. I believe there are 13 of them on there. And like I said before, all species are covered. Swine, cattle, goats, sheep, horses, so on and so forth. So that's available if, you know, if it's an interest in learning more about the program. And then here you can see that we've got some animal control officers up on the top right hand corner. We do get some requests from from some departments on like, hey, I've got some new officers. I'd really like to give them some basic knowledge on how to appropriately handle a horse. So we've done those types of things as well. I'm going out and working with those groups. Here you can see that these are the equipped emergency response trailers. These are equipment trailers. They're not like a rescue trailer that's going to take any animal off the scene, but they are loaded with various types of equipment to handle all types of livestock. So you can see here that we've got gating gating panels. There's also portable fencing. There's halters of all different sizes for horses loaded in the trailer, fence posts, ramps, lighting, et cetera, et cetera. Right now we have three of these trailers that are located throughout the state. One is in cold water, one is in Jackson County, and the other ones up in knots ego County. And we do we just received a grant and we're working on getting several more of these trailers placed throughout the state. Then once the trailers are in place, we do scenario-based trainings with the response trailers. So we want first responders to get the equipment out of the trailer and get familiar with it and how to use it. That's just the basis of these types of trailer trainings, is just to get the first responders to know, hey, I know that this type of equipments in the trailer, we may need it or where it is and essentially, essentially the basic knowledge of how to use it. So for more information on that, and you can visit our MSU Extension email page. And that should give you a good background information on on the program. So with that, I think we're finished up. Take it away. Yeah. Thank you. Tom and Dr. Skelly? Yeah. She said I'm out-of-state in Kentucky. Though working in Michigan this break, do other states have programs like erase underway? We've had several Impala you can jump in here too because, you know, as well as I do. But we've had other states that have reached out to us. I'm not I'm not aware if they have something in place like this, but there has been interests from other states on, even potentially for us to come out and show them what we've done and help them organize a potential training. In addition to that, it's at some of our in-person face-to-face trainings. We've had participants from Kentucky come up to the programs. But as far as an established program, we've got going here. I'm I'm really not for sure on the status of that. No. I going to add a little bit to that. So there's one program in very similar but nothing to the extent of the URL. There's a rum that trains first responders in Georgia and they're trying to replicate in some other states around there. I took that training and they were people from Kentucky doing that training during the time that I took the training. But nothing is. So why didn't compressive as the URL is here in Michigan. Thank you so much, Dr. scaly and Tom for your time and the great information you shared. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it.