Accelerating shedding out

[atr]

I’d like to have my horse look spiffy for a special event in mid April. Pure vanity, but there you go.

I haven’t clipped at all this winter for one reason and another. He’s not a yak, but has quite a lot of long, fine glossy hair, and is only just starting to shed. Its been wet and warmer than average here and at this point we are over the very coldest weather, and he’s getting a bit sweaty in his work, and mud season has already started.

I’m torn between just biting the bullet and body clipping him now, before his summer coat really starts to come in, and thus avoiding the whole mud/shedding out ordeal, or trying something else, like rigging an appropriate light up in his stall to help him shed out faster. (What would be the appropriate light? Would a warm spectrum LED do it?

He’s a bright chestnut so he looks a bit like a plucked chicken when he’s first clipped…

Thoughts?

[Xanthoria]

I do two clips a year - one before the last show (eventing) when the winter coat has started. Then my horse gets a winter break, her winter coat keeps coming in, and she’s warmer at the coldest time of the year when she’s doing nothing.

When she starts shedding (now) she gets clip #2 and I don’t have to deal with shedding out at all. My horse is ready for clinics or shows.

Works for me!

[RhythmNCruise]

I would advise against the lights. I used to be in the AQHA show world, so it was very normal to have horses under lights. It works, I showed at Congress one year and kept my horse under lights. He was slick and gorgeous at Congress. We came home and I stopped the lights and he haired up. But when shedding time rolled around…he didn’t shed. By April, when he’d refused to let go of a single hair, we had to clip him. He’d just gotten messed up with the lights. For the remainder of his life he was never put under lights (never needed to be…showed in warm months) and he always shed out reliably. By mid-April he’d be show slick with no help from lights or clippers.

I’ve known a lot of other horses that got their growing/shedding cycles all jacked up due to being put under lights for shows or sales that would then be hairy yaks in June and July and have to be clipped. I’ve heard that once they go under, you have to keep them under, but that even then some will start to hair up when they shouldn’t.

Where are you located? Most horses where I am will be fully shed out or darn near it by mid-April.

[kaya842]

No idea on anything that works to shed them out faster. I typically just clip around February/ March (whenever it gets warm enough for a bath and is expected to stay reasonably warm - no more polar vortex’s). I say clip and be done with it. So much better than dealing with shedding anyway.

[colorfan]

Do you do a full body clip? Even with a neck blanket it seems the bottom of the neck is always open. Just wondering how to manage.
I always blanket my older mare but I haven’t done much in the way of clipping.

[Pico_Banana]

I would just be grooming him like crazy. Have you tried the sleek-ez? I find that works super well. I bet with that you can have him looking very handsome by April.

[Bonnie2]

I would get a full show quality clip late Feb. Make sure you have clean blankets for him.

[kaya842]

Personally, I do. We are in IL (middle IL not north by the lake) and I could likely get away with clipping today if it’s not windy/ is sunny/ gets warm enough to get them wet. I am fairly certain our area is done with wildly cold temps and will remain in the 30-50 range, with maybe a night or two below that. I also know that I have blankets with neck attachments and can put them in the barn if needed, which I know isn’t the case for everyone. While the blankets with necks still have small gaps, it shouldn’t be an issue unless it gets unreasonably cold (but in my case they would be in the barn with no wind and I can throw their sheets on top for layers). Even when my horses were body clipped through the coldest parts of winter, years ago, they managed with just a rain sheet and medium blanket with neck.