Blanketing

I like to blanket my horse any time he works up a sweat in winter. When the temperature is around 40degrees or less. I put him in the barn and blanket him for 1- 1 1/2 hours. After that I take off the blanket because I think that it is not doing much to benefit him as he is cooled off and the blanket has soaked up moisture. If the weather is very bad (high winds, ice, rain) I may keep him in the barn longer. I keep a few blankets on rotation so I always have a dry one. I have mainly wool blankets and one polar fleece both types wick the sweat well.

Amanda, I’m not sure where you live, but clipping a horse in the Northeast during winter, IMHO, is just cruel. I know people do it…but I believe it is generally done for the convenience of the horse owner, not the horse.

You may be far enough south where the issue is entirely a different matter:o so please don’t take offense…it just matters where you live. I believe George lives in northern Vermont.

I guess I should have added my approach to sweaty horses in the winter here in the northeast. The issue is really two-fold. First, a wet horse cannot use his coat the way it is intended to keep warm. Second, a working horse pumps more blood through their muscles during work which creates heat and subsequently sweat. When you take away the work, these vasodilated muscles get cold, fast unless gradually cooled down with lower level excercise (ie. walking). So the approach to a sweaty, working horse should address those two issues. I like fleece as a sweat wicking layer, though wool has been used for eons, just to get the moisture off the horse. I also allow them to move around out in the pasture so they can cool down on their own. Standing…even in the barn can allow them to cool down too quickly. If you are workig in the woods and have a fair walk back to the barn, that might be sufficient as a cool down. The goal is to have a dry, vaso-constricted (blood flow to the big muscles are down to normal) horse to turn back out to their paddock.

I have 2 very nice blankets, still in the plastic bags. Bought 6 years ago.
The best thing I have found is to take a shedding blade or curry comb and ruff the animals hair up so that the air can get to the hair and dry it. When I turn them out the first thing that they do is to take a good roll in the snow.
A blanket only serves to mat the hair down, eliminating the air that is drying the animals hair so that he can keep himself warm.
One other thing is if you walk them the last 15 of 20 minutes on the way home they cool down and dry out alot.
Equine blankets seem to mostly make people feel good.
I understand that by blanketing you are only trying to do right by your animals. I’ve found it to be a misguided effort. If you choose to do that more power to ya.

On the race track in winter, if you bring them in not puffing but running sweat down their body, we take a towel and towel them off. Then we throw a wool cooler or two on dependent upon how cold it is. In your situation, inside a barn with no wind, if the temp was above freezing in the barn, one blanket, if below freezing in the barn two.

Then you come back in about half hour 45 min. and see if the blanket is full of condensation on top. If so, you pull it off and put another dry one on if the horse is still wet. Then, same thing again til dry.

It is bad for their muscles to go from hot and full of blood and lactic acid to standing around still in the cold.

After they are completely dry you can let them go outside without a blanket. It’s when they are wet and cold that it’s very hard for them to keep warm. If they are dry their hair will fluff up on its own and form an air barrier to keep the heat in which it cannot do when wet and matted down.

I can tell you when blanketing is too much.
Last night it got down to 42 degrees here in south Florida. All the horses here have a complete body clip, no questions asked. Most horses had a sheet or two or a light blanket on. Poor Milltown, I found him dripping with sweat just standing in his stall. he had on a sheet a baker blanket, a wool whitney blanket and a well insulated heavy turnout rug. The bottom two layers were soaked and the whitney was wicking moisture into the rug. Some people just don’t understand that horses are large BTU producing animals that prefer cooler temps. I can understand keeping the chill off a bit so their coat doesn’t grow in too fast, but this was way to much clothing for one animal. I ended up taking off 2 layers and let him cool down while I braided him, and gave him the 2 driest layers for the rest of the night. I hate taking the liberty to change what my customer wanted for their horse, but I couldn’t let this one go.