03/12/2025
Well Tennessee, the cold is here. And with the cold comes all the special care considerations and endless debate of 'to blanket or not to blanket.'
Let's talk care considerations first, because regardless of what any of the horses in our herd need individually, they ALL need the same basics.
1) Hay. Hay = heat. That is, the act of digestion is your horse's furnace. The colder it gets, the more hay your horse will potentially want to keep itself warm.
2) Shelter. Shelter in Tennessee for horses is subjective by law, but in general a horse needs somewhere to get out of the wind and stay relatively dry. This can be a thick grove of trees, a lean to, a run-in shelter, an open barn, or a stall. Many horses when given the choice will choose a lee-ward wall or trees even when a barn is available, and this is when knowing your horse is important :)
3) Water. The colder the water is, the less the horse will drink. If you have troughs and can't use a heater/deicer, look at insulation options and consider offering room temperature water a couple times a day. If you use those plug in buckets in your barn, check them religiously for shorts and frays (barn fire risk!). If we have prolonged periods of freezing temperatures, consider adding warm water to your horse's grain rations and adding a sprinkle of salt to encourage them to drink more. Dehydration = colic = emergency vet calls in bad weather, and absolutely no one wants that.
"So what about a blanket?" you ask.
Blanketing is a very horse by horse, case by case, owner by owner type decision. If you show and you ride all winter and you don't want your horse to get fuzzy, you're keeping your horse under lights 16 hours a day and you're going to start blanketing in October. There is nothing wrong with making that decision and commitment.
Alternatively, if Fluffy is a trail horse you don't ride until the first warm days in March, you probably don't care very much about her coat. But, what if she's cold?
**The following is how we make decisions and is not the gospel.**
- Is the horse very young or very old?
- Is the horse in good body condition or even a bit heavy going into winter?
- Does the horse have a good, thick natural coat?
- Does the horse have shelter from ALL the elements, including somewhere to stay totally dry in rain/ice?
If the horse is like Pistol (first pic), he's a good 200 pounds underweight. He has a good, deeply bedded shelter with plenty of hay but because he is so underweight, he's been taught that a blanket is his friend in the cold. (He probably has not worn one in years, if ever).
If the horse is like Duke (second pic), as a thinner-skinned off the track Thoroughbred, he just doesn't grow much of a winter coat. He gets a blanket below 40 degrees, plus has hay and a stall in the barn when the weather is bad.
If the horse is like Beauty (third pic), she says "I don't need your fru fru blanket, thank you" as she chomps her hay in her thick winter coat.
