People who use fly rugs

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maxapple

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My pony has mild sweet itch so he needs to wear a fly rug. He lives out.

What do people do when it rains? I worry that if I leave it on and it gets soaked he has to wear a wet rug all night and will get cold - but then I also think there are more midge's when its been raining??

What do other people do?
 
My girl lives in a flyrug from about April (she doesn't have sweet itch but comes out in huge lumps if bitten), and I always worry about exactly the same thing!

I ended up getting the thinnest rainsheet I could find (one of the amigo no-fill ones) and just put that on over the flyrug if we're due rain overnight. I do now of course worry she's going to overheat with both the fly rug and rainsheet on - you can't win!
 
A fur coat gets wet too!

If your getting the rug because your horse gets sweatitch make sure you get one of the kind specially for this without the holes in the mesh as the fly that causes sweatitch is very tiny and will still bite through any mesh.

My sweatich horse lives in his rug form about march to november, only wears a light turnout on wet colder days and only then because he feels the cold and would need it with or without the fly rug.
 
You will find that most fly rugs are made of a fabric that will dry quickly anyway, so I shouldn't worry too much. If your horse was out naked his hair would get wet anyway and then dry naturally.

In the winter if my horses turn out rugs get wet I leave them on them overnight as their bodyheat is the quickest way to dry them - unless you're lucky enough to have a heated rug drying room on your yard! Some other people on my yard take the wet rugs off and hang them up but then they're still damp in the morning and they end up putting damp rugs on dry warm horses, which I think must be worse.
 
Normally I would leave mine out in it over the summer, even if it was a bit rainy. However, left it on ponio when it rained and he must have been rolling and got caught up, but he tore it to shreds, twisted it all up and ripped the binding off... something to bear in mind. He's now hurt himself (not sure whether it's because of that or not) and is un-rideable, violent reaction to weight going on his back, so vets and back specialists hopefully coming out.

I guess its a risk with any rug, but especially fly rugs as they tear so easily and I guess that makes them easier to become caught up in! :) xx
 
Mine's a cob and needs to wear a sweet itch rug; my view is that its better for the horse to be cold rather than too hot coz they'll get all itchy. My farrier says that not to worry if they do get cold (cobs anyway) as they'll have the nouse to walk around to get warm, however with warmbloods/TB's its a different story and you might need to put on a very light turnout rug on top of the flyrug.
 
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