I want to clip but don't want to blanket

[bip]

This question is just food for thought, you don’t have to answer, but how easily can you get to the barn to pop a blanket on (and then take it of again!), and how many days between now as when his coat grows back would you need to do that? Or can you pay someone once in a while in a pinch rather than paythe monthly fee?

Also, is the horse in a basically open pipe corral or does he have three sides of shelter? And relatedly, can he stand in the sun when it’s cold but sunny?

I have a very woolly draft cross who spends part of the winter trace clipped and unblanketed, but we don’t get the fluctuation in temps from day to night that you have. We have huge fluctuations in temp but they usually last several days or weeks (And the weird thing is that it can warm up at night or drop during the day because the temperature comes in from Canada and Florida/Texas instead of just from the sun. It took a long time to get used to because I grew up in CA!) The upshot of that is that it is cool enough in the daytime that he doesn’t get too sweaty during the day, and we may need a sudden banker change but then usually it can stay on or off for days.

[BatCoach]

So much of the blanketing quandary depends on HOW your horseis kept.

I’m not showing, but I clip my horse because I ride and lesson at night, so unless I want to be there till 11pm drying and cooling him I pretty much HAVE to clip him.

I’m in so cal too, so I blanket him after he is clipped because:

1. my horse is stalled at night. he has no paddock to move around in to keep up body heat
2. his stall is open (pipe coral & wire mesh) on 3 sides - its designed to keep a horse cool, not warm. So if it is windy he feels it!
3. he might run out of hay at night (boarding) so I can’t count on constant intake of calories to keep him warm
4. It is what he is used to. He’s a California boy who is thin-skinned and honestly isn’t really accustomed to being cold.

If his boarding situation were different I might reconsider when/ how much I clip but for now he has a high trace with no belly hair and gets a sheet at night until if goes below 55, then we switch to a blanket. He has an entire wardrobe of different weight blankies, so I swap out the one he needs for that night.

[Bristol_Bay]

@bip, I live less than a mile and a half from the barn, so I can run down and blanket if need be.

@BatCoach

1. my horse is stalled at night. he has no paddock to move around in to keep up body heat
2. his stall is open (pipe coral & wire mesh) on 3 sides - its designed to keep a horse cool, not warm. So if it is windy he feels it!
3. he might run out of hay at night (boarding) so I can’t count on constant intake of calories to keep him warm
4. It is what he is used to. He’s a California boy who is thin-skinned and honestly isn’t really accustomed to being cold.

This is my horse exactly. I love the extra hay idea but it’s never gonna happen. I don’t ride at night, but I do turn my horse out in the sun pens every day and he loves to roll. With all that hair, he gets so filthy.

My horse has five blankets!

[Red_Barn]

I wouldn’t worry so much about temperatures in the 30s - unless, of course, it was rainy and/or windy. That can be pretty brutal.

How about a conservative trace clip and a good quality rain sheet instead of a blanket?

[GraceLikeRain]

It sounds silly but I’ve seen people clip out the girth area, neck groove, and stifle area. Would you get snickers from boarders, yup, but if you aren’t showing it accomplishes the desired goal and you can probably get away without blanketing at all unless it gets below freezing.

[PhoenixFarm]

I had a horse who would not tolerate a sheet or blanket of any kind. We called him The Shredder. His literal last act on this earth, as we were preparing to euthanize him, was to rip the front off a scrim, wriggle out of it and stomp on it.

He got a low trace clip every winter, and lived out with a shelter, but did fine in a similar climate (NorCal).

So yes, I’d think he’s fine provided appropriate calories and shelter.

[SonnysMom]

@GraceLikeRain

It sounds silly but I’ve seen people clip out the girth area, neck groove, and stifle area. Would you get snickers from boarders, yup, but if you aren’t showing it accomplishes the desired goal and you can probably get away without blanketing at all unless it gets below freezing.

I did something like this on my horse last year. I normally do his first clip of the year last week of October or first week of November. If I do it before then he grows it back too quickly. However he was getting pretty sweaty in late Sept so I just clipped the underside of his neck, his girth area and the insides of his hind legs.