Hey guys, it’s Krista with SaddleBox and in today’s video I’m going to help you decide whether or not you should blanket or not blanket your horse.
So the pros to blanketing your horse include obviously you are going to be keeping them warm. Say you have maybe a rescue horse, a younger horse, an older horse, or just a horse who is on the skinnier side or maybe they’re ill and they need some extra warmth on them, blanketing can absolutely help with that.
Another big thing that I see people blanket a lot for is they have a horse who is prone to colicking when the temperatures drop. So here in Texas, we don’t really get that much of a winter, but when we do, it usually goes from 60 or 70 degrees all the way down to the 20s.
So when that happens, colic is kind of inevitable for horses who are prone to it, so blanketing them, keeping them in a warm stall, and just doing everything we can to help prevent that dramatic shift of temperature on them can really, really help.
Another really popular pro to blanketing horses is they will not have to grow a winter coat, thus come time to shedding season, they will not shed as much, and just overall they will stay sleeker and shorter-haired through the winter.
So you commonly see this when people have show horses. This is Paisley, she is a show horse, and she’s got a little bit of winter coat going on here, but for the most part, she’s pretty slick, especially for this time of year, which is January where I live. So it can definitely help with that.
Now, I will say if you are going to blanket your horse in order to keep their hair shorter, you need to be able to take the blanket off when it gets too hot for them. So say you blanketed overnight and then it’s going to get really hot during the day, so you go off to work and then your horse is sweating in their blanket, that wouldn’t really be an ideal situation to blanket your horse in.
So it’s really important to know what the weather is going to be like, and also obviously you can check under here, and if the blanket is making them too warm or sweaty. But really, it’s all about keeping your horse comfortable. I know people do it for aesthetic reasons, but I think it’s important to pay attention to the horse and be doing it for their comfort and not your own.
So another reason why I blanket here in Texas is because we get a lot of fluctuating weather. So like I mentioned before, we don’t really get that big of a winter compared to the northern states, but when it does get cold, it will kind of get cold for a really short period of time and then go back to being warmer.
So blanketing during those cold times can help the horses not grow so much of a winter coat so when it does get hotter, they don’t grow as much of a coat or sweat as much when you’re working them here, so that is another really big pro. However, that kind of leads me into the cons as well.
If you are blanketing your horse and you are not able to take off the blanket when it gets hot during the day and your horse is sweating, it’s really not ideal to blanket your horse. But if you do have the availability and time to take the blanket off when they don’t need it and put it back on when they may need it, then it’s definitely a good thing to do.
Okay y’all, so I hope I was able to help give you some insight on blanketing and just remember in general, a healthy horse will grow a healthy winter coat, so it’s not always a necessity to blanket; however, if you have any real concerns about blanketing, contact your veterinarian and get their opinion.
That’s it for this one, I hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye guys!