Real feel against actual temperature

Birker2020

Birker2020

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Last night at our yard location it said on Accuweather that the real feel was +1 but the actual temperature would be as low as -3C. Another livery who uses a different weather forecaster said she had also received a real feel as being warmer than the actual temperature. Looking today in the area where I work it says it is +3 yet the real feel is +5. Just been outside for a ciggy and it feels like - 5 not +5!!

How can the real feel be warmer than the actual weather?? Last night rugging my horse was a total nightmare as I wasn't really sure what the actual temperature was so ended up rugging to the real feel, whereas other liveries had looked at the actual temperature and rugged according to that.

So what do you rug to, actual or real feel temperature??
 
Real feel takes wind factor or sun into account. When my horses are turned out, I use real feel as the guide, stables I use the actual feel.
Whats tricky is the high and low varience. Research shows horses are better at staying warm than cooling themselves and I'm sure many people over rug - maybe me - hard to tell?
 
If they are in stables I look more at actual temperature, if they are out in the wind I look more at real feel. It is all very much guesswork especially as I have to overrug the big beast, yet the old skinnier horse seems to be able to face anything in a 100gram rug and not be too cold or too hot!

I tend to use temperature, real feel and how the horse feels in current rug as data and then just kind of go on instinct from there!
 
mandyroberts said:
Real feel takes wind factor or sun into account. When my horses are turned out, I use real feel as the guide, stables I use the actual feel.
Click to expand...
this is what I do too.
Outdoors it can def feel warmer if it's sheltered and sunny. My stables are indoors and so the elements don't have an effect on the temperature, often my horses need a lighter rug overnight than they had on in the fields.

I also think people over rug, most of the horses in the same barn as mine are hot by the morning, you can hear them rubbing on the walls or doing that weird all over body shake thing.
I try to rug towards the highest temp that is forecast rather than the lowest because they can't take their rugs off while I'm at home ;) mine have ad lib hay so got their own central heating running all the time.
 
I don't really mess around with rugs if it's just going to be a few degrees colder. I find that they only need more rugs if it's really wet as well as cold. My field kept ones are all in mediumweights, and I don't plan to change them. One stabled one, who is hunter clipped, will have a heavyweight on tonight, as will the 28yr old TB.
 
I have native ponies so perhaps they have a different outlook to horses..... I rug by weather conditions rather than temperature this time of year.
Mine are looking to be rugged if it is wet and windy, particularly if the wind is from a direction without much shelter - just because they are built to withstand Dartmoor and Cumbrian Fell weather doesn't mean they want to!
If dry and cold they just fluff themselves up and stoke up on hay.
 
If they get wet they will loose heat faster as water is a better conductor of heat than air so I have been putting a light NZ on my old boy if rain is forecast even if its not particularly cold - I think the ratio is water will conduct heat 10 times faster than air (trying to remember my scuba diving training!) - and we obviously hope our horses aren't that wet!
 
mandyroberts said:
Research shows horses are better at staying warm than cooling themselves and I'm sure many people over rug - maybe me - hard to tell?
Click to expand...

coming back to this again, I think it's hard to judge sometimes but if you have time to hang around at the yard a bit and know your horses well then generally it's possible to make a best guess.
I was sorting through my stuff at the yard tonight, popped a 300g rug on Kira as forecast is into the minus figures and she is clipped out. She stood watching me rather than eating her haynet, they have little grass in the field so normally she'd be tucking in but instead she was a bit restless. Took the rug off and she settled to eat. 150g rug went back on. :rolleyes:
Salty is happily chomping in her 300g. I want one of those monitoring gadgets!
 
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