Winter Horsekeeping

[2DogsFarm]

If your Shetland is like my mini you might not need a blanket.
I’m looking at him now & I think I see the very beginning of a Fall coat
We’ve been having crazy temp swings - 90 Saturday, 70 today. Before last week I considered turning my furnace on!
In the dead of Midwest Winter - including Polar Vortex temps - he’s a yak.

My horses - 21yo horse, 23yo pony, 9yo mini - have free access to stalls from pastures.
There’s no shelter in the pastures, but they choose Out over In most days & even evenings (evidenced by the lack of manure in stalls in the mornings) year-round.
I have 100g fill, water-resistant tunrout blankets for all 3, but they only get used if snow piled on their backs is melting. Even then, once they’re dry beneath, the blankets come off.

FWIW:
I had a WB bred in Queensland Australia, spent 6yrs in FL then came to me at 15, showslick with just a cotton sheet.
I used my 78 blanket on his 84 self until his new one came.
But he never grew more than plushy in Winter, even unblanketed.

Let your pony tell you how much blanket he needs.

I have heated buckets in the stalls & they’ve been Lifesavers.
Trough is a 50gal foodgrade plastic barrel I heat with a sinking deicer.
{KnockWood} In 19yrs power outages have never lasted long enough for water to be a problem.
With a single 11h exception, handled with bottled gallons from a Dollar store.
I had my frostfree hydrant placed inside my barn.
Barn is unheated, but even with stall doors in back left open 24/7/365, it’s always at least 10° warmer (small comfort in -0 temps) but hydrant never freezes. Well, once when I left the hose on
Now hose comes off when it goes below 40F & I water Bucket Brigade method.

Lucky for me, I have neighbors who plow my driveway & the 250’ path from house to barn.
I use sand from my indoor to make any icy spots safe for me & horses.
To date, I’ve never restricted their turnout due to ice & so far they’ve been sensible & safe.

Good Luck in your move!

[Cowgirl]

90 to 70 is not a crazy temperature swing. What we can have in winter is 65 to 14. In the summer, 90 to 45. We also can have serious wind chill.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that because we are at high elevation, we are closer to the sun and the risk of melanoma, for yourself and your animals, is greater than at sea level. I like to use fly masks a lot to protect the eyes, and fly sheets to keep them from becoming too hot (white sheets reflect). I also use fly masks to help protect their eyes from wind. For myself, I never wear short sleeves–always a sun shirt. I have too many friends who have had skin cancer.

I am not trying to scare you, just to prepare you as keeping horses at high altitude and in mountain downslope weather is really different from what others are used to. On the plus side: we are not that buggy. Really it is easy to manage the bugs. And the cool evenings are welcome after hot days.

[Twisting]

So much to read! I was off grid for a bit there. Few key bits of info.

There is a 3 stall barn with pasture/run access. So plenty of shelter, I tend to lean more in favor of out than in, as does my pony. He does like his stall fan in the summers though, and I like him inside during nasty storms.

He is a walking plushie in the winter, even in Texas winters, I had to clip him 3-4 times a winter to keep him from overheating in Texas. One of the barn rats was French braiding his fluff last year. Tipped me off he was overdue for a clip. He also has a plethora of blankets in various weights because he was clipped for the 80 degree days and blanketed for the random week or two of 19 degrees that blew through. (And everything in between. Because Texas is also fond of huge temperature swings.) I don’t plan on clipping for winter, and I will keep a close eye on him.

I am lucky enough to WFH so I can react to sudden weather changes. I have an amazon wish list filled with options for heated water sources. We moved our arrival date forward a month, so I can have my pony shipped in late Aug, early Sep. It could be earlier but the barn needs some sprucing up. Nothing major, just fixing the fascia and gutters and a new coat of paint. I also want to get hay in and triple check the integrity of the fencing.

I am really happy to hear about the bugs. My boy has bug allergies and both Texas and Florida were/are pretty miserable for him.

I’m not used to the altitude, but I did spend 10 years living in Hawaii, being closer to the equator is probably much the same, at least in terms of sunshine. The sun there will murder you before you even know what happened. All my riding shirts are long sleeved sun shirts. My ancestry is about as Northern European as you can get. I don’t mess around with the sun. I also have mild anhidrosis, so I hate the heat. I, personally, am looking forward to cool falls and brisk winters. Even the summers can’t be worse than the 100+ days of 100+ degree weather in Texas.

[candyappy]

I don’t do anything different than any other time of year?

The most important thing is unfrozen water 24/7.

The appropriate amount of hay where the horse / pony has what they need to maintain good weight no matter the cold.

A shelter where they can get in comfortably out of any weather and hopefully have hay and water to consume when they are in there.

I feed mine hay under the large lean- to off their loafing shed and their water source is located there as well ( all year round).

I never blanket ( no need) and only would if one showed evidence of being cold. Having hay and a place to get out of weather as they choose seems to be all they need( as of last Winter).

I kept them in MN and now MO no difference.

[MunchingonHay]

To encourage drinking, I like to drop an apple in my water buckets. Does two things, 1) horses/ponys try to get the apple and drink, 2) it stops ice from forming in the bucket from it bobbing.

Once pony has developed his winter coat, keep it brushed and fluffy. Blankets lay the hair down thus taking away its warming properties; so make sure you fluff him back up when you take it off.

Most ponies I know don’t need blanketing unless clipped. (I am in PA) Have fun in the snow!!

[Twisting]

I will probably end up doing free choice hay in the winter. Pony is a surprisingly good eater, in that he doesn’t over eat when given free access to hay. Planning on a water trough outside and buckets inside.

I may or may not be eyeballing a pair of sleigh runners for my cart. (I may or may not also be eyeballing a little mustang my friend’s daughter is working with for one of those mustang makeovers. The mind on the mare is just absolutely to die for, and the family has a combined 45+ years of working with mustangs. Day three out of the wild and she was stepping up on the horse trailer on a loose lead.)