Wintering out help

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Festive_Felicitations

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I realise you are all desperatley trying to forget winter but could you please share your advice tips.

I have a young (3yr old) Anglo Arab who will be wintering out this year and while we don't get snow will have 0oC nights with thick morning fogs. He is on his own in his field but has a walk-in shelter and I want him to survive rug-less for various reasons - obviously if it gets to the point where he is shivering I'll have to re-think.

At the moment he gets 1 large buiscuit of lucerne hay & 1 scoop (aprox 1 kg) of Breeda pellets (for preggers mares/youngsters).
I was planning on adding ad lib grassy hay to his diet as it gets colder.

Do you think I need to up his concentrate or add something a bit richer/fattening to it? I was thinking either crushed maize or rice bran.

Thanks!
 
Nope! He should be fine, if you need to increase anything, add extra hay, it's the fibre in the gut that produces their 'central heating'.... and my 18 yr old PBA wintered out with little in the way of shelter this year, without a rug, and we got down to -16!! And he managed to put weight on! He had no hard feed at all, just plenty of haylage, grew a wooly mammoth coat, and never looked even slightly chilly.
He's struggling to get rid of the coat now as the weather turned warm quite quickly here, he looks all moth-eaten and tatty, bless. I'm having to give him a regular good groom to try and get the old coat out.
Good luck, I'm sure he'll be fine :)
Can you find some company for him? Seems a shame to keep him on his own as youngsters particularly benefit from and enjoy company?
 
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Ditto what crazydancer wrote. Plenty of hay and I cut the high protein (breeding) concentrate from my youngsters when they are about 2 and give them high fibre nuts with chaff.

I tend not to rug the youngsters unless there is a particular reason to do so.
 
Agree horses are more hardy than us humans think. My friends old arab mare lives out 24/7 has a shelter and it always out in the middle of the field etc in the snow we had. If there is hedging(wind break) you will often find them backed up against that. I think field shelters are more useful to keep the flies at bay in hot weather(this is when mine tends to use his)but I think my field shelter is more to make me feel like I am giving the horse the option to go in if it wants shelter, which it never seems to. She does give hay in winter ad lib etc

I dont have an arab but mine is a woolley mamouth, the only thing I would probably have rugged him for is to keep him cleaner, but then they roll in mud to keep warm etc too! I gave him a rare bath yesterday more to try to get rid of the last of the winter coat/hot day etc(my vet thought I had clipped him one summer as they were use to seeing him so woolley, nope it was his summer coat so short and shiny)!Dapples too.

Also the dentist told me my old boy had FAB teeth for his age and she could tell he lived out doing what horses should be doing grazing!

I usually provide a mineral lick (one of the old type salt blocks). If he had done work I just gave a scoop of high fibre low heat pony nuts. Easy no mucking out, just a bit of paddock management. So simple!
 
Thanks!

He has a friend over the fence on one side, deer on the other and cheeky steers over the other! Unfortunately there is no where that I can afford and that is practical near where I live at the moment. I keep him at work! :) On the Uni campus at the Ag college... so see him morning, lunch and evenings so he has lots of 'company'

Before I got him he only lived with his mum so he is not 'used' to lots of company. Its not ideal but the best I can do.
 
My boy was out all winter with his field-mate a 19 yr old pure arab and although they had medium rugs on we have no shelter , they had a feed balancer and conditioning fibre twice daily and also ad lib haylege i.e two large piles daily and both kept up good wieght , even as they were both clipped!This was through snow and nightime temps of -10. Fibre is your best friend against the cold , especially good long fibre like hay or haylege , it means the gut has to work hard to process it which in turn means the organs work too and thus keeps the central heating system going. Especially since you don't want to rug your boy , you need to make sure that he's not going to lose condition cos he's struggling to keep warm..
 
Ditto what everyone else says - up the hay as the grass loses it's value. Shelters are great but have noticed really they are only used for escape from flies - lol!!! Although, I have seen horses standing outside and using the shelter as a wind break. We add sugar beat to the winter diet - have always thought this added extra heat and calories (but that's maybe something I heard in my yoof).

IMO it's not the cold that gets em but the cold rain. As long as you can get him sheltered from that then you'll be fine :))
 
We do get he odd days of extended down pour but my main concern is the 0-2oC mornings with thick DAMP fog (sort you stand in and get soaked in minutes).

Thanks for the reassurance that he will be OK. Mums wimpy TBxWB would honestly die if you left him rugless over winter. I've found him shivering on a cold windy day :cool: So having a bit of trouble reajusting to the concept of a tough 'country' boy...
 
Damp/fog etc shouldn't be a problem as usually fog only happens when the air is still - only worry if it gets windy. The coat is designed in layers, which means the outside layer can get wet, but underneath will still be dry. High winds can push the moisture through the layers, only wet AND windy conditions would worry me enough to think about rugging.
 
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