under rugging?

All of you with no rugs on either have lovely dry fields, non rollers, non grey horses, or you just really like brushing, breathing in mud and having brown bogies :D

Signed

Lazy of Leeds.
 
I'll admit it, my horse wears a rug to keep her clean. Well cleaner than if she was naked. She doesn't wear big thick ones unless it chucking down with rain and less than freezing.
 
D66 said:
I'll admit it, my horse wears a rug to keep her clean. Well cleaner than if she was naked. She doesn't wear big thick ones unless it chucking down with rain and less than freezing.
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Yes. Cleaner.

I mean his body is white, his neck is brown :D
 
Mine were in rain sheets but sweated to much and the flies are hideous so they are now in fly sheets and fly masks. Despite the fly protection (including litres of fly spray!) the horses have been coming in with blood on their legs and sheath where they have been bitten. I was bitten this week and had a face that was twice the size it should have been. Only March and I am fed up of flies already!
 
My two ( bay, on now dry fields ) are out naked during the day and in nofill rugs at night, both are fully clipped. I changed to no fill after one lad overheated a bit during the day. I'd rather they were cooler, rather then overheating, so no fill it is. I can not pop home in the middle of the day. Won't let Ffin over heat again was horrid!! My Dad who really pays no attention to the horses during the day unless I ring and ask him to do something , was unsettled by Ffin bring over hot and has now taken to removing the rugs at first sight of the sun.
 
You sound a lot more sensible than your YM :P

IMO anything synthetic with sun shining on it is a recipe for sweat and fungus, the horses cannot be comfortable! While I accept that some horses feel the cold more than others, 10 degrees in fine weather is warm enough to only have a no fill rug on (and that's if it's windy), any warmer and mine have cotton sheets or nothing on. Of course if the weather is horrible, I play it by ear. I'm in a lovely valley where the winter wind roars in straight from the snowfields. My two are hot chestnut mares, and I've found lately they've been fine in their sheets plus a canvas (New Zealand) rug on at night.

Overrugging is painfully rife here, it's currently showery on and off and humid (think 29 degrees C!) and there are plenty of horses out at my yard who have no fill synthetics over another rug, and even winter rugs on (God forbid they get wet, they might melt!). I always feel sorry for those horses, and glad that mine are allowed to roll and get wet/muddy like horses should :)
 
Plus - over rugging horses is as cruel and in the same league as leaving dogs in cars on hot days, they can't do anything to cool themselves down and neither can the horses.
 
stencilface said:
All of you with no rugs on either have lovely dry fields, non rollers, non grey horses, or you just really like brushing, breathing in mud and having brown bogies :D

Signed

Lazy of Leeds.
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This!! All this! :D


It's always better to under-rug than over-rug IMO. When it was warmer mid-week J was out in a no-fill (he has had one day naked but he's very grey - like almost white - and I couldn't face the brushing after work!). The past couple of days it's been windy and today rainy so he's been in his lightweight (slight fill) no neck rug. He's fully clipped out. When it gets a bit warmer he will be out naked...

Can't believe some people are putting their horses in 400g in this weather! Mental.
 
stencilface said:
All of you with no rugs on either have lovely dry fields, non rollers, non grey horses, or you just really like brushing, breathing in mud and having brown bogies :D

Signed

Lazy of Leeds.
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Yes, no greys here, and fields are pretty dry now apart from the gateways!
 
My sisters dun and coloured are both out rug less, but I just can't face it! He will literally coat himself ears to tail, forehead included. I think it's a survival mechanism as a grey would be more visible to predators ;)

Or perhaps he's just half hippo, he'd roll right next to the gate to do maximum damage
 
A very good horse vet said to me over 10 years ago "Better too cold than too hot". If they are underrugged they can move or eat more fibre (fermentation provides heat in the GIT), if they are too hot there isn't much they can do. Mine are in the layer system and the tough WB has 100gm filler and the nesh TB has 200 gm, and that's because they are beginning to live out at night. If the day looks like being sunny or the forecast is for a mild night we downgrade by 100gm each.
 
My grey didn't even wait for me to walk away from before rolling a couple of days ago. Head collar off, straight down in the gateway. He looked beautiful afterwards! Still, the next morning ( I couldn't face it that evening) and an hour of the shedding blade he was beautifully clean again and there was a barrow full of winter hair waiting for me to clean away.
 
Gazen said:
My grey didn't even wait for me to walk away from before rolling a couple of days ago. Head collar off, straight down in the gateway. He looked beautiful afterwards! Still, the next morning ( I couldn't face it that evening) and an hour of the shedding blade he was beautifully clean again and there was a barrow full of winter hair waiting for me to clean away.
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the birds love it for making nests. If you put a lump of it in a tree they'll come and take it. :)
 
Just taken the plunge today and decided mine could start having no rug overnight. He has a high chaser type clip. This thread is reassuring as many seem to still be heavily rugging even non clipped horses.
 
There are far worse things that can happen to a horse than being a bit chilly. Such as being boiling hot with no way to remove a heavy rug, for instance....
 
First day out without rugs for my lot today and besides their rugs for the night they are all wearing part of the field between them. Not sure whether they are rolling dead coat out or adding a layer to keep the wind out.
 
I compromise ;)

Location: South West coast, south of, i.e. facing France
Breed: Umm ... Anyone's guess? Skewbald 15.1, born 2004 at some point ... beyond that, no idea. Farrier thinks maybe some quarter horse somewhere. Maybe. Who knows? He's in my albums and is my avatar.
Coat: Not long but thick.
Clip: High neck and belly
Out: 24/7 now, on about 3/4 acre of ok grazing for the time of year, (i.e. not mud!), poo-picked daily with 2 haylage nets per 24 hours.
Rugging: Either no-fill sheet at night or half fly/half waterproof and purely (selfishly!) to keep the mudlark clean enough to ride.

I completely agree that I'd rather under-rug a horse in good health, with enough forage and room to move around that the opposite. There was an interesting article on HHO recently about the thermo-neutral range of a horse compared to ours (i.e. the temperature at which creatures feel neither hot nor cold). For humans, it's a narrow band of about 5 degrees (25 to 30?) and for horses it's about 30 degrees (-5 to +25?)
 
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