Once upon a time I was a police officer with an opportunity to work in a section that focused on organisation and methods (O&M) as it was called then. My job included revising a police procedures manual and devising solutions to problems that arose in operational police work. It was a job I really enjoyed and, as I was studying management of an evening, it helped bring management theory to life.
When a regional police officer “found” a horse that had to be housed for several months while the owner was located, he restrained it in the backyard of his police station and fed it at great expense to the police department. When someone in the Commissioner’s Office saw the bills for feeding the horse, I was asked to write a directive that stipulated how much forage a horse needed per month to survive and other things related to maintenance and disposal of the animal. It seems the horse was being over fed.
The first thing that went through my mind was, “What the hell is forage?” Having been brought up in mining communities, I knew nothing about horses or other farm animals other than some produced milk and others were good to eat.
After I had accessed a dictionary to find out what forage really meant, I had a vague idea, I then needed to find out how much of the stuff a horse needed to survive. A colleague suggested that I talk to the staff at the local university veterinary faculty, so off I trotted in my handsome police uniform in my shiny police car, to find out.
After a discussion with a vet officer, I came back with a description of forage per day, per kilogram of horse. Much to my surprise I wrote an administrative instruction to cover it and everyone said it was an excellent job. It even required recoupment of the expended money from the owner once located.
It’s astonishing how the many and varied experiences we have in life stick with us and make us the people we turn out to be. Now, how much forage does a horse need?
Dark Horse
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