Blankets

["Howard Bramhall" <hwb67@msn.com>]

----- Original Message -----

From: Drin Becker

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 12:33 PM

To: ridecamp@endurance.net

Subject: RC: Re: Blankets

 

" But, heck, I understand, in some parts of Idaho, horses are turned out in the snow all winter, no shelter and do just fine.

Karen "

We live at 6500 ft. and have about 15 head of assorted horses from foals to 30+ that are never ever in a barn , stall or lean to in the winter , they are all kept in a crick bottom with lots of willow bushes . We get an average of 2 feet of snow most the winter and temps that dip below 30 below at times and hang on like that for days . When it gets below 0 we let them free feed on hay until the temps come back up above 0 but otherwise they are fed grass hay once a day and nothing else . We do keep loose rock salt out for them at all times and then a heated water trough so they can choose
between the crick or the trough . Since we started with the rock salt we have had no more winter colic episodes .

 Drin Becker

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You cold weather horse people are just blowing me away with all this.  I always thought you had heaters in your barns and you were the ones who purchased those neat looking hood attachments to match the sub zero horse blankets that I see advertised in State Line tack.  I'm very surprised that ya'll wait till it hits zero to think about blanketing.  I can't remember the last time I experienced 20 degrees, let alone zero.  Maybe when I was in Korea, but that seems like a lifetime ago, and I never did see one horse when I was stationed there (I did look for them).

I do think there are exceptions to this blanketing thing.  Down here in Central Florida none of my horses ever develop much of a coat.  This is a good thing in the summer months, very necessary to surviving a brutal summer.  But, we can get some weather that does go below freezing in December, January, and even into February.  Usually doesn't last but a day or two then warms back up to 80.

So, when it does get cold, I blanket my guys. A shivering horse scares me down here.  I guess my guys are just spoiled is all.  Probably seems silly to those of you who have horses in Montana or Colorado or even Virginia, but I figure since my Florida horses don't have much of a coat, and I really don't want them getting too much of one, blanketing isn't such a bad idea. And I just don't like the idea of clipping (kind of like men shaving their underarms.  Why do that?).  haha

I do have a plan behind all this.  When I travel north, just a bit, to attend an endurance ride in early spring, and the weather's kind of warm, I think I just might have an edge on your horses who are carrying around those polar bear coats.  Course, you could always clip (men, get out those underarm razor blades), but then you'd have to blanket your horse when you got back home.  Just a thought.

 

cya,

Howard (Daaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyoooooooooooooooooooo, dayyyyyyyyyyyyooooooooooo)