How do you ensure that your horse is confortable on the stables?

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Lewuiis

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Jan 24, 2022
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How do you keep your horses comfortable at the stables?

I've been using a small gadget, made by Ruuvi, the RuuviTag. Measures temperature, air humidity and air pressure. Connected it to my phone (later to the wifi and had all the info even when I was traveling) and i had all the info that I need from inside the stables with accuracy.

I'm always worrying if Decker and SugarPotato are comfortable or if the stables are too cold or too hot. This gadget has been a real life saver for me. Anywhere I am, provided that I have a internet connection, I can check how's the temperature for them.

Since it has also a humidity feature,, I was able to see the humidity rising but couldn't figure out why. Apparently one of faucets was leaking and getting everything wet. Made a few calls and a friend got there quickly preventing further damage
 
I’m afraid I’m old fashioned in that department, I just feel them. I’m there at least twice a day for a few hours (total) so can check them frequently enough to be happy, if the weather is particularly vile (mine live outside with access to a shelter) I will make an extra visit if I’m worried.
 
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Same here @Jessey , I feel them and I also get to know the individual because some seem to be happier kept warmer or cooler. I don't think any gadget or technology will ever replace knowing the individual horse.
 
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Thankfully my horses are home. There isn’t anything I can do about the weather which, lately has more swing to it than a Texas swing dance competition🤯🤯

I have a weather website that I watch during the winter, to determine if the both the ten foot doors on the barn get closed. We live with awful humidity during the summer so I check the dewpoints and humidity at night to see how long I want to leave the big tub fans running; they are on heavy duty outdoor timers.

Both horses have their own free access to the barn & hay, during the day. They are shut in at night. I had to board for a handful of years in past and was fortunate to be at a great barn but there is nothing better than seeing your horses out your own window, if the opportunity presents itself:)

This is my precious Joker - who nevvvvvrrrrrr does anything wrong, lollol

Cool in the summer. He loves his fan.
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Warm in the winter, taken a few days ago.
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The thing is the absolutely last thing I would trust is a gadget. I would trust my eyes, and ears and senses. Never a gadget. I struggle believing what anyone else says if they are checking my horses, tbh.

Mostly because if shit happened, I would not get over the fact I relied on an app or a gadget or something rather than my own judgement.
 
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Lollykay said:
Cool in the summer. He loves his fan.
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Click to expand...
I've just noticed his tail flying in the wind - love it! 😂
 
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I actually think these gadgets could be really useful if they are accurate. We have a huge problem in this country with overrugging horses. This isn't directed at anyone on here! Since I've read this study below I've always thought to myself if skin temperature is that high in those temperatures, what is it like when horses are rugged on sunny warm days. But also alot of us are not with our horses when the temperature is most extreme (midday or middle of the night) so do we actually know that our horse is warm or cool enough, personally I'd love to be able to just check how warm Ale is at 1am 😂

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I'm just not sure the technology is quite there yet. I do think this sort of thing is really useful for pet cages or stables though, you can just check at the glance of your phone and hopefully would reduce risk of heatstroke in small animals.
 
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1am isn’t the coldest time generally, just before dawn is and mid afternoon the warmest. I’m lucky with my hours I get to be there then to check, I think a lot of people do the pre dawn thing when it counts in winter because they work.
 
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Fair enough, I'd still buy something like that if it was available and could be used on unrugged horses 😁
 
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While I find surveys like that interesting @Ale I don't think they are that useful on their own. They only measure skin temperature - I can put enough jumpers on that my skin feels warm but I'm still cold. The test was only over an hour and at a steady temperature, yet we rug horses for far longer than that and in the UK our temperatures can vary a lot in a short time - I frequently have a different rug on, or unrugged, in the day than at night. And as I said before there's no way of factoring in personal likes - I have a friend who only puts a long sleeve top on at the point when most of us are reaching for hats to go with our thermals, jumpers and coats. Jim would threaten anyone daring to touch his ridiculous rugging, and often felt a bit too warm to touch if you carried on, but it was not wise to remove even a thin layer because he was happy like that, Little In at the same temperature was fine in a fleece and feeling cool to touch. Personal preference.
 
I think they have their uses for things like recommendation charts and rug guidance. Not necessarily that study as it was so small but I would love to see rugs tested in this way in different weather conditions, sadly the research just isn't there. But I do think it's really interesting to have such a high skin temperature recorded in such cold outside weather. Was that skin temperature so high because the rug is really effective or because the horse was thermoregulating it's temperature effectively, thus the horse was warming the rug and not the other way around. Sadly there just isn't the research so who knows!

I completely agree too that it's not all science and horses are all different. Certain horses certainly acclimatise better to some conditions than others and I'm sure there is an element of personal preference too! There is a really interesting study that taught the horses to choose between having rugs on or off.

Hopefully I don't come across as sounding like a know it all or preaching my ideas about things in my posts. I certainly never knew about temperatures being lowest at those times of day as @Jessey has corrected me and that's really interesting, I always thought differently but can see I'm wrong there. I'm always just sharing my opinion, right or wrong 😂

But I do love thinking about it all and I think we do need alot more science in the horse world as alot of current practice is just tradition. But again that's just my own opinion on it all.
 
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looking at the weather chart for tonight, it goes from ten degrees down to four, in the space of a few hours as well as a blistering north wind And some rain. I am umming and ahhing about rugging two Icelandic’s. One a stallion who burns off energy and my old man (who is not a dustman - please enjoy that ear worm all day!).

I have decided nah, I wont rug. Both get a good bucket in the morning plus two hay nets during the day so really their own internal combustion engine will work well. there is good shelter in their field, ie walls or hills to stand behind. They look fine, can spare the odd pound and if they are cold, then good, that is what their bodies are equipped to manage. If I march in and put on rugs, I stop their bodies actually doing what they were designed to do And that does them no favours Long term.

if they i could feel ribs and see spikey pelvis, hip bones, of course I would rug.

having been a bit meaner this year about rugging, I actually think these two looks the better for it.

sorry for all the random capital letters. On iPad!
 
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I can see why people new to horses and rugging might want something to help guide them as to what’s appropriate, but I do also think it could be a crutch and people may then not take the time to learn to look at the individual.
I don’t think any of them work on unrugged horses either, they are just monitoring air temp under the rug not skin temp (so are potentially just monitoring heat loss not body temp at all), you’d have to clip bald to get something in skin contact for it to be truly effective.
 
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