Playing Devils Advocate...

Don't know about cattle, but my horses don't get most of those things!

Ok, so I do rug in winter but only after clipping them, it's only fair after all if you've taken off their natural protection.

And they can live out all year and do, but if I have them in at night it's for my convience not theirs.
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but a Warmblood will be completely different and need more rugs on and be kept warmer because they won't have as thick a coat.

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That's just not true, my warmblood have both lived out and only need a medium weight turnout in the winter if it is very wet, the cold does not bother them if they are not clipped. Of course I can't speak for all horses but all mine would happily live out as lng as the worst of the rain is kept of their backs, cold has never bothered any of them.
 
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Do you think that structurally cattle are fairly similar to horses?

Do you think that cattle should wear fly, stable or turnout rugs?

Do you think that cattle owners should spray their cattle daily with fly repellant?

Do you think owners should stable their cattle during inclement weather?

Do you think cattle should only be kept outside if they have a field shelter in the field?

If not, why not?

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Not really, horses vary alot more in size and type than cattle.

no! but then i'm not a fan of over rugging horses either! can you imagine having to nip out and rug 150 head of cattle LOL!

cattle in this country tend to be treated with long acting pour on fly repellents, or insecticidal ear tags - the logistics of spraying cattle daily would be a nightmare, farmers are just too busy.

this already happens - alot of cattle are brought in during the winter months and fed silage, around my area the only ones that stay out are stores.

no! cattle as a herd will keep flies off each other with tail swishing etc.

i don't think you can draw comparisons between horses and cattle, the majority of horses these days are just expensive pets, and even substitutes for children! people love to slash out on the latest rugs etc - the same is happening in the pet trade, some of the items such as bags to carry dogs in are bordering on cruel, it is humanisation coupled with increased disposable income.
cattle are a food animal so must be viewed with mind to producing a profit at the end of the day, be that beef or milk - although in this country it is damn nigh impossible for a farmer to make a decent living thanks to the ridiculous amount of red tape provided by the prats at defra, and the greedy, money grabbing supermarkets.
 
Lilym; you have actually raised a point here that I was thinking about earlier. Do you (or anyone) know whether you can use these cattle sprays or diesel oil applicators for horses?

The reason I ask is that I have a reasonable sized herd and doing the grind of spraying them can take a fair while out of my day.
 
i'm not sure about canada but in this country we have a product called deosect which can be used as little as once a week depending upon severity, it is made by fort dodge so i would've thought you could get it. as for cattle pour ons they have not been tested on horses, nor licenced for use on them, so in the u.k it is illegal to supply cattle medication for use on equines, (but if you have a friendly farmer and spot test first
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some of this medication is very strong and leaves residues in meat, so has to be prescibed and used with care, but surely, i feel, this is where the u.k passports could come in useful, regarding the human food chain issue, i cannot for the life of me see why (well actually i can, fly repellents are an absolute money spinner in the equestrain trade) why some type of 6 weekly spot on can't be developed for horses.
 
Oh yeah we have Deosect over here.....and I have a few nice cattle farmer friends that would allow me to spot test.

No I have never understood that either to be honest. Cattle and sheep have all these long lasting things....excuse me! they are the ones in the food-chain....and yet we have to spend fortunes on wormers, repellants etc for our horses.

The thing that bugs me is Ivomec for cattle - cost piddly peanuts to do 10 cattle. Similar sized horse wormer containers cost me a couple of hundred dollars!

It's no reet!
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PMSL Tia! I think I might be qualified to answer this one. Only speaking for how we do things on our farm though.

Ok...our cows are fly sprayed every 8 weeks with a long lasting repellent. We used to spray citronella spray in the parlour on them during milking, but that was banned. We have to check the cows daily at this time of year for "August bag" or summer mastitis, caused by flies laying/feeding around their teats.

No rugs...not ever. Unless of course we have a very poorly cow and they occasionally will have an old duvet thrown over them to keep them warm.

Cows ARE "stabled" in large cubicle sheds over winter...well our dairy cows are. Lining up time (as we call it) is usually around the end of October/beginning of November and they don't go back outside then until it dries up and warms up in Spring. This is done as milk yield drops drastically when the weather turns.

Whilst we don't have a field shelter in the fields the cows can come back to the farm and into their cubicle shed as and when they please, so in effect they DO have shelter. Cubicles are bedded with chopped straw daily and silage is filled in the troughs. If we have very heavy rain it's rare to find any cows left out in the field at 5am when it's time to fetch them up for milking.

I forgot to answer the structurally question....

Yes they are similar in many ways, but clearly different. They have the same basic anatomy but it's obvious that the heads are set on different as cows carry their heads/necks level with their withers. Heck, Patches is cow hocked, so she's not that much different to our cows herself.
 
You can use most of the pour on fly sprays on horses but you must test patch them first as horses do have more sensitive skin.

On the cows we spray from their withers along the length of their backs. On horses you must spray half the dose on the withers and then the other half on the rump so as to leave the saddle area free. As we buy it in for the cows it would work out very cheap for me to use it, but wouldn't be cost effective for the average horse owner.

The vet said to reapply every two weeks for horses.
 
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but a Warmblood will be completely different and need more rugs on and be kept warmer because they won't have as thick a coat.

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That's just not true, my warmblood have both lived out and only need a medium weight turnout in the winter if it is very wet, the cold does not bother them if they are not clipped. Of course I can't speak for all horses but all mine would happily live out as lng as the worst of the rain is kept of their backs, cold has never bothered any of them.

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Have to agree Burtie.

Our WB used to get a coat like a woolly mammoth every winter. He was easily as fluffy as your average native type, and he thrived during the cold wet months.

I've long been an advocate of treating horses like horses, and not like pets.
Yes, we have to make concessions, but mainly for our convenience. There would be a lot less stable vices if there were a lot less stabled, bored to tears horses imho.
 
Much appreciated Patches. Do you use Deosect too? I may well look into this as not only is it very time consuming for me, it is also incredibly expensive to use horsey stuff every day.
 
I use Deosect on Gen after the vet said to try it. Surprisingly it hasnt irritated his skin (bleedin sensitive skinned horse that he is). I apply it once a week and it certainly seems to work quite well. You have to make it up and then use it within a few days but if you are doing a number horses then you just make up the amount you need. I tend to make it a little 'stronger' than was recommended as I find its effect is better and longer lasting.
 
I use Deosect, you dilute 10ml (I think, working from memory) in 500ml of water and spary all over horse (to be honest I normally use this on two horses as seems to be ample for two. It is really effective for about a week and a half and needs to be redone after two weeks max. The only problem, which isn't really one, is once it is diluted, it needs to be used within 24hrs.
 
With the current weather we are having think all cattle should be wearing wellingtons! Actually a lot of cattle round here are in but only to try and save the fields. Your post made me smile and I see what you are getting at. My welsh pony lived out in the winter of 66 with no shelter, no rugs or anything and was fine. We also drove 6 miles twice a day to feed him with thick snow on the roads, nowadays weather like that would be declared a national emergency and people would be advised not to venture out. My native mare now never wears a rug but does have a field shelter, uses it in the wet but not when its just cold. Other 2 are rugged but always have been so would feel a bit mean now to stop doiing it. I suppose you could say on the same principle that we never used to have central heating but most of us now couldn't imagine living without it.
 
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