Keeping horses in hot countries

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flirtygerty

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Having just returned from Portugal, with temperatures in the 50's and seeing the fields all brown and dead looking, I wondered how horse owners over there cared for their animals.
Especially as we may have the chance to move there and would take our horses with us
 
Well I live in the hot and humid southern US where we have been having temps in the 100's F and very little rain. Horses acclimate as long as you have plenty of clean water, shade and salt available. Mine love to be hosed down in the afternoon. People who keep horses in stalls often have fans in the barns. My instructor has a misting system for her horses. You don't ride during the heat of the day, early morning or late evening. The only horses who have problems are those with medical issues like annhydrosis (sp).
 
my horse had air-conditioning and we rode early in the morning or late at night. during the summer we stop jumping and do very little canter work
horse also gets electrolytes :)
 
When I lived in Cyprus our horses lived in sand paddocks with either a stable for shade or a wooden sun shelter (inevitably though they were to be found outside flat out boiling their brains!)

They were fed all of their calorific needs in hard feed each day and as there was no grass or hay they were fed free choice straw. When we had green grass in the spring we gave a very small amount a day just to give the horses a treat.

I had friends who brought their horses over from the UK and as long as you choose when to travel them i.e. between October and March so they could acclimatize to the heat slowly they were absolutely fine.

Riding is only done early morning i.e. before 8am! and after 6pm in the high summer, and we used to ride in the mountains for 2-3 hours at a time with a lot of fast work.

I have to say that all the horses were the healthiest I have ever seen, all were fit, none were overweight and in 6 years I only saw the vet once a year for the yearly jabs, amazingly given the diet we had only one bout of colic in the 6 years I was at the yard and that was a horse whose owner stupidly had decided to let it graze in the spring under the olive trees.
 
Most of the horses in southern europe tend to be stabled during the day due to the heat. Bear in mind that horses cope much better with the cold than they do with the heat. We are not as far south as Portugal and our lot really only choose to come in on the very hottest days. Flies are a nuisance here but they can be vicious the further south you go.
 
As everyone says, they acclimatise.

Shade and water is most important, mine have shelter, natural and manmade and many of them choose to stand in the sun. Their choice, not mine. I don't use fly sheets as our pastures include a lot of brush, blankets would be hanging on trees within minutes, masks are worn, and I buy Bananaboat Factor 60 sunblock by the boxload. By August my grass will probably be in its usual seasonal crunchy brown state, I have hay in the paddocks practically all year round.

I in Southern Ontario, average summer temps are in the mid to high 20's, but lately 30C+ and then adding on the humidex takes it nearer to 40C. Most of the daft buggers are still stood out dozing in the sun whilst I'm inside my cave with the a/c on.

At least in Portugal you are unlikely to have weather swinging to both extremes, we used to spend Christmas there years ago and it was always a huge joke to be swimming on Christmas Morning.
 
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We moved in the south of France from the UK. We timed the move for autumn so came from a tepid UK summer to a lovely French autumn and so far the horses are the happiest I have ever seen them. As others have said they need shade, somewhere to escape from the flies and we ride early morning or late evening. We have grass in the autumn and spring, and supplement with hay in winter and summer.

When I rode in Greece we did have to give the horses a break in July/August as the temperatures regularly reached 40+ and that was a bit too much for everyone, human and equine!
 
I groomed out in Egypt for the summer months in 2008 (looking after warmbloods). The horses were worked in the evening, were let out in sand paddocks early morning and handwalked. They had a type of "hay" at regular intervals through the day.

I also groomed at a show in Qatar, we flew the horses over and they were competing 2 days later. The horses coped fairly well though a few came down with heat stroke, the stables were airconditioned but i think that having ceiling fans is a better option as they seemed to struggle going from extreme heat to the cool temp of the stables. A few of us also went to the lacal supermarket and got the horses watermelons to help keep them hydrated and plenty of electrolytes etc.
 
Chavhorse said:
When I lived in Cyprus our horses lived in sand paddocks with either a stable for shade or a wooden sun shelter (inevitably though they were to be found outside flat out boiling their brains!)

They were fed all of their calorific needs in hard feed each day and as there was no grass or hay they were fed free choice straw. When we had green grass in the spring we gave a very small amount a day just to give the horses a treat.

I had friends who brought their horses over from the UK and as long as you choose when to travel them i.e. between October and March so they could acclimatize to the heat slowly they were absolutely fine.

Riding is only done early morning i.e. before 8am! and after 6pm in the high summer, and we used to ride in the mountains for 2-3 hours at a time with a lot of fast work.

I have to say that all the horses were the healthiest I have ever seen, all were fit, none were overweight and in 6 years I only saw the vet once a year for the yearly jabs, amazingly given the diet we had only one bout of colic in the 6 years I was at the yard and that was a horse whose owner stupidly had decided to let it graze in the spring under the olive trees.
Click to expand...

This is very interesting. I'd always wondered where cypriot horse owners bought their hay/forage from, and I assumed it was probably shipped in.
 
Misinterpreted said:
This is very interesting. I'd always wondered where cypriot horse owners bought their hay/forage from, and I assumed it was probably shipped in.
Click to expand...

If you are on one of the better yards they will be fed "sanos" which is straw with the wheat ears still on the top, otherwise common or garden straw....stopped me worrying about straw colic for ever I tell you;-)
 
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