Does anyone else's horse go off their food if they are too warm?

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Tash88

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Due to the freezing weather and the fact that my horse was only clipped (trace, neck off) on Monday I've rugged him up rather well; I don't want him to lose any more condition as he looks perfect at the moment and my friend who brought him in on Monday said that he was cold in just his heavyweight turnout. So I put a light/medium stable rug underneath and he's been fine.

This morning he seemed fine in himself, but he wasn't very interested in his breakfast, and he hadn't eaten all of his hay. He was warm in his two rugs, maybe a little too warm as it is considerably milder today. A friend said that he might be too hot so I undid the neck on his heavyweight turnout and the chest straps on both rugs, and he immediately started eating again. He's gone out in just his turnout rug today so hopefully he will be okay.

I was wondering whether anyone else's horses were this sensitive, and should I be worried about future colic episodes/an underlying illness?

Thanks, Tash x
 
My boy is a real pig and loves his food :D but if he is too hot he gets v grumpy and goes off his food, he will eat his hard feed but will only pick at his hay. So I keep him minimally rugged and he seems much happier.
 
Gorgeous George said:
My boy is a real pig and loves his food :D but if he is too hot he gets v grumpy and goes off his food, he will eat his hard feed but will only pick at his hay. So I keep him minimally rugged and he seems much happier.
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Well I'm glad that my horse isn't the only one to do this! He isn't an especially greedy horse and tends to get distracted when eating, like if he hears an interesting noise he will leave his bucket to investigate. So I suppose your horse leaving his hay is roughly equivalent to my horse leaving his bucket feed. He also had the added distraction of my brother being there this morning so we left him alone for a while to see if he would eat... He still wasn't interested so I knew something was wrong as usually he has no problem with me doing things in the adjacent tack room/around him when he's eating.

Hopefully it was only because he was too hot and this is something I'll have to keep in mind.
 
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