Blanketing

[Does’ Leap]

I spent some time cleaning up a future sugar bush today. We were pulling out firewood and softwood saw logs (hemlock and spruce). Unharnessing, the steam was billowing from the horses and there was sweat running off them as I brushed them down. It is 25 here (feeling tropical after a stint of below zero weather) and no wind and I put them in the barn with hay and water, no blankets. After getting back to the house, I thought better and went back down and blanketed them. I will remove the blankets after evening chores.

What do folks do with sweaty winter horses and when to blanket? Is there a temperature threshold? Wind? Inside or out?

Thanks.

George

[Michael Low]

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.

[amanda07]

Hi, George.
I like to clip out my horses expected to work hard over the winter. I had a nasty experience when I scalded my mare many years ago. Now, if they are expected to work for the greater part of the week, I find they go better (freer, and less stifled) when clipped. They dry off quickly and can be turned out in the usual field rug. Otherwise for the odd overheat, I’d thatch under the rug after scraping off and rubbing dry as best as pos. What are your views on clipping over there in the states? Cheers, Amanda

[jen judkins]

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.

[J-L]

Let them roll in the snow. I’ve never owned a horse blanket.

[jen judkins]

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.

[amanda07]

You’re very probably right!! It took a little time for me to work out that certain contributors were not warm at 24 deg. We count in centigrade. Silly me. We are at 500m altitude and the lowest we go really is -15deg. I’m sure the extremes are much more important for youse. Here, as I said, clipping works really well for recovery and drying.
A.

[CIW]

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.

[sanhestar]

I’d say that it depends on many things if you should/need to blanket a horse and what the effect of blankening will be

If you have a horse with a really heavy winter coat that works itself easy into a sweat (had one of those – imported Iceland horse) it won’t get dry for itself for 12 hours or more. Even in a moderate cold that can’t be good for the animal.

A simple blanket (wool, canvas, etc.) will matt down the hair. What one needs is a blanket that will transport dampness and heat to the outside and has more than one layer. Cordura is a good choice for that, combined with other fibres.

What worked for me and my horse (you need to check if it’s still doable under the weather conditions at your place) is clipping only partially. F.e. if the horse has a long, heavy mane, you might clip only under the mane (allowing some of the body heat to dissipate faster with still providing protection against weather and wind). Or only a part of chest and/or neck that is muscled (the muscles will produce warmth during movement). Or a small (one hand width) stripe around the whole body, running along from the tip of the shoulder to the ischium (I called that ralley stripes). These small “holes” in the overall insulation that the coat provides are points where too much body heat can dissipate faster.

this type may already be too extensive for really cold temperatures. This is ok for moderate winters. But if you keep the belly covered and reduce the amount of clipping on the neck, it may work.

[manesntails]

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.

[becorson]

I don’t think you could make a hard-and-fast rule on when exactly to blanket a horse –too many variables. it would depend too much on the temperature, the humidity, wind, and also how fat the horses are (fat does more for insulation than hair), how big the horses are, (larger animals have a lower surface -to-volume ratio and therefor they cool off slower than small animals) and other factors as well.

As a general rule, i think it’s more important to blanket a horse if he has to stand for more than a minute or two when he’s hot , and you are going to ask him to work again.
The Amish blanket their (road) horses in cold weather if they have to stand tied for even a few minutes when they are hot and wet . in norway, the horse loggers i worked with did the same thing. (blanketed horses only during rest breaks, when they were hot and were going to work again after a bit. )

as was mentioned above, the main thing you want the blanket to do in a situation like this is to keep the muscles warm and ready to work again.
my two cents for what they’re worth.

[dominiquer60]

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.

[Carl Russell]

I have mentioned this in other posts, but I agree with some of you, that as a general rule, horses don’t need blanketing. However, I have used blankets for years, when at the end of a winter day in the woods. I am not concerned about the wet hair per se, more so that the animals are still warm-hot, as they have just come to the landing with a normal working load.

There is no way that in a natural setting, horses would ever exert themselves at the level that I have expected from them, so I feel I need to take responsibility for that. I could spend 1/2 hour walking them to cool off, but it’s usually 4:30-5:00pm, and I use the blankets purely to let me do other chores, or drive truck and trailer home, letting the horses cool down slowly, so they don’t get chilled. I rarely leave the blanket on more than 1-2 hrs, and then turn them out.

Horses that are in good flesh, and hard from regular work will sweat much less. Even still in very cold weather like zero, moisture will condense on the hair during work, but as several have pointed out, it is not so much the wet hair as the body warmth that needs to be regulated. I haven’t hurt my horses treating them like this for over twenty years.

Carl

[Author]

Posts