Following the naked post, how cold has it got to be for you to rug?

Archiesmummy

Archiesmummy

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I have read, with interest, the previous post regarding horses being rugged and many people have said its really, really cold.

What is cold to you?

I live down on the South Coast and Archie will stay unrugged until at least 1-2 degrees. If its wet he will get a lightweight. Only when it drops below freezing do I think about rugging. He lives out 24/7/365 and really needs to acclimatise himself to the long winter ahead as much as nature intends, then I will help him out the rest of the way.

So, what horses have you got, whats their turnout say from now to end of April and what is your rugging regime?
 
I have a DWB and an Irish Cob - they have had lightweights on at night mostly through the summer, and have had lightweights on 24/7 for about two months! One was upgraded to a middleweight about two weeks ago. The boys are out 24/7 still, and hopefully will be until end of October. They will then be out in the day throughout the winter until about April. When weather it really bad, they stay in most of the day as well, with turnout in the school for a couple of hours (this is really on the odd day where they would hate being out in the wind/rain as our fields have litter natural shelter).

I have another warmblood who gets quite hot - she has just started having a sheet on at night. The mare is currently in 24/7 (recuperating from illness)

We are in Suffolk
 
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I will rug mine in a lightweight turnout when it drops below 5 or if it is exceptionally rainy and wet.
Heavyweights are for snow. Mine spent most of last winter in a middleweight.
 
Tbh I never check the actual temperature. Check Phil's ears and armpits and if he seems happy then all is well.

And, shock horror! If he isn't being worked this winter he will be starkers ;)
 
Most of mine are only rugged if it is persistenly wet and cold. In as much as they can't dry off at all (as they live out 24/7/365). A bit of shivering doesn't concern me as long as they are coping.
My tb is usually rugged for the worst part of winter..probably january/february time onwards but again it depends on how wet it is. He is growing a pretty good coat already this year so hopefully he'll be fine till then.
Snow and ice doesn't concern mine but cold, persistent rain does.
No hard and fast rules...I just let them let me know whether they need rugging:)
 
My lot live out 24/7 but will occasionaly come in for the odd night if we have prolonged wet and windy weather. My two non ridden natives dont wear rungs. The two ridden horses will normaly be rugged with light weights end of Oct/beginning of Nov arouing the time they have their first clip, depending on the weather, even then they may have them off during the day whilst there is still strenght in the sun. My old girl has worn her light weight over the summer a few times when it has been wet and windy (when she has been shivering). The process is then reversed in the spring.

I think we forget that horses are designed to live without rugs in the wild and by putting a rug on we can compromise the insulating effect of their own fur. When it is v cold the best place to warm your hands up is under my little weshies mane!

We realy only rug the ridden ones for our own convenience. We dont actualy own any heavy weight rugs!
 
My very sensitive tb is wearing 100-200g when it is below 10 at night. then when she is clipped (usually below 6 ish at night) she wears her medium combo and then when it gets really cold like 1 or 2 degrees minus she wears her fab heavy weight combo which is about 350g. sometimes if its beloow minus and really cold we pop her cooler on underneath but that is quite rare.
With my 3 year old he will only wear a light weight when it is rainy and cold at 5 degrees ish. he will wear his medium without neck when it is 0 degrees and when he is out at night when it is below freezing he will wear his 300g combo which is new! lol.
lola the 2 yr exmoor will be naked all winter :O but she has got the special exmoor thermal coat etc. i am not going to groom her all that much either so she retains the waterproof properties :)
 
They`re naked at the mo' unless there is really bad rain given for the night then i`ll chuck a lightweight on.
Medium weights will go on when needed, below 1 degree or if the horses look like they need it, (dropping weight etc) :D
They are being clipped this year so may actually get to wear their heavy weights if Februarys big freeze is anything to go by!
 
xRobyn said:
Tbh I never check the actual temperature. Check Phil's ears and armpits and if he seems happy then all is well.
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/\ /\ Pretty much this, for my veteran. She's not a very good doer, but she is pretty hardy to the cold, and hates getting too hot.


For my other girl (v well bred WB ;) but now retired due to injury) she never wears a rug with any fill - only a LW rambo to stop her getting soaked/rainscald as they are out 24/7 and it's quite open where they are. I have a job keeping the weight off her now that she's retired and she never felt cold last winter, even in the worst of the snow.
 
Depends on their environment as well as temperature. Mine are currently out on grass livery with a busy herd that move over 14 acres with plenty of grass, natural shelter and two open barns. The H/W cob was fully clipped yesterday and is out naked. WB X TB, is a finely built girl and out naked too. Temperatures are very mild,and mostly dry, not going under 10 at night, apart from once when it was 5. Cob won't wear more than a mid weight, no neck in the worst of the winter, while the mare will probably do well in a H/W combo when the weather is really bad.
 
If I need my coat on then horse has a rug, thats generally how I gauge it!

My two live out all year and we do have woodland at one end of the fields which is great shelter but if there is a NE wind then there is no shelter so I tend to really rug them up then as its biting up there. I do tend to rug G when others are naked because he is snow white and I like to try and keep him clean! Ambs is 25 so she gets a bit mollycoddled these days anyway. They are both clipped in the winter too so usually by the depths of winter they have a middleweight with a neck during the day and an underrug on as well at night.
 
i have two arabs. one is 33 and has been on good feeds all summer - i can't afford for her to lose any weight yet so she is in 100g rug. my other horse feels the cold in his back causing all manner of tension issues, he was in two rain rugs - one rain sheet didn't hold the rain out as it was far too windy and persistent rain. he is now in 100g stable rug under the rain rug as it is cold. cold temperature is fine - i have turned mine out naked when its been frosty. However, the air is damp and the wind chill makes it far worse.
Its been dropping to around 7 degrees but with added cold rain and wind it doesn't feel as warm as that. I check to see if the horse has its tail clamped between its bum cheeks, if it is, the horse is hunched up and cold (and causes tension through the back etc) - if the tail is quite loose the horse is warm enough. 100g is adequate for my two at the moment, they have a winter coat starting to come through and from experience, rugging now to keep the chill off won't affect how much it comes through (if it does i dread to think the winter coat they could grow and what it would be like to groom in spring!).
my two are also out all year day and night and have very little shelter.
 
I don't have a specific temperature which triggers me rugging the horses. It is more when it starts raining for hours on end combined with bitterly cold winds that gets me reaching for the rugs. Freezing/sub zero temperatures but still air doesn't seem to cause them a problem but the second there is a bit of a breeze with it then they notice.
 
My tb is a bit to hairy to rug up atm :o Hes stabled and got to sweaty the other day when i attempted rugging him with a summer sheet to keep him clean, so he will be left unrugged until i clip this week. But when hes out during the day he has a waterproof summer rug on so he doesnt get dirty and thank goodness he doesnt sweat in that or hed go from grey to brown lol ... once clipped he'll be rugged until june-ish
 
Archiesmummy said:
I have read, with interest, the previous post regarding horses being rugged and many people have said its really, really cold.

What is cold to you? Used to be about 0C (what a wimp I was:() now, really, REALLY cold is about -30C without windchill, a WARM day is -10C (rugs come off then so they can have some sun on their backs:) , it is all relative, like in summer, a warm day is 25C, it gets hot when it hits 35C in my book.

I live down on the South Coast and Archie will stay unrugged until at least 1-2 degrees. If its wet he will get a lightweight. Only when it drops below freezing do I think about rugging. He lives out 24/7/365 and really needs to acclimatise himself to the long winter ahead as much as nature intends, then I will help him out the rest of the way.

So, what horses have you got, Natives, that is, QH's, Paints. Then a Morgan, a mini, and an Arabian

whats their turnout say from now to end of April Out and staying out;)

and what is your rugging regime?Geriatric Arabian is actually in a medium weight some nights now, she is the only one that is rugged early and all through the winter. The others, that depends, I play it by ear, the stallion is a wuss and likes his blanket, don't know about the Morgan yet, but a couple of the broodmares run away when they see blankets coming and if I do bother to catch them they make such a fuss I get the message. Basically, if something looks cold it gets a blanket, if it doesn't then I don't bother. Fortunately we don't get incessant rain and they all grow coats like yaks. Unrugged horses sometimes have sheet ice plus 2" of snow on their backs after a storm.
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I used to groom at a TB stud in Oxfordshire and nothing ever got rugged. Everything lived in a night, old, young, mares, stallions the lot and all went out in the day unless there was heavy snow or torrential rain or they were only a couple of days old!! Nothing ever got hypothermia! Occasionally they'd come in wet and a bit shivery and pathetic but they soon warmed up in their big cosy beds once they'd got some hay inside them.
 
Depends - whether they are clipped, whether it is wet and windy as well as cold and most of all, are the base of their ears, armpits and inside of thighs cold.

I rug so they are just warm and prefer to give extra hay so they can warm up from the inside.

My HW rugs may come out at -3 if they are full clipped and it is windy and wet.

That said, I have fairly tough sorts whereas my TBs when in their 20s would have a LW rug on if it went below 10 and MW if below 7 as I did not want them to get stiff and drop weight and Miss Delia would be very grumpy if she was chilled.
 
My pure bred Arab is the first to get rugged. If it's cold, with driving wind and rain I rug him, but lightly. My favourite rug is my 100% waterproof Fal Pro with a 40g filling. It has to get properly cold before a MW rug goes on (200g), and normally he doesn't need anything heavier all winter.
So he's naked now, living out 24/7. A bit cold but not driving wind, he stays naked. A bit wet but not very cold, he stays naked. Seems to work so far. When he was stabled overnight he got rugged later, because he could come in and dry off at night.
 
I live in the highest village in Scotland , its very remote rural , and sub zero temps for about 5 months with feet of snow.

40 gm on if its wet and windy and between 0c and 3c ... if dry then no rug
100 gm on if its between 0c and -5
200 gm on if its between -6 and -10
200gm on if its between -11 and -20
300gm on if its between -21 and below

my horse is out during the day and in at night all year round
 
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Ron is IDx (we think) and is only rugged when he is clipped (or a flu rug in the summer) - So first week in november, regardless of temp, until then he is naked as the day he was born (except a lot fluffier!)

Tom is welsh x hannoverian and is a wimp. He will be rugged, unclipped for the same time as Ron unless its very wet or consistently frosty. he gets clipped the week before christmas usually, to stop him getting scabby elbows!
 
When they are cold and shivering/dropping too much weight :)

Dizz will have a lightweight, but as she is going to be having a moochy sort of winter, she won't be clipped; just a lightweight rainsheet for as long as possible :D.

LC and LL will be naked unless it gets very wet and cold :cool:

Then again, we did just finishing setting up their stables today :D
 
My cob recently had a small bout of rainscald and has been in a lightweight day and night ever since as i am now so paranoid about it happening again!! He only has his lightweight off if it is really warm or there is absolutely no chance of rain, (like that could ever happen, we are in england!)
 
Well it is not so much the temperature I worry about, its the rain. They say that horses are most comfortable between -8 & 15 degrees.
My horse does not feel the cold as such, but she feels it if its sweeping rain. When I do a little apron clip on her I will most likely be popping on her lightweight rug then. She is a warm horse on the whole and has a wonderful mane and I do not take off much with a clip.
When she was younger she was unrugged all winter in the depths of Wales. Personally I think alot of our natives live quite happily out naked all year round, as long as they have some wind protection and hay. Well that's my opinion voiced :D
 
ISHmad said:
I don't have a specific temperature which triggers me rugging the horses. It is more when it starts raining for hours on end combined with bitterly cold winds that gets me reaching for the rugs. Freezing/sub zero temperatures but still air doesn't seem to cause them a problem but the second there is a bit of a breeze with it then they notice.
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I'm pretty much the same as you. He's out nekkid atm, and will be until he's showing me that he's not coping with the cold. He was as warm as toast the other day yet I was really cold, infact I spent some time snuggled up to him to keep warm!

Once he's clipped I'll probably stick a lightweight on him at night, and take it a day at a time with regards putting anything heavier on him.
 
My Fell and Shetties never, Blue (the Fell) was naked all last winter and lived out 24/7 despite the -16 temperatures. He was fine!

Ellie, was 28 last winter and if the temp dropped into single figures she would get a light weight on, between 0 and 5 she would get a mw on and below freezing a hw.
 
Until mine (WB) is clipped then no rug unless its torrential rain or exceptionally cold. Once clipped in late Sept/Early Oct, a lw until the frost starts to appear and then eventually a HW when we start getting to temps of 4 degrees or so. My hw seems to be some people's mw as its only 300 gms.
 
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