HELP!!! advice needed on rugging for the coming cold snap

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gails

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Sorry everyone, for yet another post on rugging, but I am getting a little worried now !!!

MY boy is a 20 something TB, who looses what little weight he has very easyily.

He is currently in a MW, my question is what combination would you use for the upcoming cold snap.

MW with neck cover
MW no cover but under rug
HW rug

He does have shelter but with 21 other horses buying for it, his chances of geting in it are not great.

He has ben feeling not cold, but cool last thing and in the morning.

Answers, as always grratly recived.
 
Is he clipped? If so, how?

Is he out all the time or is he partly stabled?

When you say he's not been feeling cold, but cool last thing and in the morning... Cool is okay, but obviously you don't want that to stretch to cold. If you don't already do so, the best way of checking is by feeling the base of the ears, and also under the elbows.

Personally I'm not a fan of neck covers - but that's 'cos most of mine are Arabs with full manes, which tend to get rubbed away when I've tried neck covers in the past. A full mane keeps them pretty warm (well, at least on the side that the mane falls onto!). If your boy is clipped on his neck and has a pulled mane however, he may well need the neck rug.

Without knowing the horse or how he's clipped, I would guess at a medium weight if it's cold but "still" weather, and put him in the heavyweight if it gets both wet AND cold, or in very windy weather.
 
If not clipped I'd agree with medium weight with neck cover and possibily a fleece underneath. Save the HW for when it gets REALLY cold!
 
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HW with rug underneath, especially if it is v cold and wet. he is old and if you have trouble keeping weight on. Also maybe 3 feeds a day instead of 2 as well.

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Surely that's way overrugging a horse? PRoblem is, when it gets really really cold, they don't feel the benefit of a HW
 
id be putting a heavy weight on at night and the combo medium on during the day.....then early next year when it get really cold jan/feb you can put an underrug under the heavy!

keep him warm
smile.gif
 
Lots of thinner layered rugs will retain body heat better than one or two heavy weight rugs. Your best bet would be to go with a couple of coolers under a MW/two light weight stable rugs without the neck in my opinion. Bear in mind the actual total weight of the horses on a light boned animal. A girl that used to be on our yard used to rug her horse excessively, even when it was 14 or 15 celsius on a spring night, and when I took the poor lads rugs off in the morning I'd nearly collapse with the weight of them and steam would come off him. He used to get through 3 buckets of water a night and she could never understand why. Could it have had something to do with being too hot maybe!!!!!?????
 
I did wonder about coolers, and fleeces under his rug.

Tonight I have sent him out withhis MW and neck cover, it is freezing like heck at the minute so glad I put the neck cover in the washer this monrning
smile.gif


Thanks everyone for your answers
 
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