Why not baby your baby??

[MrsNorris]

a lightweight rug will flatten the hair and stop it from being a natural insulator, an unrugged horse fluffs up it's coat to trap the warm air from it's body next to it's skin, a lightweight rug offers no warmth itself so in cold wet weather, rain sheets and lightweights are more 'harm' than good.

Don't agree with this, in cold, dry weather yes, the effect of a lightweight rug is negative, but in the rain, especially if its windy too, a rain sheet IMO will keep the horse warmer than nothing.

 

[Cortez]

I asked if there is any harm in rugging a weanling, not if I should stick it in a Moses basket and give it a dummy. There is no need to be so curt.

No, actually, you asked for opinions; that is mine.

 

[keri66]

If they have needed to be rugged I have. If not I don't bother.
My 6 month old vanner filly already has a huge coat. Don't think she will need rugging lol

 

[LuandLu24]

I have been looking online at how people winter their weanling horses and most people seem to be of the opinion that regardless of whether they are in or out or with natural or man-made shelters, they should always be without a rug.

The explanation for this is that they won't grow as much of a winter coat with a rug on. Fair comment, I say, BUT, if you want to put a rug on them, why does it matter that they haven't grown "enough" of a coat? What is enough? If enough keeps them warm but because you would rather they wore a rain sheet then it won't neccessarily keep them dry right down to their skin, then what they have grown, plus a rain sheet is surely "enough"?

If I feel better snuggled up at home in front of the fire, listening to the wind and rain howl outside, knowing that my boy is wearing a lightweight turnout to keep the rain off his skin, then where is the harm?

Why not baby your baby if you want to? I'm just interested in people's opinions really

My 1 year old will be getting rugged soon, horses or not they feel the cold and I'd rather mine be nice and warm than shivering in a field. Yes, i want her to have a winter coat but as soon as the frost appears her rug will be on as well as a big fat feed (she's on a regular amount at the moment). We are all animals at the end of the day. I admire your kindness as I'm the same

 

[siennamum]

I dislike seeing young horses rugged overly, mainly because it involves lots of handling, and I dislike seeing yearlings and 2 yr old being handled every day. It's personal, other people like to treat them as adults.
I would also avoid grooming them much at all, but would use a rain sheet if they needed it.

 

[Scarlett]

I dislike seeing young horses rugged overly, mainly because it involves lots of handling, and I dislike seeing yearlings and 2 yr old being handled every day. It's personal, other people like to treat them as adults.
I would also avoid grooming them much at all, but would use a rain sheet if they needed it.

Oh absolutely. I have a homebred yearling - we actively ignore her at the yard, she has lots of space, lots of company and forage, we want her to just be allowed to be a baby horse. The day will come when she needs to come in and be groomed and everything else, but until then she will be semi feral! When we do need to handle her her manners are superb so theres no reason for us to have to do anything with her. She wasnt rugged last year and has already grown a substantial coat and wont be rugged this year either.

 

[NZJenny]

As someone else as mentioned, I don't like using unlined rugs in the wet and cold. Horses keep themselves warm by fluffing up their coats to trap a layer of warm air. They can't do that if they are rugged and in my experience, once unlined rugs are wet, they are cold. So while I find them ok for light drizzel and rain when it is warm, but I have found horses to get cold in them very quickly if it is wet and cold.

As for covering weanlings and youngsters - I have never seen any evidence of horses being covered at that age and not being able to grow as thick a coat later on. I think that is one of those urban myths that just gets repeated with no real evidence to back it up. IME horses grow a winter coat to cope with the conditions they are in. Having said that mine have pretty much been uncovered unless they have been shown in hand in youngstock classes or lacked condition, up unitl I start riding them.

 

[ironhorse]

It's preferable to ensure that they have access to good shelter rather than worry about rugs. At our last yard they had a super open fronted barn divided into four using gates; the horses had an open area at the front to move around in the fresh air if the weather was good and could get out of the wind/rain if not. My very fine skinned QH mare was in there with a decent turnout rug and was quite happy - at the other end were four QH weanlings, all unrugged. They did really well until the ground conditions improved enough for them to go out 24/7 and had grown good thick coats.

 

[twiggy2]

Rugging makes absolutely no difference to coat thickness or length. Why do people continue to believe that it does? Nor will rugging a horse delay you having to clip them. All it does is flatten the coat and give the impression that it is therefore thinner. Horses grow the coat they are genetically programmed to grow no matter how much or little you rug them. The coat grows and sheds according to daylight hours, not temperature or rugging.

I rug according to the individual needs of the horse. I have a 3 year old that was rugged from a weanling and a two year old that was also rugged from a weanling. Both are WBs. My 3 year old has a far thicker coat than the 2 year old who takes after his dam and has a very fine coat. Therefore he is out in a medium weight and the 3 year old is out in a thinner rug ATM (out 24/7).

at a yard of about 50 horses where my mare is and the late rugged or unrugged grow a much much thicker coat than the three horses that are rugged from when the temperature drops just the tiniest bit, daylight hours combined with temperature and rugging affect the coat growth IME.

OP I dont like rugs on foals as they are often accident prone and they can can get muddy and be left with the mud on their coats to help them keep warm-I feel they should be kept as naturally as possible

 

[Goldenstar]

Because it's not a baby, it's a horse.

That's it in a nutshell .

 

[Goldenstar]

It is my observation that horses grow coats according to their environments.
When Tatts arrived he had run out for two years the first winter he had a coat like a yak over the next few years he gradually grew less coat each winter .
Fatty has very little winter coat for his type he's always lived stabled .

 

[Enfys]

I don't baby my babies as such, I stick blankets on most of the horses, youngsters are no different.

I would rather not feed the weather, so I rug my babies, which basically means that my horses eat to eat, not to fight to stay warm. My lot live out and the wind here can be brutal, dropping the temperature well into the -30Cs, for months, not weeks, not the odd day or two, a rug just takes the edge off that. Sure, I could leave them naked, but they'd come out of winter in far worse condition than those that were rugged.

That rugging 'teaches' a youngster not to grow a coat is a load of absolute codswallop.

 

[Nudibranch]

Rugging makes absolutely no difference to coat thickness or length. Why do people continue to believe that it does? Nor will rugging a horse delay you having to clip them. All it does is flatten the coat and give the impression that it is therefore thinner. Horses grow the coat they are genetically programmed to grow no matter how much or little you rug them. The coat grows and sheds according to daylight hours, not temperature or rugging.

I rug according to the individual needs of the horse. I have a 3 year old that was rugged from a weanling and a two year old that was also rugged from a weanling. Both are WBs. My 3 year old has a far thicker coat than the 2 year old who takes after his dam and has a very fine coat. Therefore he is out in a medium weight and the 3 year old is out in a thinner rug ATM (out 24/7).

This.
Rugging doesn't affect their coat growth - they don't physically have the ability. No different to thinking we can control our own hair thickness and density. It's genetic.

 

[Sebastian]

I don't baby my babies as such, I stick blankets on most of the horses, youngsters are no different.

I would rather not feed the weather, so I rug my babies, which basically means that my horses eat to eat, not to fight to stay warm. My lot live out and the wind here can be brutal, dropping the temperature well into the -30Cs, for months, not weeks, not the odd day or two, a rug just takes the edge off that. Sure, I could leave them naked, but they'd come out of winter in far worse condition than those that were rugged.

That rugging 'teaches' a youngster not to grow a coat is a load of absolute codswallop.

-30 C? Which part of Siberia are you in?

 

[PolarSkye]

-30 c? Which part of siberia are you in?


:d

lol!

P

 

[Spring Feather]

-30 C? Which part of Siberia are you in?

Same part as me ('cept it's not Siberia lol!)

 

[Crosshill Pacers]

We have four foals going into the winter, all will be turned out during the day and in at night. They won't see a rug until they're in race training. They are all Standardbreds and as I mentioned on another thread, we leave the majority of them unrugged throughout the winter as adults, mainly because they turn into woolly mammoths!

 

[Rapidash]

When my horse lived in Scotland she grew ever such a thick coat and now down south it never gets anywhere near that thick so the temperature blatantly does have an effect on coat length.

Also I don't think people understand just how good horses are at keeping warm. When they fluff their coat up it makes a massive difference. They also keep on the move to generate heat and know to find shelter- which every field should have even if it's just a good hedge. It's just the weak ones, like my 36 yr old, who need extra help in the form of a rug thick enough to counter the heat loss from flattening the coat.

So the majority of horses are far tougher than their owners and do not need "tucking up" all "nice and snug" because you feel bad being sat inside.

And people wonder why their horse trashes its rugs. Trying to get the damn thing off probably!

 

[Feival]

My 2.5yo Dartmoor Hill Pony, is in for the first winter in his life, but he wont be rugged up. He has lived out in all weathers so is a tough little dude. My 6yo and 22yo will be rugged up and in, they are both clipped out and in full work. People who say 'horses don't need rugs, or should be out 24/7' get on my wick. All horses have different, individual needs.

 

[kc100]

I've got my first ever yearling so no expert on whether rugs make a horses coat grow less or not - however he has so far been unrugged and out 24/7, and he is so far growing a very fluffy coat that 'sticks out' as others have said, so hopefully he is feeling reasonably warm. He doesnt know any different (apart from 2 months of box rest), he's always been out so doesnt seem to be too bothered. They have pretty good shelter in the form of lots of big trees and hedges surrounding their field.

He is a pure bred WB and what most would describe as pretty 'thin skinned' as well. I do have a MW just in case it gets really bad this winter but that will not be going anywhere near him unless it starts dropping below 0 at night.

I will put a rain sheet on him maybe over the next few weeks if we get a prolonged spell of bad rain, not for any other reason than preventing rain scald. The rain sheet wont keep him warm and being 'toasty' is too hot for a horse anyway, but equally I dont want him to end up with rain scald and more vets visits (he's had enough of them with his escapee antics!).

Each to their own to be honest - but I do have the opinion that the more mollycoddled babies are, the more difficult they will be as adult horses, if a baby doesnt learn to be out in all weather and get on with it, it will soon become that horse that stands by the gate in bad weather waiting for the owner to come and fetch it inside.

I like my horses to be horses, to enjoy their time outside regardless of the weather, to run around and forage for the tasty bits of grass....not be stood next to the pile of haylage until owner caves in and brings them in 2 hours later.

But equally all horses are different, we have different ways of looking after them and really no-one is overly right or wrong in these cases, in most cases having a rug on wont hurt just as having no rug wont hurt either. Do what feels right for your horse, you know your horse best and you know what kind of horse you want your baby to grow up to be - providing you are happy with the outcome that is all that matters.

 

[windand rain]

I think perhaps it can be attributed to the quality of the rugs too unless things have changed and they are much warmer when I did an experiment with welsh cob foals I had two liveries whose owners wanted them rugged and four of my own that I never rugged all were on the same grass all were fed the same feed all had the same shelter all were similarly bred all were between 6 and 8 months old. I found the unrugged ones were fatter hairier and better grown by about an inch than the rugged one which I had to persuade the owners to wean the rugs off as they were beginning to look very poor indeed. I am sure those that rug do so with the very best of intent but there is also the consideration of the rug quality, the weight of a wet rug on baby skeletons, the extent of handling you want to do and the individual foal and of course the extent of the cold .
I am of the opinion that in the bulk of England weanlings don't benefit much from rugs and that they can be harmful but that is only based on a few years of having the welsh foals 10 years ago. Maybe rugs for foals are better than they used to be