Equine Winter Care Tips
Living in Alberta means that several months of cold, winter temperatures is often inevitable. It is important to be prepared so that your equine friends can remain happy and healthy in the cold. If you’re wondering, “Do horses get cold in the winter?” the answer is yes, they can. However, with the appropriate winter care tactics in place, they are typically able to fare through the winter months quite comfortably.
Food, Water and Shelter
The most important way to ensure your horse remains healthy and warm throughout the winter months is making sure their basic needs of food, water and shelter are adjusted to compensate for the cold.
Water - Horses often require more water in the winter to avoid things like dehydration and colic. During the summer months, lush pastures contain 60 to 80 percent moisture that contributes to your horse’s daily water requirement, whereas dried feedstuffs such as grain and hay typically fed in winter contain less than 15 percent moisture. Water intake maintains a horse’s fecal moisture level and if fecal material becomes too dry, intestinal blockage or impaction may occur. Horses that drink less often start to eat less aswell, even if you're offering quality feed, which means they might not be consuming enough to generate the energy required to tolerate the cold. Ways to encourage your horse to continue drinking is to ensure their water supply stays between 8-18 degrees celcius. Research through the University of Minnesota has shown that horses increased their water intake by approximately 40 percent each day when water temperatures were above freezing in cold weather. Make sure to also supply a free choice salt lick, clean troughs often and check your water heater daily. Please remember that snow and ice are NOT adequate water sources for the majority of horses. Providing a clean, warm water source is one of the best ways to prevent winter time colics.
Feed - Lower critical temperatures affect a horses nutritional needs (lower critical temperature is the temperature below which a horse needs additional energy to maintain body warmth). This differs from horse to horse and is affected by many factors, including coat length and body condition. It is often perceived that feeding more grain will keep a horse warmer, however digestion, absorption, and utilization of grain doesn’t produce as much heat as the microbial fermentation of forage. The increase in microbial fermentation helps to keeps the horse warm, therefore the best thing to give your horse on cold days is additional hay/hay cubes, on top of their regular daily ration. Smaller animals have a greater surface area relative to body weight and can lose heat more rapidly than a larger animal, therefore, a weanling may reach their lower critical temperature before a mature horse. Cold weather can then slow growth because calories go from weight gain to temperature maintenance. To lessen a growth slump during cold weather, you should be feeding additional calories to your young horses. It is important to regularily have hands on your horses in order to monitor body condition throughout the winter months.
Shelter - Horses should have 24/7 access to shelter from wind, sleet and snow. In the absence of wind and moisture, horses tolerate temperatures up to 2x colder than when directly in the harsh elements. A 240-square-foot run-in or open-front shed (i.e. 12 x 20 feet) is typically ideal for two horses. You should add 60 square feet (i.e. an additional 10 x 6 feet) for each additional horse. Remember, that these sizes are ideal only if the horses housed together get along. If there is no shed available in a horses pen, there should be heavy trees or wind fence available instead.
Blanketing
A great question (that we get asked often) is whether or not a horse should be blanketed in the winter, or what decides when they should be. As we stated above, we recommend horses to have 24/7 escape from the wind, sleet and snow via a shelter or adequate tree cover to be able to tolerate temperatures up to 2x colder. A horses coat develops based on the length days and conjunctive daylight. Assuming that the horse is well equipped with the other factors discussed above and have no other underlying conditions, they should develop a dry, healthy coat that keeps them warm all winter long. In most cases, an adequate natural coat can actually keep them warmer then a blanket. This is because the lengthened hair coat works by trapping air underneath and warming it next to the skin. Have you ever been up close to a horse on a cold day when their hair appears “puffed up?” Placing a blanket on a horse can take away their ability to “puff up” their hair and trap the air, actually causing them to feel colder. There are instances that the hair loses its ability to adequately insulate, like when it is wet, and the horse will require blanketing. Some other instances with horses in which their coat is not adequate and therefore blanketing could be required include:
They have a poor body condition and therefore not enough extra energy to generate heat
They have poor coat condition due to poor nutrition or an underlying condition
They have other health concerns that use extra energy
They are a senior, are underweight, or have an underlying condition causing decreased muscle mass and fat cover
They are clipped, altering their natural coat
One of the main issues with blanketing horses is that it requires constant upkeep. Blankets need to fit properly, be appropriate for the type of weather and be removed often to check the horses condition underneath. You dont want to be suprised to find something concerning underneath the blanket come spring time.
Winter Exercising
Exercise doesnt need to stop during the winter months as long as the appropriate precautions are taken. One of the biggest dangers when riding horses throughout the winter is when they break a sweat and are not appropriately cooled down/dried off before they are put back outside. As stated above regarding blanketing, a horses coat cannot work the same to keep the body heated if it is wet. Body clipping is an appropriate solution to avoid having to cool your horse for hours after a ride, however blanketing is then required since you have taken away the horses ability to warm themselves naturally. You should not be clipping anywhere on your horse that cannot be covered with a blanket. For example, body clips should not include the neck unless you use a blanket that has a neck piece. Otherwise, the horse has no ability to warm themselves when exposed to the cold temperatures.
Even if you cool your horse appropriately, there are still temperatures that studies have shown are too cold to exercise your horse. This is because the horse’s respiratory tract is designed to warm and humidify air by the time it reaches the lungs. Intense exercise (anything more than a walk) speeds up and deepens breaths so that air is not warm enough in the appropriate amount of time. There is no set temperature that has been deemed too cold as it can differ between areas and individual horses, so a good rule of thumb that if it is cold enough that you cant jog outside without feeling like you have to cough or cant catch your breath, your horse will feel the same!
There are also some negative effects surrounding a lack of movement in the winter. We often get phone calls about middle-aged to senior geldings having a swollen shealth in the winter time. Athough there can be instances when this is due to more serious issues, it is often simply due to lack of movement that happens on cold winter days when the horse doesn’t travel much farther than their round bale. The swelling, or edema, accumulates in a dependant area of the body which is often times (thanks to gravity) the sheath area. The other common cause of this issue can be a change in hay that has different nutritional value, so a diet change or exercise (even just a walk!) is recomended for this problem.
Urine Oxidation
What is urine oxidation, you ask? Every winter, we get a few phone calls from worries owners who have noticed some concerning coloured urine spots in the snow, resembling what might be blood in thier horses urine. Althought it can be scary to come across, it actually can be a normal occurence for equine urine to appear anywhere from pink to reddish brown to orange in the snow. This is because plant proteins in the horses urine, called pyrocatechines, react with oxygen which results in a color change. It can happen all year round but tends to be most noticeable against the white snow.
If you see this happening in areas around your pasture and are concerned, you can make sure it is just the proteins by observing your horse urinating or even catching a fresh sample before it mixes with the snow. Before the color change has occured, the urine should appear a normal clear to yellow colour. If you notice your horse has discoloured urine before contact with snow, is posturing to urinate but nothing is happening, appears painful during urination, is frequently urinating or even dribbling urine, these cases would warrant further examination with your veterinarian.
Hoof Care
The same amount of attention should be paid to your rse’s hooves all year round, whether you are riding regularly or not. This is often one aspect of horse care that is overlooked in the winter. Horses’ hooves are still growing in the winter months as they are walking on frozen, uneven, and sometimes slippery ground, so timely and appropriate farrier work is important. It is also important to remember to continue to pick hooves regularly to remove debris, aswell as large balled snow that can cause them to weight bear unevenly. While some people extend time between trims during the winter months, it is recommended to continue on your regular 6-8 weeks trimming schedule.
Have any other questions about keeping your horse comfortable and happy during cold winter months? Dont hesitate to reach out to us!