The usual winter in or out dilemma!

[sonjafoers]

My girls have always been stabled overnight during the worst winter months and turned out 24/7 for the remainder of the year until last year.

My TB had a terrible winter last year and was off work through a plethora of injury/ilness from roughly November to February. On my vets advice I left her turned out all winter with a heavyweight full neck rug on & plenty of haylage as he felt this was more natural, his thoughts being that he sees too many horse with colic/stiffness/vices through being stabled.

To be honest they didn't seem to mind being out and both came through the winter very well condition wise. I brought them in for a few hours every afternoon to sort out muddy feet/legs and during the snow & ice they stayed in overnight as well as if the forecast was very wet overnight.

I thought I would do the same this year but now the time is nearly here my gut reaction is to bring them in overnight, just because I hate being woken up by rain & wind and thinking of them being out having to shelter. Also my TB is very fine skinned & I worry about her face and ears taking wind & rain when she could be in (soft I know). She also had a lot of foot abcesses last year & I wonder if this was caused by her feet being in mud for a lot more than previous years.

Oh what a dilemma, I'm sure I'm not the only one going through this so what are your thoughts please - I need someone to make the decision for me

 

[ofcourseyoucan]

rug well, feed well, work well, bring in in extremes! or do the in at night out in day scenario if it make you feel better, tho i think we are 8 weeks off that senario. do what suits you, and more importantly what suits your horses. they wont shrink in the rain! take into consideration natural shelter/ man made shelter, quality of grazing, amount of mud etc etc etc.

 

[sonjafoers]

I do rug them and feed them well as you say ofcourseyoucan, but it's not making me feel any better at the mo!

I don't normally bring them in until sometime in November, weather dependant, and turn them back out early March time so I know I have lots of time to make the decision but it's playing in my mind already.

We have poor poor grazing over winter & lots of mud but they do have plenty of natural shelter - oh how I wish they could talk!