Have you rugged your horse yet?

R0C

Curious as to how others are coping with this very mild weather we're having so far.

I have an unclipped 8 year old tb who lives out year round on 2.5 acres, with free access to a small shed/field shelter. He still has a couple of weeks worth of grass for picking (though it wouldn't be very nutritional this time of year), he's also getting plenty of hay daily and some nuts. He's in great condition so far but has a tendency to get very thin once the grass runs out and he's on hay/nuts only.

We got a week or so of frosty nights about 3 weeks ago so I rugged him up for the winter, assuming it would get colder if anything.

He's wearing a medium-heavy rug. Not sure of the exact rating but it's on the heavier side of medium.

I don't have the option of taking the coat off him during the day due to my work schedule, so it's all or nothing.

I check him daily and he seems fine, but last sunday after getting overly excited seeing his bucket of beet pulp coming, he decided to have a gallop session and was then very sweaty under the rug. I had to remove it and dry him off (the only day I'm not working and could do so) and allow him to cool down.
But it worried me that he may be sweating on other occasions when I'm not present. The rug is an expensive one, breathable etc, so I'm sure it would dry out if he did get sweaty underneath, but I don't like the thought of him sweating. I've checked him carefully every day since and he hasn't been sweaty so I've left him be in the same coat. Sunday was particularly warm, direct sunshine at the time and he did a lot of galloping which likely caused the sweating.

There's no sign of temperature dropping though for the next 10 days. Some nights are predicted to be around 10 degrees which is similar to some summer nights!

I have a couple of lighter coats but fear changing him to a lighter rug now as he may be used to the one he's got. The last thing I want is for him to lose condition as it's difficult to get weight back on him.

It's easy for me to put a second rug on him should it get colder.

A couple of people have reckoned no horses should have rugs on at the moment at all - but I'm of the opinion that once you have the coat on, you can't go suddenly removing it.

Curious to hear what others are doing. Have you rugged yours yet? How heavy is your coat? Would you consider downgrading to a lighter coat now even though the horse has worn this same coat in these same temperatures for the past 3 weeks?

gctest50

Put a temperature logger inside and outside the rug ?

If the temperature leaves a user-programmable range, the DS1921G will also record when this happened, for how long the temperature stayed outside the permitted range, and if the temperature was too high or too low.

http://www.fuchs-shop.com/en/shop/4/1/13372023/

fits

If the nighttime temperature is ten degrees may leave the rug off for now? You can put it on again when it gets cold/wet.

I have no intention of rugging mine this year. They're not clipped and the rugs are gathering dust.

I just looked at weather stats, and wow! Its mild..

Rips

I have an older arthritic horse who struggled last winter - so when the cold hit this year, I rugged in a 200g. She didn't grow much of a coat as a result (still so mild during the days)

When the weather got even milder, I felt she was too hot then, but like you, felt I couldn't take the rug off, so I gave her a small clip instead, remembering that even where she isn't clipped, she doesn't have much of a coat.

Still, I think the 200g she is wearing at the moment is heavy duty for the weather we're having. I would be uncomfortable if she still had a normal coat.

My other young horse is out unrugged and TBH, hasn't even grown much of a coat for the time of year, its been that mild!

I think if you have a lighter option, take the opportunity of these mild days to switch him down.

Excessive rugging will also effect his weight. If he is too warm he'll stop eating or stop digesting his food properly and drop weight.

R0C

Thanks for the replies. I'll re-evaluate today and see, it is wet and windy and horrible here now although it isn't terribly cold.

While he is unclipped, he hasn't really grown any winter coat of his own inside the coat (due to the rug i guess), his neck is exposed and he's grown a natural winter coat there and on his legs, but he's the same as he was in summer on his body underneath the coat, so taking it off altogether would be too big a shock to his system.

I might downgrade to slightly lighter today and see how that goes.

R0C

Downgraded to a slightly lighter rug today, but it's still on the heavier side of medium than I'd like. I'd prefer to have something even lighter on him but my only lighter rug is damp and filthy so I can't put it on him currently. And it would likely be too big a change now anyway.

I'm not sure the medium-heavy is such a bad choice though. It was bitterly cold in the field today (high ground) with very strong winds and heavy rain. He was preferring to stay lurking in his field shelter than to stand out in it. While the temperature is stated to be around 8 or 9 degrees, it felt much closer to zero with the wind, and he didn't feel at all overheated under the heavy rug, more lukewarm at the withers, and cool lower down. And he hasn't sweated at all since last Sunday.

He has no natural winter coat worth talking about, may as well be clipped, and seemed shivery while naked when i was removing his heavy rug to downgrade him. He had a lot of looking around to see what on earth I was doing. He seemed quite relieved to have me put a coat on him again. He was free to run away while I changed coats but had no issues standing still while i replaced it.

I do kind of wish I had left it until later to rug though as normally I wouldn't be rugging him at all until it was regularly hitting below zero nightly.

That one week of freezing temperatures a couple of weeks back caught me off guard!

Still though, at least it's keeping the wind and rain off his back as he is extremely thin skinned (tb) and did get a patch of rain scald several years ago while unrugged.

Ah_Yeah

The mare I have on loan is in a medium-weight turnout rug, as we're up the mountains and it can get quite cold, but she lives in at night. If it's particularly mild I remove the turnout and put a heavy fleece rug on her when she's stabled. Other than that, she's in her rug most of the time, and doesn't sweat too much, but she is clipped!

bnagrrl

No rugs yet except on the ones the ones that have been clipped. It's so mild they don't need them. Long may it continue. I'll never forget the bad winters we had a couple of years ago when it was so cold the automatic drinkers froze over and we had to carry buckets of water from the well across the icy yard!

R0C

Yes the biggest problem those winters was with water supplies freezing. I'd be happy to never see a winter like that again!

convert

The horses which have been clipped have rugs, but those that haven't don't have rugs yet. It's still very mild (11 degrees here at the moment according to my phone), so no need for rugs yet, especially as the fields are sheltered.

isaos

I think it the answer depends on whether the horse is ridden or not (you don't want to saddle a wet hairy horse), and of course on the breed. Does he have a thin coat or a dense one? how does he behave when left out during a shower? and of course does he have a dry shelter accessible 24/7?

After rugging and unrugging, putting in and leaving out my Connemara X Arabian, (thinier coat than true Connemara), worrying all day and night, I have at last decided to stop worrying and he is now living his own life! I know he is fine now up to at least -1C, he is fed twice a day grain + hay inside his open shelter, and seems to be enjoying life much better but of course he is not ridden right now, which makes it easier too.

R0C

I think I need to adapt the not worrying approach also!

As regards the temperature, I think that 11C at this time of year is very different to the 11C we have in summer/autumn.

It's currently listed as 9C where I am in the West but there is a bitter breeze and wind chill is listed as 5C. Probably safer go by the wind chill temp.

I've decided to stick with the medium rug for now. I've checked again today with direct sunlight and he isn't sweating or hot, he feels just as he should.

He is a thoroughbred and extremely thin skinned with a tendency to lose weight on hay anyway, his field is high land so if there's any breeze you feel it up there, and while he has 24/7 access to a dry field shelter with as much hay as he needs, there is still a nice bit of grass so he's happier out in the middle of the field in every wind and rain.

Out of curiosity I checked the temperatures for my area for this time last year and it was exactly the same (9, 10, 11 degrees daily), a couple of degrees lower here and there but we didn't get many icy/frosty nights then either, and he survived in the same medium rug then without any problems.

Us humans sometimes do too much fussing over our animal friends!

charlieIRL

I have rugs on our ponies at home. If we are not doing much riding I leave them out during day and bring them in at night o few days if its promised cold.

isaos

Just for an update re rugging: the weather has been so bad (I'm in Kerry). My Connemara x Arabian started to show signs of rashes, so I rugged him once and for all. The Connemara was just after arriving, turning 4 and never rugged: I left her "naked" and she seems absolutely fine. They are fed twice a day, meaning I can watch them closely, and they have free entrance to the only stable I have for the moment - wide enough once inside, and they get along fine. But they didn't bother and stayed out. I was the one freaking out in the middle of the night thinking of them. We are now building a real field shed, they will or not use it when the weather is very windy, and most probably if it gets real hot next summer.
Any feedback from after the storms?
Keep well, and a very Happy New Horsey Year to all of you.

Rips

Good idea to update.

My horses went out fulltime over Christmas, my yard is old and it was getting to be a liability with slates coming off the roof etc :eek:

My unrugged young horse was turned out in a 200g (had been unrugged)
I started feeding hay in the field also as once the wet hit, the grass went.

Still, she lost a staggering amount of weight (a good thing in her condition!)

My old horse, I simply put her neck on her 200g as her small clip was nearly grown out.

In hindsight I should have upped her weight to 400g, because she also lost weight where she didn't need to, not as much as young horse, but she didn't need to lose weight. The persistant wet/cold would be very taxing on her though so she maybe would have dropped regardless.

isaos

I feed them a mix of alfalfa and grains, + free access to hay that I try keeping dry, they are actually putting a bit of weight on. Not much grass left in the field anyway.

Rips

Yeah the old mare is getting Alfa-A and some coarse mix with her arthritis supplement. She used to do well over winter with ad lib hay, I never had to feed hard feed, but the last two winters once the wet hits, she's just miserable. The engine isn't working so well I guess. I might start giving her the odd small bale of haylege when stabled and see if that helps. I have a bit of grass that came up in that late warm spell they can go out to next month. I didn't have that last year.