Are your horses wearing rugs at night?

As marmalade76 kindly points out LW sheets are about as useful as a chocolate teapot in winter.

You may as well clip horses out and leave to freeze.

When rugging, you must consider what value you are adding e.g. replacing lost natural insulation (coat) or to keep warmer still. It should be to replace natural insulation as a MINIMUM!

LW rugs will just flatten the coat and the horse will be even colder than if you were not to rug at all.
 
marmalade76 said:
Abolutely not! If it gets a bit cold at night it would do them both good, they could do with useing up a few calories keeping warm! One I do rug in the winter 'cause I clip him, my sec B never wears a rug.



Have you considered that by putting a LW rug on your pony during the snow might actually make feel the cold more? A LW rug will offer little warmth itself and will actually prevent her coat from working as it's meant to by flattening it down and preventing it from trapping air like a duvet. My sec B never wore a rug in all the snow last year and she was her usual spritely self.
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Really good advice there.
 
No way! I have a native and he was fine throughout the winter with nothing on so a few showers and a chilly wind won't hurt him during the summer. He is very lucky in that he has a field stable so can go in there for a bit to get away from the flies...so in my opinion, he does not need a fly rug and would rather he got some sun on his back.
 
Not at the moment as far too hot and they have field shelters for when it rains tonight. My pony who really feels the cold gets rugged when temperature down to single figures. Another one only gets rugged once down to about 3 degrees.
 
Mine live out 24/7 and aren't rugged, even the exotic Arabian "show horse" is as nekkid as the day he was born. And he will continue that way for some time yet. It's going to rain hard tonight... they'll get wet...
 
Mines been out without a rug on since april, well except for the one night when it was supposed to rain ("a bit") & we had to be off early in the morning as I have no stable to dry her in so put her rain sheet... unfortunately the bit of rain predicted was torrential & the poor horse was soaked through, would have been better without a rug! :( Luckily the rally was cancelled & I could use a stable to dry her off.

She will be rug free probably till about december... or if she gets clipped then a bit earlier.

Never knew that about rain sheets, mine had hers on till mid-december last year as Dad didn't realise it was the thin one :rolleyes: (i was at uni) & if I remember rightly he'd clipped her.. but only a bib.
 
My horses wear fly sheets and fly masks, they are UV reflective so they do not get hot in them. Without them they come in covered in huge lumps and are very sore so I will continue to use them.
 
Since fattie Haffie doesnt have a rug on in -20 degrees up here I would be unlikely to be rugging her now! 18yo IDxTB has a rug on in winter IF both wet and windy, otherwise none. Would not even contemplate a rug at this time of year (other than a fly rug)

I cant believe people are describing 'below' 11-12 degrees as rug weather in August!! Up here, thats a hot summers day!!

On the basis that horses DO NOT MELT IN THE RAIN they are unlikely to dissolve without a rug!!

Heres Haffie with her tres cruel miserable winter lifestyle :-))
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do some of you live in antatartica?????? i'm gobsmacked that people are putting LW,s on at this time of year. I have an ISH, a welsh xTB and 2 welsh B's, none of them get rugged apart from the ISH.....in the WINTER! and even she doesn't get rugged until the monsoons start and she can't dry out! oh and they even live out 24/7 all year round too :eek::rolleyes:
get a grip people, they're already equipped with a perfectly good coat, are all of you that are rugging going home and putting your fleecy winter pyjamas on to go to bed too?!
 
mine wears a lightweight waterproof sheet in the rain because A) he hates it and B) he is looking a wee bit skinny so want him to use the food for condition not burn it off to keep warm.
 
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