Helpful Hints to keep your Horse Cool
Summer heat is not just uncomfortable it is a health hazard to your horse as it is for us. Young, old or ill horses are least equipped to deal with extreme heat. But if you don’t manage your healthy horse it too could easily get into trouble with dehydration, weakness, colic, poor exercise tolerance even heat stroke.
Take extra care to keep your horse in the comfort zone by following these keep-cool suggestions.
· Keep clean water in limitless supply available 24/7.
· Make sure plenty of shade from trees, shelters or run-in sheds is available.
· If you have a herd situation, make sure you watch carefully to make sure weaker, older or less-dominant horses are not being chased away from water or shade.
· If you provide free-choice salt, horses should be eating at least 2 oz. /day. Weigh your blocks or bricks every two weeks to make sure. If they’re not consuming this much salt on their own start adding it to their feed. If not feeding grain regularly, make a small daily meal of soaked beet pulp or wheat bran with 2 tablespoons of salt added.
With really bad conditions, consider one of the following:
· Bring the horses in during the hottest part of the day and treat them to a hosing.
· Some horses really enjoy and will use a sprinkler system. Keep it outside your pasture/paddock fencing and set it to spray into the pasture.
· Set up large fans in your run-in area. (Make sure cords are safely out of reach of chewing, curious horses.)
Black/brown horses and overweight horses will have the most trouble regulating their body heat. Foals and older horses may also be less heat tolerant, and horses with Cushing’s disease very often have trouble regulating their body heat. Watch these high-risk groups very carefully for signs of extreme depression, weakness drenching sweat or failure to sweat, and even panting. If these occur, go to “quick cool”
Quick Cool down
An overheated horse, either from exercise or simple heat exposure, needs aggressive cooling. It’s simply not true that you can’t use cold water on a hot horse. That’s a myth. In fact, such cooling may prevent a life-threatening condition from developing.
Using cold water from a hose, run water over the horse’s chest, the jugular grooves of his neck, and the lower legs. These areas have many superficial blood vessels that can be easily cooled by the water and will carry the cooled blood to the interior of the horse.
Once the horse seems less distressed (breathing eases), progress to hosing the entire body. Continue the hosing until the water running off underneath the horse’s body feels cool. This means the water is no longer picking up large amounts of heat from the surface of the skin.
The horse should then be slowly walked in a shaded area. Observe him carefully to make sure the respiratory (breathing) rate doesn’t climb again or that the horse begins to sweat. If this happens, repeat the cooling process.
Offer tepid water at frequent intervals throughout this process. If the horse is very distressed at first or breathing/panting heavily, he probably won’t drink. Keep trying.
Loss of appetite?
It’s also normal for appetites to drop off during periods of extreme heat. If this happens, don’t panic. Your horses will start eating again when they feel more comfortable. Because of its high water content, grass is the ideal food. If your horse doesn’t have enough grass available for it to be his main food, try tempting him with carrots, celery, apples, watermelon, squash or salad greens added to a high mixture of soaked beet pulp and wheat bran.
Sweating
Sweating is the most important mechanism horses have for eliminating excess body heat. It’s therefore important to know if your horse is sweating normally. As a rule dark colored horses hold more heat. So they will sweat more easily than a light colored horse. Overweight horses tend to sweat more than a slimmer horse because the layer of fat acts as an insulator for them. Unfit horses usually sweat earlier, sweat more, and have frothier, sticky sweat than fit horses doing the same level of exercise. Horses just loafing in the barn or pasture will often have a light layer of sweat, just like we do when we are outside in the heat. You may not always see this but you should be able to feel it.
