She needs more then 4 flakes of hay that’s not enough. How many hours is she spending with nothing to eat?? My ribby horse has a big round bale to eat on as he pleases .Plus he’s fed senior feed 4x a day.
CA bales are giant so “four flakes” could be a considerable amount of hay.
How much is your horse getting in weight, OP?
Can she move to a quieter pasture where she can have easier access to hay? If she’s low man on the totem pole, she might not be getting her share. The group she’s with now sounds like a bad fit if she’d not get hay even if it’s unlimited. Limiting hay just increases the stress on the top dog horses to protect it and drive off the low man horses…
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;9030191]
That’s a real article. Lol
But your horse is skinny because she isn’t getting enough hay. What is your horse eating all day? Nothing?[/QUOTE]
There’s no grass in the pasture, she gets fed in the morning and at night
[QUOTE=Simkie;9030219]
CA bales are giant so “four flakes” could be a considerable amount of hay.
How much is your horse getting in weight, OP?
Can she move to a quieter pasture where she can have easier access to hay? If she’s low man on the totem pole, she might not be getting her share. The group she’s with now sounds like a bad fit if she’d not get hay even if it’s unlimited. Limiting hay just increases the stress on the top dog horses to protect it and drive off the low man horses…[/QUOTE]
Yes, she’s getting moved with another very low horse to a pasture with ANOTHER horse that’s low. And once we switch to that pasture they’re going to be feed 1/2 a portion of grass and 1/2 a portion of alfalfa as opposed to just a full portion of grass hay. I’m not quite sure about how much weight she gets.
Get a little “fish scale” or “luggage scale” ($10 tops at the hardware store), and a big bag like a Costco or IKEA shopping bag (the kind they charge $1 for) or use a hay next. Put a flake of hay into the bag or net, and weight on the scale. Then you have the weight of a flake and can calculate. That’s really important. Rule of thumb is about 20 lbs of hay a day, and if the horse is skinny, as much over that as he can eat. If he’s getting fat, reduce amount (not the problem here).
I’m in California and the last time I weighed a flake of orchard grass it was close to 7 lbs. There’s a lot of variation of course, but bales here usually weigh between 100 and 130 lbs.
My unclipped horses would probably die if I had a 220g blanket on them. That is WAY too warm. The temperatures in my area are very similar to yours.
We have a few more months of potential rain (rainy season officially ends in April), but we are nearing the end of the “cold” rain season.
I use the lightest weight sheet I can find (The Amigo Mio is VERY light, waterproof, and cheap) for rain and wind. But even that is too warm if it’s over 60 degrees or so. Our last few storms have produced very gusty wind and lots of rain, so I used their sheets because daytime highs only reached the mid-50s. With the storm coming today and tomorrow our high is expected to reach 61 so I left them naked.
OP, you need a rain sheet.
220g is too heavy for 50 degree weather, but anything colder that that with rain requires a rainsheet. She is too skinny to be getting soaked, and then stand there all night in the wet using her calories to keep warm.
Also, don’t listen to tazycat, her horses are in awful condition if you care to look up past posts. A horse with ribs visible through a winter coat is a concern, no matter what anyone thinks. I keep my THOROUGHBRED outside 24/7 in the Canadian winters (albeit, blanketed), and he has yet to show a rib and is shiny, gorgeous and energetic. He has access to quality round bales at all times, that’s it. He gets a vitamin grain when I bring him in as a treat.
A few flakes a day for a ribby horse like that isn’t going to do it any good.
I’d throw a rainsheet on her any day that it’s supposed to rain, so she can at least keep dry.
Djohn~~~ my horses being in horrible condition is not so any more here’s proof.
https://postimg.org/image/m9kb37ubn/ So don’t need to be telling poster to look up past threads. He is outside in rain freezing rain snow in 30 degrees no blanket. Coat never soaked through to skin and gained weight…proof is in the picture. Horses dont need blankets unless old or sick.
OP I spent 3.5 years in SoCal where people overblanket like it’s going out of style.
Your horse does not need a blanket. Like everyone says, she needs more hay. Also, a rain sheet. Trust me, it will rain again, so while you may miss this round of rain I promise you it will come again next winter.
Can you supplement your horse’s feed with hay pellets? I remember 50# bags being pretty cheap, about $10 or less if you caught them on sale at the feed store, and they can help put some extra groceries in her belly.
Hay flakes can vary a lot. Right now I’m feeding an alfalfa three string bale with a flake averaging ten pounds, a timothy three string with a flake averaging seven pounds, and a local grass hay with flakes averaging 3 pounds, but varying between 2.5 and 4.5 pounds from bale to bale. So saying “four flakes” could be starvation or obesity 
depending on the hay source. I’m assuming that if OP’s horse is being fed four flakes a day, this is with heavier rather than lighter flakes.
[QUOTE=jtkorth;9029875]
So you think she’d be fine getting rained on during the day and then going thru the lower temperatures at night even though she’ll be wet? (Actual question, I don’t mean for it to sound rude lmao). I’m probably being dramatic for saying “lower temps” because it’s just mid-high 40’s hahah.[/QUOTE]
If only the horse’s hair, not the skin, gets wet it will be OK.
A healthy winter hair coat sheds rain very well, and as long as the horse is able to consume enough hay to keep up it’s body heat it should dry rapidly.
If the horse is soaked thru, that’s a problem.
