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Donation helps Nobleford Emergency Services handle livestock situations

Dec 14, 2016 | 4:45 PM

NOBLEFORD – Nobleford and District Emergency Services has a new tool available to them, that will help protect both motorists and livestock.

Thanks to a donation from the Northern 4H Beef club in Lethbridge County last summer, the Nobleford Firefighter’s Society now has a trailer that is specially equipped to help control animals at the scene of an emergency.

“The trailer holds up to 20 panels, and they’re 12 foot long panels, and then we have two gates, four foot wide each, and those make up your corral,” explained Nobleford fire chief, Ryan Wagner. “Then we have a bunch of chains, posts, a post pounder. If we’re dealing with smaller livestock, let’s say pigs or possibly sheep, we have snow-fence available, where we can zip-tie it to the bottom of the corrals so they don’t go through the panels.

“We even have stuff like hay,” Wagner continued. “If we ever need to make the animals feel a little bit more comfortable we can put some feed down for them so they kind of calm down a little bit.”

Wagner noted that they usually only see collisions involving loaded livestock trailers once every couple of years – although he acknowledged they had two within a couple of weeks this year at the new traffic circle that joins Highways 23 and 519 – but when it happens, he says it’s crucial that they are well prepared.

“When the cattle liners actually roll-over, they end up on their side, so you’re dealing with live cattle, you’re dealing with the possibility of having dead cattle in there. The biggest part is the cattle that are walking around, so you want to be able to contain those so they don’t go hurt themselves or hurt other people,” stated Wagner.

In addition to the new equipment, Wagner says they just finished training for livestock handling this week.

“It’s a learning curve because not everybody grew up raising cattle, so if you’re not familiar with how cattle behave, how they interact with people when they’re in a stressful situation, it can be quite a task.”

Before getting the trailer, Wagner says they would have to ask for a similar trailer used in Fort Macleod, something that could leave them waiting up to half an hour. With one of their own now available at a moments notice, he says it improves safety for his crew, motorists and the animals.