No issues here! Just worries about sunburn, on the light skinned ones. Ours were always on night turnout anyway, and we clipped year round. Clipping them, especially the thicker coated ones, means they can sometimes wear a fly sheet too.
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I wouldn’t want to put the horse in air conditioning. As others have mentioned, the transition back to the regular hot weather will be tougher on him than if he’s been in it and used to it. If he’s got shade and a fan, he’ll be fine. We spend more time in controlled climates inside, so the weather has a greater effect on us (hot or cold). Horses are in it 24/7 so they acclimate. Yes, extremes can still be tough for them, but shelter with ample air flow is always good, add a fan for hot weather and a blanket for cold weather and they’re fine.
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Heat Index here is at 112F, humdity earlier was at 73%, now it’s down to 62%. I’ve already ordered several quart bottles of rubbing alcohol to pick up later from Sam’s Club.
As far as the clipping and bugs goes for my horse – he’s never been particularly attractive to bugs, unlike a few others I’ve owned. We don’t have horse flies, deer flies, etc., so have never needed fly sheets – and I think they’d be too hot for our weather.
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This is what someone I know uses:
It attaches to a hose and works really well.
Living in Florida, there have been many days I wished for air conditioning in the barn. It is doable. I know someone with an air conditioned barn for their old Alpaca.
For that matter, the garage is a reasonable solution as well but more labor intensive because I would want any soiling cleaned up pretty quickly to keep the smell down. My old horse would go right in the garage on buggy mornings and park herself between the car and washing machine. If your garage has a 2nd door, I would keep the electronic sliding door shut and just lead through the second door.
The main issue with keeping horses in AC is dust. So you should probably think of ways to keep things dust free. Air quality is very important. If that means putting in stall mats and using a low dust bedding and making sure to sweep up leftover hay scraps every day, it can be done.
Most horses do fine in the heat. My old mare only struggled the last few years with getting overheated in the summers. My horses now all cope better than I do. Today I was the one who had to rush back from our ride because I was getting too hot. The horses were both fine. And yes I picked the wrong way back and if my horses weren’t insisting we turn around I would have been lost. Good thing I know not to trust my sense of direction! I was ponying the young one but they both complained I was going the wrong way.
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I clipped him with a coarse Premiere blade, so not that close a shave, and already growing back in; he doesn’t have PPID, but he does have a naturally heavier coat, and seemed relieved after his bath and trim. Fortunately, he is very healthy and doesn’t look or act his age.
To me, it’s not the actual temperature reading, it’s the mugginess (combined with the heat) that makes the weather so unpleasant. Not what we’re used to in mid-June. Normally, I’ve given horses a break during the hottest six weeks of July and August, because we can ride through the winter.
But the extreme (for us) heat started up early this year, and we’re under a Heat Advisory. It just seems so much hotter than usual. My black, long-coated little dog is allowed outside for only minutes at a time, too.
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Thank you for this tip! I had forgotten about this and it might come in handy.
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Where I live, a really hot day is in the 90s, so I don’t have experience with these truly hot days that you are describing. I used to hose my horses off a few times a day, but some of the horses didn’t like it so I decided to stop hosing them. I believe the horses often know what’s best for them better than we do. All the horses seemed happier and seemed to sweat less when I stopped hosing them off. It made me wonder if hosing them off causes their temperatures to fluctuate too much. They seem happier just parking themselves at the fans. So now I only hose them off if they are actually sweaty. I am also dealing with horses in their late 20s, but in a generally cooler (but very humid) environment.
I would love to have misting fans running constantly on hot days, but I haven’t figured out the logistics of that in my tiny barn.
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Don’t know that this will work for anyone, but I bed on deep sand --stall floors are clay, topped with about a foot of sand mixed with clay (keeps the dust down).
we had one horse who was allergic to pine dust and nearly anything else, we bedded his stall with shredded straw (did shredded paper also but the paper was expensive and would not compost as easily as the shredded straw). The stall was matted.
We also enclosed his stall to air conditioned it to control the dust. The AC filters needed cleaning daily. There was not any issues of him being taken from his climate controlled stall into the heat.
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My husband got some overspray on himself while using this on my gelding yesterday evening – he said it really works and felt great, lol.
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My horse was not able to go to turnout last year, and I wound up clipping him in the summer. It was so hot that many days the horses would come in early anyway to get out of the sun and bugs. The barn is insulated but it was so hot for so many days that then they got the fan I posted above. It’s not set up to allow individual stall fans, and they looked into big ceiling fans but there are also heaters, and we wouldn’t be able to use effective fans with the space available to avoid the heaters. So they got the evaporative cooling fan. It’s quite loud if turned up enough to push air down a longer aisleway, but it really did work, and the extra airflow did help some with bugs.
In general here I would worry more about the sun with clipping in summer than the bugs. When the bugs are bad, they bite me through my clothes so I don’t see a little bit more hair helping the horses much.
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Well, my husband found this on Instagram this morning, and has already ordered it:
Nothing is too good for our old man! So far, he’s doing fine. We’re taking turns every couple hours rinsing him off, or spraying on the alcohol/water mixture, or putting the soaked Cool Coat on him. I think he likes all the extra attention – he’s being a very good sport about it.
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I wouldn’t purchase the Icybreeze again for the barn, but we think it’ll come in handy for doing people activities. It makes great cold, dry air BUT warms up what seems to be almost instantaneously when the melted water needs to be drained, so then it’s blowing warm air.
For people purposes, when right there using the Iceybreeze, it’d be easy to drain the melted water from the cooler and be back in a snap to cold, dry air. In the barn, I learned quickly not to leave it running unattended, as the air produced can go from cold to warm very rapidly. We’ve now packed it away.
Basically, the cooler is full of ice and/or the optional frozen paks, plus a couple quarts of water. The ice chills the water, the ice cold water chills the air, producing cold, dry air that the fan then blows out. As the ice melts, the excess water needs to be drained (normal cooler drain plug) to keep the system circulating and cold air produced.
IME, the minute there is excess water, the air stops being chilled and warm air is blown out. There is a fast change from cold to warm air, which I’ve personally experienced when nearby – warm air starts blowing, drain the water, ice cold air blowing, then suddenly more warm air blowing because water very rapidly needs to be drained again. Didn’t give me confidence to keep this running unattended.
Ice does keep well inside the cooler, if not using the fan to produce cold air – manufacturer claims a week.
