Ok well I live in the northern U.S and our winters are usually TERRIBLE (this one isn't to bad though haha)
Anyway I want to buy blankets for my horses but everyone is saying they don't work just feed them hay and they will stay warm. Or no don't buy one, or else they won't grow winter hair and they will be colder....
Is this true?
Whats your oppion on this?
Our weather here is pretty mild for the most part but instead of lots of snow it isn't uncommon for freezing rain which is worst because as soon it hits anything it is a solid sheet of ice. Or we'll go from plus 5 to minus 25 within hours. 80 to 100 km an hour winds during rain, snow, sleet, or very cold temperatures isn't uncommon either.
The other day it was close to plus 8 but that night it rained 30 cm and froze solid by morning at minus 8 with a wind chill of mins 20. The weather is crazy this year.
Rest of the year we have category 2 hurricanes offend four or five a year, tropical storms, and past year pushing plus 35 degrees on the hottest.
I think I have to blanket is because the weather isn't "cold" or "warm or "hot" it goes from warm to really cold within the same day and the horses have a hard time adjusting to that within hours.
Like Cowchick said it's more the drastic temperature changes than that they aren't growing hair. It's been especially bad with this winter being more "mild" because we've had temperature swings we usually only see in the spring. For instance this past weekend it got down in the mid teens, which probably doesn't sound very cold to you, but it had been in the upper 50s/low 60s for two weeks before then. Most of the horses are already starting to shed their winter coats. I just feel bad for them when it drops suddenly like that.
Sure they would survive without blankets. The school horses at my college lived outside 24/7 without any form of shelter or blanketing system and they all made it. But I like knowing my mare is comfortable when the temps drop.
I'm not for or against blankets. It's by individual horse and situation. My first old horse who was a hard keeper would start shivering when it drooped below forty so he always got a blanket.
Of the horses I have now none of them need to be blanketed as long as they have a shelter. Last year when my dad brought home a new tractor he announced that the tractor was going in the barn and the horses would just have to deal with it. I am not capable of building a shelter myself and we have some nutty weather here ( t shirts and sunshine one day, flooding or snowed in the next) so I ordered waterproof blankets and hoods for all of them. Next year when I get my own fences up and they are at my house with shelter they will probably not be blanketed.
Actually, thisd weekend's temps in the mid-atlantic are a good example of those temp swings. All of the horses are now shedding like crazy,,horse hair everywhere. Today (Friday) and tomorrow the highs are going to be in the mid-50s with low temps around 38-40. Sunday, the daytime temp is supposed to possibly reach 34 with a nightime temp of 24 but given the area, this usally ends up in the high teens. This past week the daytime temps bounced from 36 (Last Sunday with a low of 12) to mid-40s early in the week with lows in the mid-30s to these warm 50s at the end of the week. Tonight it will even be iffy if any of the horses are blanketed as the low tonight is estimated around 41 and we know with the barn doors closed it is 10 or so degrees warmer.
I have a sheet, a medium weight and heavyweight blanket for mine and have been playing musical blankets all week
Not sure if this has been said...but, if your horse has clipped fur blanket them. If they have a fuzzy coat, don't blanket them. If you put a blanket over a fuzzy coat the fur will lay flat and will make the horse colder than if you just let him be a horse and use his fur for warmth.
This is not necessarily true. Even on a horse with a very full winter coat, a correctly weighted for the weather blanket isn't going "make them colder".
Yes, if you put a medium weight or light weight blanket on a furry horse in 15 degree weather, that horse is going to be cold. But, if you blanket appropriately, with a heavyweight blanket, that horse isn't going to be cold.
That's why it's important to know what weight blankets you have and have a correctly weighted one for every temperature, if you're going to to blanket. Basically, if you're going to take the hair warmth option away (through blanketing), you need to make sure that your blanket makes up for and possibly exceeds the warmth you're removing.
I'm glad you brought that up though, it seems to be a common blanketing misconception that a blanket adds on to any hair warmth the horse has. Really, with a blanket, you're starting from basically no hair warmth, due to the hair flattening factor of the blanket, and adding warmth via the weight of the blanket.
^ Not true for all horses. Some horses have pathetic winter coats and benefit from a blanket, others are nice and wooly and certainly don't need a blanket.
Again, this is why I stress that horses are INDIVIDUALS. Posted via Mobile Device
^ exactly. Horses are definitely individuals, and I'm not saying what I said before is a definite for every horse, however if a horse is capable of growing a warm coat then they should be allowed to grow their oat
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