Caring for horses in extreme heat

[4horses]

The issue with extremely high temperatures is exertion - if one horse gets bullied or chased, they can overheat. A ranch nearby lost one of their horses from that. He overheated and laid down in a puddle of water in the hot sun. The water was so hot it did not help cool him down and the vet ended up putting the horse down, as the horse was in distress.

Heat can absolutely kill animals. I have had my cats and dogs overheat in Florida. I myself have gotten heat exhaustion several times… My old horse overheats in the summer and requires cold hosing, if it doesn’t rain in the afternoons. One of my others has exercise intolerance only during the summer months. She does sweat, just not enough to prevent heat stress with exertion.

I pack a gallon of water for 2 hours of riding in the summer months. And memorize every creek and water crossing location. I will jump in the creek to cool off and dump water on my horse.

[OzarksRider]

@Calvincrowe

I hate hot weather so much more than cold!!

Amen to that.

[frugalannie]

I know I’m a weather wuss, but I’ve just scratched from a schooling show tomorrow. Only 90s and high humidity, but having the horse on a trailer for 4 hours as well as me being guaranteed to have a hot flash as I enter the ring adds up to a less than optimal experience.

[Calvincrowe]

I hear you! I have a two day C show next weekend and our forecast is for 100s the next 4 days, followed by 90s through at least next Saturday. I haven’t ridden on a week, won’t this weekend, maybe not until the show itself. As a 50 something lady, that’s not a good recipe for success, but riding in this heat is also not good for horse or human.

[lenapesadie]

Some of the local trainers refuse to horse show June through August.

[poltroon]

The other large risk here is that it may not cool down much at night. Hot weather is easier to handle if there is a reprieve overnight.

Barns and buildings can get very hot and stuffy, and they may absorb a lot of heat during the day. Again this is a case of monitoring and following your instincts, that just because it’s late in the day doesn’t mean you’re home free, and note that in some areas this is going to persist for several days. Keep the buckets clean and fresh, probably also consider turning your horses out overnight if they have a more closed in barn and that’s an option.

[poltroon]

Watching y’all’s low temperatures, yikes. Definitely be paying attention to cooling down animals overnight, not just during the day, especially if they’re confined inside any kind of walls.

Horses seem to handle heat better than other livestock with their ability to sweat and their giant heat exchanging lungs, so that’s good. If you have other livestock, they are probably more at risk. Several years ago a nasty extended heatwave in California with a similar signature killed a lot of cattle.

[sparkygrace]

So far, my two are doing okay. They have access to an outdoor run, so I set up misters to the entrance of their stalls. One horse can access his grass paddock, so I left his run gate open. He grazes for a while and then comes in to stand in front of the mister. The water in their tubs heats up, so I refill two-three times a day. It’s a full-time job right now.

[Calvincrowe]

My friend’s pig died on Sunday from the heat. Not sure what all they were doing to help it out, but I know they are very heat sensitive. Our neighbor’s cattle seem ok- they have some shade, lots of water (I think…the tank is 6 acres away from me, but they seem to be accessing it well). I do worry about them as no one really ever checks them often.

My horses are doing well with the fans-water-shade in the stall- set up I have going. I trace clipped the hairiest Cushings/IR horse, and have hosed off both in the early evening so they can stand in front of their fans eating dinner. Lots of flies, so masks are on, and spray is applied a couple times a day. Really, it is miserable and what cannot be cured, must be endured.

[luvmycabanaboy]

If you plan on riding, hose down BEFORE you ride (as well as after) - in TX, ours are used to the heat, so I don’t mind light riding in the evenings on hot days, but hosing before and after seems to help A LOT. Also, waiting to hose until your horse is cool is an old wives tale - water early and often!! - both drinking and hosing!

The equiratings Eventing podcast had an interesting episode a few weeks ago with Chris Elliot DVM, who is going to be one of the vets at the Olympics and he had lots of information about how they plan to manage the heat for the horses in Tokyo - obviously not everything they talk about applies to our individual barn set ups (hellooo temperature controlled stabling!!), but good things to know nonetheless

[Pico_Banana]

I am renovating my new-to-me small barn. I am putting in a mini-split in the tack/grain room for heating/cooling, which is totally overkill but DH insists that’s the way to go. And it did occur to me on these incredibly hot days that I could actually close up the barn and run the AC on full blast!

[frugalannie]

Great advice on water early and often. A good friend of mine was involved with the studies on cooling horses that were undertaken before the Atlanta Olympics. She schooled me well on the concept of dousing a hot horse with cold water repeatedly until their temp started to come down, not even stopping to scrape them. The idea is to get as much body heat transferred to the water itself ASAP, and not leaving the warmed water on the horse but rather rinsing it off with more cold water. Not saying that horses just hanging around need that aggressive a cooling plan, but an exerted horse under these conditions? That’s what I’d do.

[SmlHpy1]

I have a horse with some degree of anhidrosis. I feel you anxiety. This is me all summer long. I live in a very humid area - it’s like a sweaty armpit most days during summer. I hose my guy daily. Doesn’t matter the time of day, or if it’s cooled down. I feel it reduces the stress on his body for that short time at least. He goes out at night only now. I will say that in general I think they tend to acclimate easier than people, especially if they are healthy. I’d just watch them closely. You can also take temperature as a check as well. If they are having any issues, especially sweating, their temp may be elevated. Access to water and salt. And a fan for moving air. Shade and moving air make a big difference. Best of luck! I feel your pain. I hate summer.

[Spudsmyguy]

Scraping has been proven to not be the thing to do. There is a new study out that dispels the myth that the water acts as an insulator which heats up the horse. The heat of the horse’s body is absorbed by the water which cools the horse slowly. The best course of action is to continue to hose the horse or sponge without scraping until the horse’s skin feels cool.

[lenapesadie]

Got a link handy?

I’m interested as I have a horse with anhidrosis so I’m open to learning better methods

I did a quick Google search and found this article which seems to promote the hose scrape hose scrape method…

Tips for Cooling a Hot Horse - Kentucky Equine Research

[Calvincrowe]

The studies done on scrape/no scrape all deal with horses post exercise—like race horses or eventing. Continuous wetting, followed by a walk cools quickest. If that’s what you need, do that. Certainly, you can scrape after the 6 minutes of cold hosing, bucket dumping, or whatever method is used. For hot horses in extreme heat like we are having, do whatever works in your set up. I cold hosed my guys and then scraped them off to avoid kicking and stomping at drips on legs and bellies, as they both like doing. Then put them in front of fans. That helped for the 15 minutes they were wet—it’s 112 degrees right now.

[lenapesadie]

After thinking on it, I suppose we are all trying to say the same thing: a quick squirt with the hose and nothing else probably isn’t terribly effective.

Hose scrape hose scrape til cool or hose, hose, hose til cool are both arriving at the same end point. A horse that is now cool to the touch. Granted in extreme heat nothing is staying cool to the touch for long. Lord knows me and my horses won’t be doing any walking to try and cool down; more like huddle under fan and eat watermelon.

112 is awful high. Hope it breaks soon

[poltroon]

@Calvincrowe

My friend’s pig died on Sunday from the heat. Not sure what all they were doing to help it out, but I know they are very heat sensitive. Our neighbor’s cattle seem ok- they have some shade, lots of water (I think…the tank is 6 acres away from me, but they seem to be accessing it well). I do worry about them as no one really ever checks them often.

Pigs are very heat sensitive and it’s not all that uncommon to lose them to hot days, even relatively ordinary hot days. Rabbits also, and chickens don’t always do well especially if they’re weakened or not used to it. We have a summer fair and there’s a significant amount of heat management for those animals even at more reasonable temperatures.

My sympathies to your friend, that’s a tough day.

[Atlas_Shrugged]

Scraping to keep cooler is a myth -

[hillary_again]

I’ve read the details of the recent study on scraping/no scraping, etc. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0737080621001155.

These conditions are quite a lot different than the climate here in Arizona. It’s 105-119F during most of the day now, much lower humidity than the experimental conditions, and the water coming out of the hose is nowhere near as cold as that used in the study (6C=43F). Water is probably not colder than 80F, and likely warmer.

I’m going to have to think more about how the current conditions would affect those results, but I love the detailed analysis and controls completed in this study. I’d like to see some repeat of this work with different temp/humidity/hosing temp combinations. Maybe this is an evaluation that we’ll see in the future from a vet school in the SW USA.