Is It Ever Too Cold To Keep Your Horses Outside?

Hi Mary, Are the horses stabled or kept outside the majority of the time? How's their coat... Most times you can tell an awful lot about the health of an animal by looking at its coat after grooming.

At minus 20, I think you have the right blanket for them, but to be sure, look for a Weather or Temperature rating either on the package the blanket came in, or the blanket itself.

Feeding habits are a regional thing. For the most part, what you feed a horse in the South is entirely different than what is required in the North. I'd check around with some reliable owners and vets on that.

Water... Wow how do you keep it ice free at that temp? I'm working on a couple projects that address that issue, but the results won't be final until Spring thaw. One thing I know works is a bubbler, like those for fish tanks, aerating the trough. The bubbles keep ice from forming by circulating the warmer, unfrozen water to the top. You might still get some ice, but not where the bubbles come up, and that should give the horses enough area to drink from.
I'm pretty sure there are other trough heaters out there like this. www.horse.com/Solar-Powered-Water-Trough-BSA40.html but at $20 bucks for 25 gallons, that's a bit steep. try wrapping some dark colored rubber matting around the trough for free solar heat instead. You can hold that in place with bungy chords or rope.

Hope some of this helps.

Bubblers are good -- still tough at this time of year. I like the links Chase posted here! Also if you do use a bubbler you can stick a soccer or basketball in the tank too. It moves around a bit and keeps so much ice from forming. I've used a big colander (aka spaghetti strainer) to move the water around which helps keep my hands inside their mittens!

As to the alfalfa question I'm with Chase as far as what works in your area, for your trainer if you have one, and your vet. Even with different growers there are different blends of alfalfa used. We tend to stay away from straight alfalfa because our horses are worked year round. There's a higher calcium content in alfalfa that you have to balance with other feed for working horses as too much calcium can cause muscular problems. Most people notice wetter and a stronger ammonia smell with horses eating alfalfa. That's due to the high protein content in alfalfa which the horse burns up quickly and excises through their urine. I'm told this makes horses drink more so you'll have greater urine output and you'll need to make the extra effort to clean stalls if your horse is inside at all.

As for the amount of food your giving I think it sounds good. As they forage they stay warmer. You can always cut back a bit if they start to put on a lot of excess pounds!

in the early fall, here in the south, a lot of old wives tales, concerning the weather and how to predict the coming weather.
Some look for woolie worms..and all. This year early on I told the family to get ready for a cold winter. We haven't had a cold winter in about 9 years..and we live where there isn't much snow,my son is 12 and the biggest snow he's seen was about a half inch. we do get ice..too far south for snow, and too far north for rain..When it went to getting colder here,we have already broken two ten year records, everyone wanted to know, how i could tell.
We have two horses both born in May, and before it really began to get cold, they went to "wooling up". I even went so far as too buy winter blankets fot the herd...go into a supply store, in North Alabama and ask about winter blankets for horses and you tend to get some stange looks and questions...lol
but i did get enough blankets, from six different suppliers, but we're covered..our horses stay acclimated to the outside, unless it is really extreme, or we notice something out of the ordinary, but this year is a little different. My wife even thought I was losing it..i guess it's an old school thing, but horses survived thousands of years, without the intervention of humans...this year they needed a little help, from the ole' man..I guess the fun part was seeing the look on some folks faces, when it did get cold...and they began to ask me how i knew...what would i do without the weather channel.....

any suggestions on combatting cabin fever during this deep freeze? My horse loves to be outside but it has been so awful lately they are all spending entirely too much time in, which makes him cranky and some of his herd mates just troublesome. One of the herd removed several bars dividing her stall and the next one one day during her boredom!
A bit about me......live near Biffalo NY, we have tons, tons of snow and are hovering around zero now (I feel warmer after reading the post about -20!) I have a 9 year oold Appy gelding (who thinks he is a stud) and board near my home at a wonderful facility with several other horses.
Thanks
Andrea

I live in the midwest, Wisconsin, and this winter I have lived in the coldest temperature I have ever experienced. -45 wind chill! Burrrrr. Two of my horses were brought to this climate from Washington about 10 years ago. One was young and one was middle aged and is old now. The older one had a terrible time acclimating to this climate. The wind here is the worst and animals need a wind break to get out of it if they wish. Some people don't blanket their horses even in these -45 temps. I believe that once it gets subzero with wind nothing is built to withstand those awful temps. So I let my horses get a good coat and don't blanket until I see the temp dip to the sub numbers. My older mare seems to need it sooner and starts to shiver in the single digits, so I blanket her earlier and later. I also have a yearling that her coat did not get real thick and I blanketed her a little early compared to the rest. So I think you need to take into consideration each horse individually. Besides trying to figure out when to blanket or if to blanket the other factors are to provide shelter which I have a run-in shed. I know if it gets too cold they will go in and they do. I feed extra when the temperatures drop. This really helps to keep them warm. I usually feed morning and night but when it is really cold I try and give them a midday feeding to help them out. I feed grass hay only, this way I can feed a lot and not worry about feeding too much. I do like a grass alfalfa mix if one is not holding their weight well but usually I get through the entire winter with my regular grain amount, lots of grass hay and I feed mineral salt in the grain in the winter to encourage more water drinking. I have 5 horses of all ages (6 months to 27 years) and this works to keep them warm and keep their weight. Water is a really big one in winter. I believe you have to heat the water in these temps. I had a vet tell me to heat the water before there is a chance of freezing and well after. This keeps the water warmer and encourages them to drink more. I had my geldings sheath swell last winter and the vet said some horses will do that in the winter and they thought it was due to not enough movement and not enough water. That is when I incorporated the mineral salt in the grain to get them to drink more. This winter my trough is going down a lot faster and I do not have the sheath swelling problem. I like the solar box idea and might consider doing this along with the heater in order to keep my electric bill down some. Heaters do pull a lot of electricity. I have a fiberglass trough and a sinking type heater. The heater cost about $27 but has lasted me for 3 winters on the average. They have floating heaters but with a fiberglass tank the floating ones can get up against the side and burn a hole in the fiberglass. Floating heaters are fine in metal troughs but get a sinking one or one that screws right into the bottom of the tank when using fiberglass. This is life in the tundra of Wisconsin....come on Spring!

Well... How odd. Now, I feel like a nit-witt.

No, I found it on www.glitter-graphics.com. I was looking for a nice horse picture to post on my horse blog, and as soon as I saw it, I just had to post it on this discussion. It was just too perfect to pass up.

I know what you mean, though. The horse snow sculpture is really amazing. I wish I knew he actually did it.