I HATE HAVING HORSES IN WINTER

I keep three at home, two at a friends field out 24/7 and one at a friends who helps by putting her out and sometimes getting her in. I dont have a high pressure job and work odd hours so can do most in daylight but no riding during the week with the ground so frozen.
I always change the 3 at homes rugs to put on a stable rug at night. I didnt like the idea of a rug left on day in and day out but perhaps I am worrying too much. They have been trace and blanket clipped so I am making sure they are warm enough
 
Looking at your routine, I think there's a couple of things you could do (other than not changing rugs, which I was about to suggest too) to speed up your mornings by doing as much as you can in the evening. I've started doing these and it saves about 10 minutes which is a lot for me!

Buy more feed / water bucket(s) and fill them and make up a feed the night before. Leave the water outside the stable and the feed in your wheelbarrow for the morning. This is also good if your taps freeze as you always have water. If the buckets freeze, just put them in anyway and they'll defrost during the day.

If you can switch to haylage get a hay bar (there's no point if you have to soak hay). I fill my wheelbarrow with haylage the night before and put the feedbucket on top along with my tools so that in the morning I can just grab it all in one go. I grab it when I arrive, go to my stable, turn the horse out and get going. The haylage is in the haybar and the feed and water go in within 10 seconds of getting into the stable and all I have left to do is muck out. The whole routine takes me 15 minutes, although my boy is very clean in his stable. The other day when I was in a massive hurry I managed it (fairly badly!) in 8 minutes.
 
Honey08 said:
Do we seriously believe them though? I know when I go home soaked to the skin I don't stand around in my wet coat, I go and get changed!

I started doing this, against my better judgement, two years ago when I had my arm in a sling and hubby had to do all the work - decided some of my principles had to slip to save him some work! We still do it, but I would never leave a very wet rug on them, or leave them on a windy night in a wet rug (unless its a night when we are shutting the top doors due to the weather).

Another major issue to watch out for, is, unless you are riding, you don't notice changes in weight or cuts higher up the legs etc as easy. On the plus side, I don't get as many mane/shoulder rubs with turnout rugs alone as I used to when using stable rugs more often.
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Of course you don't - you have heating etc. I think its more the fact that you then have to put cold wet rugs on in the morning etc. You also have to remember that unless you have really crap rugs they will be dry underneath anyhow, certainly around main parts. Your point about noticing changes is important though. I nearly lost a horse in breaking livery because he was rugged and coughing and nobody bothered to take off rugs and see that injection had gone perivascular and he had huge necrotic tissue.
 
scarymare said:
Of course you don't - you have heating etc. I think its more the fact that you then have to put cold wet rugs on in the morning etc. You also have to remember that unless you have really crap rugs they will be dry underneath anyhow, certainly around main parts. Your point about noticing changes is important though. I nearly lost a horse in breaking livery because he was rugged and coughing and nobody bothered to take off rugs and see that injection had gone perivascular and he had huge necrotic tissue.
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So if you were dripping wet on the yard in a waterproof, but wet coat, and someone offered you a new dry one you wouldn't take it, cos I would.. Even having a slight draught when you're wet makes you feel chilled.

I know they may be dry underneath, but they're definately using their own body heat and energy to dry the rugs. When we had DIYs I used to go and check the horses at night, and the ones standing in damp rugs were always colder than the ones in dry rugs. I'd always have two turnout rugs anyway, so never put a wet rug back on, and we have rug rails in the stables, so the wet rugs hang on those and they nearly dry overnight anyway..

I'm not saying its a bad system or criticising those that do - I do it myself most nights, but there are times when I wouldn't, such as on really wet days, and also I think in an ideal world, seperate turnout rugs and stable rugs are better.. Probably just one of those things I'm OCD about!
 
I prefer using stable rugs rather than leaving wet rugs on because of the weight of a wet rug. Much more comfortable in a stable rug, particularly the modern ones which are lighter and puffy.

It also means that the horse gets a good visual check if you're not riding that day -and poo stains and urine smells on a turnout is not good.

The collective herd smell is important to horses who's senses are so much more acute than ours. I'm sure they prefer to greet their field mates in the morning not smelling of stale urine.

It only takes a minute to change them afterall.
 
One of the benefits to not changing rugs is you tend not to pick up smells on yourself so easily if you're not in close contact with urine soaked rugs. Especially important if you're going straight to work.
 
annagain said:
One of the benefits to not changing rugs is you tend not to pick up smells on yourself so easily if you're not in close contact with urine soaked rugs. Especially important if you're going straight to work.
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Ah, that must be why the checkout girl in my little village co op got the air freshener out.:o
 
I do enjoy it, in the spring/ summer :D even winter is okay some days, today I just had one of those days.

But on a serious note I am feeling a bit tired/fed up so I am just going to pay for him to be turned out a couple of mornings so I get a lie in and also will cut down the amount I ride a bit so my days aren't always so long.

It's just muddling through in the winter for me I'm afraid. Wish I was rich enough to chuck him on full livery Nov-Feb but alas I'm not so it's just finding other ways of making life easier for myself.
 
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