Clipped out porker horse and no rugs -cruel?

I agree that exercise would be better. Am currently in the position that Frank cannot be worked and we also know that a lot of people struggle with exercise at this time of year (and I get :eek: on here cos I go out before it gets light.) Hence people try and make a reasonable decision given what they can do.
It might be warm now but I hoping upon hope it will get cold asap (which it really should do) so my boy has to keep himself a bit warmer and the grass will stop being so happy. Much better to clip the horse now though, when we have a few days of warmer weather as it will then be less of a shock when it gets a little chillier :).
 
Some strong emotions involved here.

Personally I prefer to leave unclipped and not rug, even my tb isn't rugged. If mine were in work that made them sweat a lot I would consider a clip.
I'm sure a clip that doesn't remove back hair or comes high on the sides is preferable to a full clip (clipped out to me) for a horse to be kept cooler as an aid to weight loss. I choose not to do this because hair is a major protection from the weather as well as an aid to thermoregulation, it stands up in wind and cold weather to form an air layer. Remove it and bare skin is exposed to the elements, this is the reason we rug.

Tbh, I think we mess too much with heat regulation in our horses, rugs on and off when we think it's appropriate but what happens when we go home? How long are many actually with their horses in the 24 hour day? How long has the horse been shivering or sweating before we get there?

If a horse is very overweight it can't loose weight overnight it takes months so the spring grass is still going to be a problem. Weight loss and maintainance is imo a long term thing and finding a management that works in the long term is for me the way to go as opposed to the yo yo management that I used to have. :o
Easy keepers are imo much more work for us... :)

Just to add. I think using a clip as an aid should be a small part of weight management, diet and exercize should be the main focus.
 
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Gosh! Come back after a day and find my post has practically gone viral!

Anyway, thanks for all your comments. To answer a few questions:

Clip - I have given her a low chaser clip, with her head left unclipped, so not that different from clipping a horse completely and having a rug on its back. She has a very thick coat and a copious mane that falls all the way down her neck on both sides and she is nearly always a bit sweaty under it. There is a large field shelter in her paddock and they go in it if it rains. I will keep an eye on her and will rug her if I have to, maybe, but probably only if it is very wet. Having seen herds of haffies standing out and looking quite happy in deep snow with temperatures well below freezing in Austria, I suspect that there will not be much that Sussex weather can do to her, even with a bare tummy and throat.

Exercise - I am going to start leading her out with my horse. Weak excuse maybe, but in summer I have to go through a large field of cows and both my horses are very wary of cows, with the one I ride actually being scared of them. I always thought it was the riders who were actually scared of cows, but have had to re-adjust that belief! The cows have now gone off to their barn for the winter so I can take Haffie with me.

Feed - I have cut her hay down and soak it, but won't go too far as I don't like leaving horses for hours with nothing to eat and she is in her stable for up to 12 hours at night. She gets no hard feed.

The basic problem really is that I have taken a horse bred for one situation (living in the mountains in Austria/Italy with hard work) and transported her to the lush lowlands of Sussex and an easy life. On reflection, I should probably have chosen the breed of my companion horse with more care, but most/all native types would probably have the same issues.

I realise now that without exercise I am not going to be able to control her weight. I believe in keeping my horses for life so I will have to manage it and persuade my OH to hurry up and learn how to ride properly! He is off for lessons next week....
 
Op, that all sounds very sensible. Good luck.

Ester, sometimes I wonder if I'm losing the plot. It's always reassuring when you appear and say the same things ;) :D
 
Spot on, you sound very sensible in your approach. Every horse I have from hairy natives to TB's seem to be good doers that only keep weight off with exercise and minimal/no rugging.
I think people sometimes forget horses are meant to live outside and therefore are much better at regulating their body temperature than we are. I could not live in a field through snow and storms even wearing the latest technology in outdoor clothing, but horses are designed to live that way.
If farmers thought like horseowners, cattle would be rugged. Now there's a thought for the marketing people at weatherbeeta.
 
Petalpoos said:
Gosh! Come back after a day and find my post has practically gone viral!

Anyway, thanks for all your comments. To answer a few questions:

Clip - I have given her a low chaser clip, with her head left unclipped, so not that different from clipping a horse completely and having a rug on its back. She has a very thick coat and a copious mane that falls all the way down her neck on both sides and she is nearly always a bit sweaty under it. There is a large field shelter in her paddock and they go in it if it rains. I will keep an eye on her and will rug her if I have to, maybe, but probably only if it is very wet. Having seen herds of haffies standing out and looking quite happy in deep snow with temperatures well below freezing in Austria, I suspect that there will not be much that Sussex weather can do to her, even with a bare tummy and throat.

Exercise - I am going to start leading her out with my horse. Weak excuse maybe, but in summer I have to go through a large field of cows and both my horses are very wary of cows, with the one I ride actually being scared of them. I always thought it was the riders who were actually scared of cows, but have had to re-adjust that belief! The cows have now gone off to their barn for the winter so I can take Haffie with me.

Feed - I have cut her hay down and soak it, but won't go too far as I don't like leaving horses for hours with nothing to eat and she is in her stable for up to 12 hours at night. She gets no hard feed.

The basic problem really is that I have taken a horse bred for one situation (living in the mountains in Austria/Italy with hard work) and transported her to the lush lowlands of Sussex and an easy life. On reflection, I should probably have chosen the breed of my companion horse with more care, but most/all native types would probably have the same issues.

I realise now that without exercise I am not going to be able to control her weight. I believe in keeping my horses for life so I will have to manage it and persuade my OH to hurry up and learn how to ride properly! He is off for lessons next week....
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Excellent idea to lead out with your horse. I could not justify a clip on a horse unless it is to prevent excessive sweating during exercise. Hopefully the exercise will start to show results. :)
 
OP I think you have exactly the right idea, and your point about a clipped horse with a rug on still having a bare tum is very pertinent.

As the owner of an overweight haffie who recently had a lami scare, I really sympathise with you. Ignore those who say 'would you do this to a person' - horses are NOT people and have a completely different system of warming (apparently 80% comes from food, only 20% from rugging). So if out grazing, they are very unlikely to be cold with a chaser clip if they are a fat cob unless it is both wet and windy, and then they have the shelter. It is FAR crueller to leave the pony at its current weight than to do a minimal clip in the current weather and in your set up where shelter is available.

A couple of tips from the dieting I have had to do with my girl. Do try and get hold of some oat straw. Altho its low in protein/vits/mins, so shouldnt be the sole forage it is much lower in energy than hay (even soaked) and will give your pony a longer and more satisfying chew if you mix it in with the soaked hay.

Do try the grazing muzzle and persevere even if (like mine) they run away at the sight of the bright pink evil thing! After a few days they do adapt and get a reasonable amount of grass, but just a lot less/slower than without the muzzle.

1.5% of bodyweight (for everything, all food incl grass) will lead to a steady weight loss, my Haffie has lost over 50kg so far tho she still has a reasonable way to go! Vet very happy with 1.5%.

Assuming 1kg of grass per hour out grazing for 12 hours, with grass at 20% dry matter (rest water!) then 2.4kg comes from grass. If pony weighs 500kg (just as an eg) then 1.5% would be 7.5kg total so you would only want 5kg from all the rest of the feed. 5kg would be 2 haynets (normal not large nets). If you used straw the net might be a bit fuller as its bulkier. Can I recommend getting a hanging weigher - mine was less than £10 from ebay and its fantastic for shocking you into realising how heavy the weight of the net is!

I wish you all success with your dieting; exercise will really help too, and there is nothing cruel about your plans, only in being discouraged by silly anthropomorphic comments into not taking the necessary action to ensure your pony doesnt stay one of the 75% of overweight horses in this country. Good on you!
 
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Wagtail said:
This is a silly thread really because no, the arguments are not applicable because of the mild weather. Only three of my eight are rugged at the moment except for if it rains when they all have a lightweight.

But the reason I think this thread is silly is that the OP clipped her horse to make it cold so it would lose weight. In this weather the horse would not be cold in any case! But what is even sillier, is that those who support her actions say she can put a rug on the horse if it gets cold! :confused: Erm...wouldn't that then defeat the object of what she is trying to do? Therefore are you really supporting the practice of intentionally making a horse cold in order for it to lose weight?

A far better way of addressing this problem would be to exercise the horse. The horse ought to at least be lunged daily. Time consuming, I know, but far kinder than trying to shiver the weight off.
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I think we have established that the clip is a chaser, so the horse will be cooler and therefore have to use up more energy to maintain its body heat but we would all agree, that even in weather cooler than we are experiencing at the moment, a Haffie with a chaser would be fine out unrugged. It would not be cold, but it would be slightly cooler and the effect would be that more calories would be burnt whilst not discomforting the horse.

I think that perhaps the problem here is 'wording' I would have no problem performing this kind of intervention with a porker, true I would first and foremost look at food, grazing, management and exercise first but quite possibly this sort of clip would factor in somewhere. I would stand there and say, 'the little porker can shiver his fat off' but what I would really be doing is NOT trying to make the horse cold and uncomfortable, just trying to make it work a little bit harder and therefore use up calories. Would I fully clip and turn out? NO! In my opinion that is cruel, would I have a seconds thought about a chaser clip and unrugged combo? No! The horse isn't even out at night!

OP you do need to focus on other things though, ride and lead, long rein him, lunge, free school. Much more exercise, lots of hay soaking, 2 cakes and tripple haynetting, no hard feed (unless something very light and only a handful (happy hoof/hi fi lite).

Good luck
 
God, started to write this while reading page 9, then read OPs response on page 10! sounds like you have a good plan OP.

However, on some levels I do think that, how we interpret some posts is far more down to the wording of the post and is not alway reflective of the true intention of the OP
 
queenbee said:
However, on some levels I do think that, how we interpret some posts is far more down to the wording of the post and is not alway reflective of the true intention of the OP
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Actually, QB (seriously, am I stalking you this morning?) you raise a seriously good point there.

Most of the bickering I end up doing on here is because one party (myself or the other poster) is not clear in what they are saying / misinterprets the other's posts. There is a tendancy for people to polarise their understanding of the opposing argument to extremes.

e.g. Wagtail leaps from a trace clipped pony out in the mild weather being encouraged to use its energy to keep warm, to a fully clipped pony shivering out in the snow. The latter is irrelevant to the OP's question as to whether the former is acceptable. However, the title of the thread and some of the OP may be misconstrued to suggest the OP is considering the latter situation, in which case Wagtail's comments would be important...

Basically people should pay more attention to how they phrase things and how they would appear to others. (Pot, kettle, black?)

You know what they say - the point of language is not to be understood, it's not to be misunderstood!
 
FAO Ester:
Sorry to hijack thread, but do you have a full picture of the horse in your avatar? Just being nosy as he has such a look of my lovely boy, who passed away 3 years ago...
 
I haven't read the thread but strongly suggest that any overweight posters who support clipping and turning out naked in sub-zero temperatures wait until it snows and then go out starkers for a few days. Guessing that would change your minds - even if you did lose the weight!
 
CeeBee said:
FAO Ester:
Sorry to hijack thread, but do you have a full picture of the horse in your avatar? Just being nosy as he has such a look of my lovely boy, who passed away 3 years ago...
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Sorry to hear that CeeBee. Yes, that's her, doing her dog impression. Sorry, but I have not quite worked out how to post pictures yet (!)
 
JFTD said:
Actually, QB (seriously, am I stalking you this morning?) you raise a seriously good point there.

Most of the bickering I end up doing on here is because one party (myself or the other poster) is not clear in what they are saying / misinterprets the other's posts. There is a tendancy for people to polarise their understanding of the opposing argument to extremes.

e.g. Wagtail leaps from a trace clipped pony out in the mild weather being encouraged to use its energy to keep warm, to a fully clipped pony shivering out in the snow. The latter is irrelevant to the OP's question as to whether the former is acceptable. However, the title of the thread and some of the OP may be misconstrued to suggest the OP is considering the latter situation, in which case Wagtail's comments would be important...

Basically people should pay more attention to how they phrase things and how they would appear to others. (Pot, kettle, black?)

You know what they say - the point of language is not to be understood, it's not to be misunderstood!
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I do NOT misinterpret posts:mad:

LOL:D:rolleyes::D
 
scarymare said:
I haven't read the thread but strongly suggest that any overweight posters who support clipping and turning out naked in sub-zero temperatures wait until it snows and then go out starkers for a few days. Guessing that would change your minds - even if you did lose the weight!
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Firstly it is very warm at the mo, and by the time it snows in OPs neck of the woods, half the fuzz will have grown back. And OP can rug in snow if they feel pony is cold. Secondly the pony is not naked, it has all of its coat except for a strip underneath. And a field shelter. And food, which gives 4/5 of warmth to horses.

And lastly IT IS NOT A HUMAN IT IS A HORSE.

#fin
 
Personally, I'd rather not make my horse cold in order for him to lose weight. Definately reduce the amount of hay (and any hard feed) you're giving in the first instance. If the horse is out anyway then let him live off whats there. Are you able to ride? Exercise would be the ideal thing to do.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
Firstly it is very warm at the mo, and by the time it snows in OPs neck of the woods, half the fuzz will have grown back.
Then why clip at all? The whole point of the original post was she was wanting the horse to lose weight because she would be colder.
And OP can rug in snow if they feel pony is cold.

Wouldn't that defeat the object of wanting the horse to lose weight by making her cold?

Secondly the pony is not naked, it has all of its coat except for a strip underneath. And a field shelter. And food, which gives 4/5 of warmth to horses. Again, defeats the objective of the clip

And lastly IT IS NOT A HUMAN IT IS A HORSE. fin
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So you don't think other animals might feel the same way as us when they feel pain or cold or the sweetness of an apple?

For what it's worth, I think it is fine for a horse to be lightly clipped and out without a rug in this weather. But I do disagree with trying to make them lose weight by making them cold.
 
Wagtail said:
So you don't think other animals might feel the same way as us when they feel pain or cold or the sweetness of an apple?

For what it's worth, I think it is fine for a horse to be lightly clipped and out without a rug in this weather. But I do disagree with trying to make them lose weight by making them cold.
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I dont think the animal will feel either pain nor especially cold in a human transposed way since we dont have fur on our backs or sides like this horse will continue to do (!), nor do our insides work the same, nor are apples really relevant.

But I DO think it will keep the horse cooler than it currently is, and will assist if the necessary exercise regime is implemented to actually stop the horse getting chilled by being wet, and instead keep the animal on the cool side of warm so they use some energy staying warm from their feed and help avoid the animal actually continue to gain weight which is what is happening at the moment.

If it was the only thing OP did to make the animal lose weight, or if it were a bigger clip, it would be very wrong, but as part of a program of feed cut, increased exercise and small clip then it can have a role and may even make the horse more comfy - especially as being overweight and with a Haffie coat they are going to sweat up the minute they break out of a walk.

My Haffie is out unrugged in temps down to -20 (daytime!) every winter (we are in Cairngorms!). She gets way too hot when being ridden in the snow and I would certainly consider a neck and belly clip for her. I wouldnt have any issue about that and if it helped keep her trim as a side benefit I wouldn't feel guilty but instead would be way happier that she was a healthy weight than if she repeated the weight gain she put on last winter when we had 5 months of snow.

The thing here is the horse will NOT necessarily be cold - they will be using their excess fat to keep them warm, thats the key and that is good for this horse and not bad for it in its individual circumstances.
 
I think people have to remember how little food these good doers need to maintain their weights. Fine when they're out on mountains or moors when they have to travel miles on poor grazing, they get more than enough fibre with very little goodness in it and a fair bit of low impact exercise to boot.

However, they way we have to keep ours (generally) which means that they are restricted to small paddocks and standing in overnight which means that we supplement with forage so they stay healthy, both physically and mentally. Even the oldest, driest hay has 10 times the nutritional value of what these types are designed to eat...so human intervention becomes essential as their weight blooms!

Like any diet be it human or equine, there has to be an element of restriction of calories and an upping of exercise. If this isn't balanced properly, there is a danger of damaging the pony - either by putting the joints of a fat pony under too much pressure and causing injury (seen this a lot!), bringing on concussive laminitis with too much trotting on hard surfaces in an already borderline laminitic or by restricting forage to an extent that causes ulcers and behavioural problems. There are equines out there that can put on weight despite muzzling, paradise paddock systems, soaked hay, living out 24/7 and daily work - I know I have one!I spent an entire winter riding in the dark...no fun but he enjoyed it!

In those cases, you do whatever you need to do to keep the dreaded laminitis away. The Blue Cross, D&H and my vet all recommended that my boy was TRACE clipped and left unrugged. As it happened, he was LW rugged in prolonged wet weather as he is prone to rain scald but as soon as it dried up, off came the rug. That was 2 years ago in the first bad winter - and despite all the above he only dropped 50 much needed to go kgs...what do others suggest you do? People really don't realise how bloody hard it is.
 
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