From: Katherine
Hello Jessica.
I have been recieving your Horse Sense newsletter for about 6 months, and I have learned alot. I just have one question for you....
I live in West Virginia (and we get very cold winters sometimes!). I own six horses, all of which have been blanketed during winter months, since I have owned them. I plan to blanket four of them this year, but I am wondering what to do with my two broodmares. This is the first time I have ever bred/foaled a horse (s), and I'm expecting two babies (one in January and one in March). One of the mares came to me from Florida, and has been blanketed every year since she's been up north; the other mare has grown a winter coat before, but not in the past 4 years since I have always kept blankets on them. What should I do? Should I blanket them, or see if they grow winter coats? I am kind of worried because a neighbor of mine has had a horse from New Mexico for 12 years and she has never grown a winter coat and was never blanketed, if that mare can't grow a coat, will my Florida mare be the same way? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Katherine
Not all horses will grow the same type of winter coat, so if you have one horse that looks like a shaggy teddy bear all winter and another that still looks sleek and shiny, both may be absolutely normal. Some breeds seem to grow longer coats than others. Older horses seem to grow longer coats than younger ones, and they also seem to keep the coats a little later into the spring. You can have four horses in a field together, and see four distinctly different winter coats. It doesn't matter, as long as the horses are healthy and as long as they stay warm.
Coats help retain heat, but they don't provide it -- the heat has to come from inside the horse. Coats also disguise body oondition to some extent. What does this mean for you? Two things:
First, you must help your horses stay warm by providing them with hay throughout the winter. Don't add grain to try to provide more heat -- it's the process of digestion that keeps the horses warm, and your outdoor horses will do best if you give them free-choice hay throughout the winter.
Second, you'll need to monitor your horses' body condition by feel. Looking won't tell you everything you need to know, so once a day at least, just run your hands over those horses. If you feel padding under the coats, and ribs under the padding, you'll know that they are doing well. If you feel less padding or if you notice that the ribs have become more prominent, you'll be able to increase the feed immediately.
It's much easier to put a little extra weight on horses before winter, and then try to keep it on, than it is to add weight to horses that have gotten thin during the winter. A horse that goes into a cold winter carrying an extra 50 or 75 pounds will be better able to cope with an occasional day or two of horrible weather.
As for the blankets -- if the horses are healthy and well-fed, and have good coats of their own, they'll be better off without blankets most of the time. Without their blankets, they can move freely, and their own coats will "fluff up" to create a warm-air barrier between their skins and the cold air.
Blankets are necessary for horses that haven't been given a chance to develop coats -- for instance, if you brought a horse from Florida to West Virginia in January, you would want to blanket that horse to make up for the coat it didn't have (and if you took a horse from West Virginia to Florida, you would probably clip it, for the same reason -- to make it more comfortable in its new environment). But for horses that are already accustomed to the region and to living out, blankets can be reserved for the very worst weather. If the horses have a three-sided shelter, just keep an eye on the weather, and if there's a storm coming that will involve a wind and/or wet snow blowing into the OPEN side of the shelter, put those waterproof blankets on!
Remember that horses do very well in winter as long as they get enough to eat and have a constant supply of water to drink. As long as the horses are in good condition, can exercise freely, have water, hay, and salt, and have a shelter of some sort that protects them from the prevailing wind, and as long as your daily check tells you that they are looking cheerful and holding their weight, you can probably keep those blankets in the barn. Horses like temperatures that humans find chilly, so don't succumb to "Mommy Syndrome" -- that's when you put a warm jacket on your child because YOU are cold. ;-)
When you think that it's a cold night and you'd like an extra blanket on YOUR bed, don't run out and blanket the horses -- wait until it's actually getting too cold FOR THEM. On the night when the wind is going to be blowing wet snow INTO their shelter, you'll be able to blanket them -- and you may be able to take the blankets off the very next morning when the sun is out. If you stay alert to your horses' condition, you'll get them through the winter in good condition whether the blankets are used for a month, a week, a single night, or not at all. ;-)
Jessica
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