10 tips for the start of the cold season

Reading time 45 minutes  

The days are getting noticeably shorter and the sun is barely warm enough – when it does peek through the clouds. Riders are dusting off their thick winter boots, and heated gloves, heated insoles for riding boots are in high demand. Everything is preparing for the approaching winter and many stables (and owners) are not looking forward to the cold season. We have a few tips on what to look out for to ensure that everyone gets through the winter safely.

Grow winter coat

For some years now, we have observed a growing trend towards clipping the horse and then wrapping it in a thermal rug or covering the horse with such rug from September onwards to prevent winter coat formation to some degree. It is often forgotten that the horse’s winter coat is better suited to keeping the horse warm or cool as required and wicking away perspiration than any multifunctional rug. It wicks away rain, so even if a horse is standing in the rain, it won’t get “soaked to the skin”. And unlike a thermal rug, it cleans itself within a few days, even if our horse has rolled around in the biggest puddle of mud.

The undercoat, which is formed in the winter coat, makes it possible to keep a warming air cushion under the top coat, so that a horse is warmer in its winter coat than we are in a down jacket. At the same time, the capillary forces of the hairs allow sweat to be transported away from the skin to the surface immediately.

Even if a horse starts to sweat while riding, after 15 minutes of riding you will notice that it is already dry again in the areas close to the skin, even if it still looks wet on the surface. This allows the warming air cushion directly above the skin to be built up again and the residual sweat to gradually dry off.

At the same time, horses can position their coats on sunny days in winter so that the heat is dissipated from the skin, preventing heat build-up.

We take away all these wonderful qualities from the horse when it is clipped and wears a rug. It is then either too cold or too warm, sweating or shivering. And all too often you see horses with a complete clip from head to hooves – only the body is warmed by the rug, while the blood on the neck and legs cools down. This leads to significantly reduced blood circulation, especially in the legs, which means that microtraumas that occur every day during exercise can no longer regenerate sufficiently and quickly.

Long-term damage to tendons, ligaments or joints can be the result. Especially when the horses sweat under the rug and then have this clammy rug put back on after riding, it’s like putting on wet clothes after sport in winter.

Then we may be thickly dressed, but we are still shivering. In addition, rugs encourage the colonisation of skin fungi and other skin parasites, which is why they are usually treated with fungicides nowadays.

Conclusion: there is no better weather protection than a natural winter coat. It protects from the cold as well as from the wet and from the heat, and also looks stylish.

If it has to be a rug, then please make sure it’s clean and suitable.

There are horses that do not produce a sufficient winter coat due to their breed or age. This mainly includes horses with full blood lines such as Thoroughbreds or Arabians. However, many horses over the age of 20 also fail to produce a coat of sufficient density in good time.

Their winter coat often hardly differs from their summer coat or sometimes looks like a fluffy foal coat without a topcoat. As a result, they stand in the turn out paddock in bad weather with chattering teeth.

Generally speaking, horses like this are poor doers anyway, and when it gets really cold, you can’t feed them enough to make up for the energy they require to keep warm.

Putting these horses out in the elements without a rug is not doing them any favours. They will lose weight, become stiff and unmotivated in their work and will get increasingly grumpier over the winter.

Rainy weather is particularly critical, especially if it is accompanied by wind. While dry cold is often well tolerated, it is mainly the wet cold that really creeps into the horse’s bones and chills it. In such cases, there is no way around other than using a rug if you want to keep your horse in an equine-appropriate manner, i.e. outside in the fresh air and with plenty of free movement.

In many cases, however, a pure rain rug is sufficient. As soon as rain and wind are kept out, most horses can still build up sufficient warmth under the rug and feel completely comfortable.

If that is not enough, you should switch to a rug with only a light lining. The warmer the horse is wrapped up, the more its own coat formation will be reduced. However, if you keep the thickness of the rug just below the super-feel-good factor, you ensure that the horses still continue to produce as much winter coat as they can.

With many former sport horses that have only been kept in warm stables all their lives, you can see that they become woolier from winter to winter.

When choosing a rug, it is neither the cheapest special price nor the expensive brand name that should take priority. The important part is that it fits the horse. Unfortunately, many rug manufacturers still only offer rug sizes based on back length. An Arab has a very different shoulder shape to a Spaniard of the same length.

Most rugs are particularly “tight” at the shoulder. Either the breast piece dangles at the level of the carpal joints, or the horse can hardly move forward from the shoulder – often despite the widely praised gusset in the shoulder area of the rug. Various chafing and stuck movements are the result.

With this in mind, it is important to experiment to find out which brand and which cut fits your horse best. The trend towards tail flap means that the rugs are pulled backwards by the horse’s movement and then often pull at the chest.

A rug should end directly at the base of the tail. Even if you then have the impression that “the bum peeks out”: Horses don’t get cold, and it ensures that the rug fits better when moving.

It is ideal if a horse only has to wear his rug when he is out in the paddock in bad weather. This is not usually necessary in the stable, as most stables make sure that the temperature does not fall below zero degrees – otherwise the drinking water will freeze.

By adopting this approach, you can confidently put a rug on most horses in the morning when they go out to the paddock and take it off again in the evening. In an open stable, you usually have to put a rug on your horse 24 hours a day, so this approach is not really an option.

Rugs must be cleaned regularly to prevent the colonisation of skin parasites such as skin fungus etc.

Many horse owners put their horse’s rug on in October and take it off again in March. Just imagine how you feel when you wear your underwear from October to March without changing it. What’s more, we expect the horse to sleep in its own faeces in its rug and put it on after riding when the horse is still damp.

Such rugs often look extremely unappetising even in November. If you only want to touch the rug with pointed fingers, then it’s time to clean it! As a rule of thumb: wash at least once a week.

This means that you need a lot of spare rugs and have to be prepared for some effort, as most winter rugs do not fit in a domestic washing machine at home.

Conclusion: If a rug is necessary – due to age or genetically weak winter coat development – then you need a sufficient number of rugs that must fit well (even after a day in the paddock rolling around, playing and herd mates tugging at each other) rugs must be cleaned regularly once a week.

Close pastures

The current trend seems to be towards all year-round grazing – more and more stables are leaving their pastures open for at least half the winter, sometimes until spring. Even if it is to be welcomed that the horses have more exercise – not every horse can tolerate winter grazing!

A healthy horse can be given access to pasture 365 days a year without any problems, as long as a sufficient quantity of high-quality hay is always available.

If a horse already is in dysbiosis – i.e. incorrect fermentation due to the colonisation of the wrong microorganisms in the intestine – then access to pasture in winter can be fatal.

If the grass in this pasture has been left to grow all summer and the horses are now going on to this field for grazing, they will only find “grass thatch” which – on closer inspection – is usually already very mouldy at the roots.

The horses ingest the mould and therefore also its mycotoxins and antibiotic substances. The latter have a damaging effect on the natural intestinal flora, while the mould toxins have to be broken down and disposed of via the liver metabolism, which results in a significant additional strain.

If you have made hay from the meadow and then let it grow again, the grass is often very rich in pectin, because this is the building material of the leaves in the grasses. The pectins are mainly broken down in the large intestine by microorganisms, which produce harmful acids in the process. The result is a gradual acidification of the large intestine, which is one of the main causes of inflammation of the intestinal mucosa, this will push the microbiome further into dysbiosis and often leads to laminitis.

The fructan content of grasses increases at low temperatures. Here too, a healthy horse with intact intestinal flora has no problems as these fructans are broken down harmlessly in the large intestine. However, if lactic acid bacteria have colonised the large intestine of a horse on a large scale, e.g. directly by feeding lactic acid bacteria in the form of EM-A, fermented grain products or haylage or indirectly, e.g. by feeding large quantities of concentrated feed or brewer’s yeast, then the fructan is broken down in the large intestine in a disturbed manner.

The lactic acids produced in this process in turn lowers the pH value and – depending on how quickly this pH shift takes place – leads to slow or rapid changes in the colon environment.

Here too, laminitis can be the result of such a fructan overload. Endophytes are fungi that live in grasses and give the grasses a survival advantage, for example, by making them more resistant to stress.

The effect of endophytes in grasses and their metabolic by-products on horses has only been researched to a limited extent, but the results indicate that these too can cause significant metabolic problems, especially if dysbiosis or metabolic disorders are already present.

The use off fields as winter pasture is often not good for the horses either, especially if they are used all year round. Most yards do not have enough land available, i.e. between one and two hectares per horse. This is the only way to ensure that there are no significant shifts in the vegetation due to the horses’ selective plant consumption.

If too many horses are kept per unit area, this leads to browsing and trampling and the grass becomes stressed – which in turn leads to an increase in fructan and endophytes. Moreover, horses kept in such conditions cause the soil to become too compacted, which in turn also has a negative impact on the vegetation.

Eine Alternative zur Weide im Winter ist die Anlage eines Paddock Trail, der sich An alternative to winter grazing is the creation of a paddock trail, which has become increasingly popular in the last few years. With skilfully placed movement incentives (feeding stations, salt lick, nibbles etc.), you can provide more movement than on pasture and at the same time avoid eating grasses at times when they are poorly tolerated. For ideas and suggestions on paddock trails, we recommend www.offenstallkonzepte.com.

Conclusion: Considering that many horses in domestic care already suffer from varying degrees of hindgut dysbiosis, and that pastures are often overused, it is advisable to close pastures as soon as temperatures drop. Instead, provide hay in the winter turnout pen, which benefits both the horses and the grassland. For additional movement during the winter months, creating a paddock trail around the pasture offers an excellent alternative.

Are you accurately estimating your horse’s weight?

There’s no question that most horses in our stables tend to suffer from being overweight. But there are also others. The horses where you feed them everything you can and still see every rib. Not only horses with a high proportion of thoroughbreds are among them, but of course also older horses and often growing young horses. Very slim to lean horses in particular have no reserves to survive periods of cold weather or poor hay quality without problems.

For horses over 20, it is better to start the winter 50kg overweight than too thin! As this reserve dwindles very quickly if the horse becomes ill, e.g. catches an infection. The extra pounds are also quickly lost in the event of pain, e.g. due to arthritis flare-ups or dental problems, which occur more frequently in older horses. You should therefore endeavour to keep these horses on the slightly overweight side throughout the year.

The weight status of young horses varies greatly as they grow. Normally, they have a period of weight gain until they reach the point where you start to think about reducing their feed because they are overweight. This is followed by a growth spurt and within a few days the horses are quite a bit taller (usually at the back first) and significantly thinner to ribby.

Such spurts of weight gain and growth are considered normal. Even without special measures, they usually gain weight again after the growth spurt, while the rest of the body slowly adapts to the new height.

You should keep an eye on the issue of worm infestation in young horses, as a heavy parasite load can certainly lead to poor weight gain and thus stunted growth.

It is therefore better to send in faecal samples frequently than too rarely. In addition, young horses are almost constantly changing their teeth. During the first few months of life, the milk teeth erupt. Then the permanent teeth develop in the jaw and from around 2.5 years of age the change of teeth begins and the rear molars begin to emerge.

The change of teeth is completed at around 5 years of age. Until then, toothache can lead to poor food intake and thus loss of weight. If in doubt, this should also be checked.

Many owners’ despair of their horses with a high percentage of Thoroughbred blood, because no matter what and how much they feed their horse, it may become increasingly frisky under the saddle, but it still does not have more on the ribs. In addition, such horses often do not develop a sufficient winter coat. In many thoroughbreds, the winter coat does not really differ from the summer coat. This means that they have to convert a lot of energy into heat in order to maintain their core body temperature. So even with the best feed, there is often not enough to “gain weight”.

On the contrary, despite hay ad libitum (until saturation) and plenty of concentrated feed, such horses often lose weight over the winter, especially when kept in open stables and at high altitudes. As long as the horses look slim (= last 4-5 ribs visible, horse looks a little angular, but not morbid) and not skinny (= all ribs visible, pelvis protruding, horse looks sunken, back muscles practically non-existent) and are in good spirits, i.e. are keen to participate in life, there is no need to worry too much.

But if the weight becomes critical, there is only one thing to do: reduce energy consumption. These are horses for which you should consider purchasing insulated rugs. This is because it can significantly reduce energy consumption, leaving more energy from the feed for “building functions”. And, of course, such a horse should be checked for possible pain, parasite infestation, dental problems, stress and poor feed absorption.

But how can you tell whether a horse is too fat, normal or too thin? The neck and croup are poor guides here, as their shape varies greatly depending on the breed. For example, a Spanish horse will always have a pronounced upper neck, whereas an Arabian horse will have practically none at all, regardless of its weight.

The same applies to the croup: a thoroughbred will always have a square croup that resembles a gable roof from behind, no matter how you feed it. A draft horse, on the other hand, still has a “heart’s shaped bottom” even when lean.

The best way to recognise the weight is by the ribs. If they are all clearly visible when standing, a horse is too thin. Exception: Thoroughbreds, Achal-Tekkiner, i.e. all breeds with a high bloodline, here the last 3-4 ribs are often visible in normal feeding condition.

If you can see the last 2-3 ribs, then this is no cause for concern, but especially at the end of the grazing season this should not really be the case, as the horses can provide themselves with plenty of nutrients in the summer and are therefore more likely to put on weight, i.e. go into the winter a little “too round”. When you bend a horse, the ribs should be visible on the outside.

If you can’t see anything at this point, the horse is too heavy. This applies to all breeds, from ponies to warmbloods, from Arabians to draft horses. The hip bones also provide information about the weight status: it should be easily palpable in all horses. In thoroughbreds it is often quite clearly visible. However, if it sticks out like you would expect on a cow, then the horse is too thin.

If you have to look for it under mountains of flesh, then the horse is too fat. These are the horses where you can barely feel ribs even with a lot of effort and pressure.

A distinction should also be made as to whether a horse has stored more fat or more lymph, which drives the weight upwards. Horses do not initially store fat in “pads”, but as strands of fat in the muscles. A fat horse therefore initially looks well-muscled.

So much so that the back muscles are so pronounced that a channel is formed in the centre where water remains when it rains. Only when the fat metabolism is derailed (EMS) do pads develop, namely a flabby neck ridge and a fat ridge above the root of the tail (not to be confused with incorrectly developed muscles, as occurs when the sternum is dropping down due to being exhausted)

If horses tend to store lymph, you will initially see “pads”, which are often mistaken for fat. They develop particularly on the flanks and neck. Some neck ridges then look as if a cushion has been stuffed into them. On the flanks, the pads sit where the saddlebags would hang if there were any on the saddle, i.e. on the left and right below the rear pommel.

Only when the lymph metabolism is completely derailed and the entire subcutaneous connective tissue becomes lymphatic do the horses look fat and plump, as if stuffed – and a pair of legs that are far too thin peek out at the bottom. A horse like this has no energy reserves for the winter. Because underneath the lymphatic deposits can be a thin to lean horse!

Particular attention should be paid here to sufficient energy intake in winter. Diets’ tend to increase the deposits. While fat horses can be given a little less basic feed, horses with lymphatic deposits should definitely be given sufficient hay to prevent further metabolic derailment.

Conclusion: You should be able to see a bit of rib, especially when the horse bends to the outside. The hip bones should always be easy to feel. Being too thin or too fat is equally harmful. Older horses can afford to carry a bit more weight, while young horses’ body condition can vary significantly with growth. Thoroughbreds and similar “delicate coats” may need to be rugged if they don’t grow enough winter coat.

Good quality hay in sufficient quantity

One of the main problems in many stables is still the economical feeding of roughage. Although the negative effects of “meal feeding” and too little feed as well as too few feeding places have long been shown in studies, it remains one of the biggest points of contention in stables.

If healthy horses are allowed to eat hay freely, they will eat between two and three kg of hay per 100kg of body weight. In addition, horses are constant feeders. Any compulsive roughage rationing with longer breaks in between causes stress in the organism.

Stress, in turn, means that horses are no longer able to utilise their feed optimally and consume more energy; they go into so-called catabolic metabolism, in which more reserves are consumed than replenished. Of course, this does not make sense in winter in particular, as horses have an increased energy requirement anyway due to the cold temperatures.

Horses can draw practically all of their energy requirements from the fibre contained in hay – even if they need additional energy to produce body heat in winter. To do this, however, it is important that they have uninterrupted access to this fibre-rich feed. Such a suggestion immediately causes many riders and yard managers to gasp, as they immediately fear that the horses will become fat.

Our hay is no longer the hay of our grandparents! Over the last 50 years, our meadows have been enriched with high-performance grasses that have high sugar and protein contents with simultaneously decreasing fibre contents. Such hay is ideal for ensiling and for fattening dairy cattle. However, it is not suitable for horses, which are working less and less and need less energy.

Today, sugar levels in hay of 12-16% are the rule rather than the exception, although horse hay should actually have a sugar content of <10%, and <6% for horses with EMS or insulin resistance.

This is because horses are by nature fibre metabolisers and can only utilise easily digestible nutrients such as sugar and protein to a very limited extent.

Horses can only compensate for the high sugar content in hay if they are exercised sufficiently with some fast work included, i.e. trotting or galloping for at least 60 minutes a day. This is simply not possible for many horse owners.

For this reason, when horses are usually only working moderately, an attempt is made to somehow maintain the energy balance by reducing the total amount of roughage. However, this again contradicts the nature of horses, which not only need to have permanent access to roughage for their mental well-being, but whose sensitive microbiome in the large intestine is dependent on a constant supply of fibre.

It is not without reason that we see an increasing number of horses with insulin resistance, Kryptopyrroluria, hind gut acidosis, obesity and feed-related laminitis in our yards. Much of this is related to incorrect basic feeding.

The real challenge in today’s horse management is to provide horses with permanent access to roughage without causing metabolic imbalances. This is because the composition of hay meadows will not change any time soon, even if the first farmers are working on “thinning out” their meadows again. It is therefore important to focus on the concept of SlowFeeders. This also includes hay nets, but there are now a number of ideas and inventions both for commercial purchase and for DIY, from hay boxes to roughage balls.

It is important that the feeding speed is reduced, but that the horses still have permanent access to sufficient hay in as natural a feeding position as possible to enable a physiological chewing process without long-term consequences for the teeth or craniosacral system. Unfortunately, this is why the system of automatic hay dispensers does not work, as the forced breaks contradict the natural feeding behaviour of horses.

Placing several SlowFeeders on the exercise area or paddock trail has also proven to be a good idea. This encourages the horses’ natural instinct to go elsewhere after a while to see if the food there is perhaps tastier and thus brings movement into the group.

In addition to the quantity and nutritional values, attention must also be paid to the quality in terms of hygiene. All too often you still see mouldy hay that is fed without hesitation, although the harmful consequences of mould infestation have long been known. In addition, hay bales containing poisonous plants that do not lose their toxic effect even after drying and storage, such as autumn crocus, ragwort, grey cress, etc., can be found again and again.

Such hay is not only unsuitable for feeding, it is simply dangerous. About 20% grey cress (Hoary Alyssum) in the hay is enough to fatally poison a horse. The alkaloids of the ragwort plant accumulate in the liver tissue and can no longer be adequately excreted, which makes the long-term consequences unforeseeable.

Many stable managers think that the horses will sort out the autumn crocus – but they only see what has been left at the bottom of the rack and not what the horse has eaten already. Mouldy hay and hay containing poisonous plants should not be fed to horses!

Fazit: Pferde können normalerweise ihren kompletten Energiebedarf aus Heu decken – es muss dafür in ausreichender Menge und Qualität (Nährstoffe & Hygiene) zur Verfügung stehen und möglichst so angeboten werden, dass sie durchgehend Zugang dazu haben. Dann werden auch winterliche Temperaturen problemlos durch mehr Wärmeproduktion ausgeglichen.

Adapt the feed ration to the weather, feed quality and weight of the horse.

There are long discussions about how to calculate feed rations. It is often forgotten that in order to make a meaningful calculation, you not only have to have the nutritional value of each batch of hay analysed, but you also have to know exactly how much of it a horse actually consumes per day. This may still be a possibility in single box keeping, but in an open stable, where many horses can nibble on the same portion of hay it becomes an impossible task.

In addition, there are hardly any horse owners or stable managers who have an exact overview of the nutritional composition of their current batch of hay. However, the nutritional value of the hay can vary greatly depending on which meadow – or sometimes which section of the same meadow.

Such calculations are always made on the basis of theoretical literature values that have been statistically determined as average values from a large number of test horses. However, everyone knows that not all horses are the same.

There are the “good doers”, which mainly include the native breeds, but also the draft horses and most baroque types. All they have to do is look at the rich hay and they’ll put on a few extra pounds.

This is in stark contrast to the “poor doers”, where you can feed as much as you like – they simply don’t put on weight! These include all the horses of the thoroughbred type, i.e. the flat racers and trotters, many original Arabian types, but also warmbloods of the thoroughbred type, Achal-Tekkiner and similar breeds. For example, a German riding pony (“sportshorse type”) has a completely different energy requirement than a Welsh pony (“native type”) with the same body size.

Far too little account is taken of such subtleties in feed calculation programmes. Also the fact that energy requirements can change throughout the year – and not only depending on the daily work under the rider. This is because low temperatures, such as those experienced in cold winters or in stables at high altitudes, significantly increase energy requirements.

Yard owners at altitudes of 1,300 metres and above can confirm that the horses’ hay requirements rise rapidly with the onset of cold weather and only fall again when spring “heats up” with warmer temperatures.

Thus, the location of the stable, the climate and the type of stable must also be taken into account – a closed box stable rarely drops below zero degrees at night, whereas an open stable does.

The guiding principle used to be: the eye is the best judge of what the horse needs! Instead of trying to meet your horse’s nutritional requirements with twenty different feed supplements and sophisticated Excel tables, you should first feed your horse enough hay and observe.

If you have a good doer and a warm winter, then you should opt for a lean quality of hay or very close-meshed hay nets in order to optimise weight maintenance. The colder the temperatures, the more nutritious the hay quality can be or the more generously it can be fed, even in a wide-meshed hay net. For the poor doers, you should go for a very rich quality of hay and hay nets with wider meshes. If it gets very cold, especially if the cold is accompanied by wind and there is no adequate wind protection available, you can reduce the energy consumption of these horses somewhat with an insulated rug, which should be put on overnight.

Conclusion: Instead of rigid feeding tables, feeding should be individually adapted to the circumstances with the right quality of hay, the right hay net mesh size and a good sense of proportion for the weight and satisfaction of the respective horse.

Have your horse’s teeth checked

A healthy set of teeth is the basic prerequisite for a horse to be able to chew its hay at all and thus utilise it later in the intestine. Insufficiently chewed hay cannot be digested by the microorganisms in the large intestine.

Instead, coarse fibres lead to them being constantly held back by the peristalsis in an attempt to extract energy from these fibres – which is unfortunately not possible due to the coarse structure. Tooth problems therefore not only result in a poorer nutrient yield from the roughage, but also promote the development of dysbiosis (incorrect fermentation) in the large intestine due to the retention of fibres in the large intestine sections.

The horse’s teeth are designed to bite off very hard steppe grass all year round with the incisors and then grind it with the molars.

The teeth wear down evenly so that they always enable optimum mechanical crushing. Studies on the skulls of wild equids have shown that they do not suffer from the dental problems we are used to, but that their dental apparatus is optimally adapted to a diet in the wild – in steppes, tundras and semi-deserts.

In our way of keeping horses, there are several factors that can lead to problems in the masticatory apparatus. First of all, our horses do not usually eat steppe grass, but soft high-performance grass in summer, which hardly needs to be bitten off, but can be plucked off with the lips.

In winter, the process of biting off is completely eliminated when horses eat hay. As a result, the incisors are not worn down sufficiently, but are still pushed further and further out of the tooth socket. This causes imbalances in the chewing process.

In addition, feeding non-long-fibre feeds such as concentrates, hay chaff or lucerne chaff, carrots, apples etc. this prevents the horse from completing a full ‘chewing cycle”, as they would do when eating hay or grass. They “squeeze” the feed more than they grind it.

Therefore, the upper molars are worn on the lingual (tongue-side) half and the lower molars on the buccal (cheek-side) half of the chewing surface. The result is the formation of burrs on the opposite edges of the teeth, so that at some point the horses are no longer able to grind their food properly.

A third important factor is the fact that few horses have the opportunity to chew their feed from a physiological head position throughout. Feeding from high mounted troughs is particularly problematic. The use of hay nets – which are an ideal compromise between continuous feeding and limited intake due to the higher nutrient density of our hay – also means that horses often chew with their heads too high and therefore do not chew completely. This also favours the development of dental hooks on the front and rear molars.

Overall, many studies – not only on our domestic horses, but also on wild equids kept in captivity – have shown that dental problems are practically unavoidable under our management and nutritional conditions. If the horse cannot chew properly, it cannot break down the nutrients contained in the feed and this is a major problem, especially in winter.

This is because the nutrient requirement is often significantly higher due to the cold weather and the nutrient supply from the hay is also lower than from the pasture grass in summer.

Horses that have coped well with the soft, rich pasture grass in summer but are already reacting to the switch to hay with weight loss should be urgently checked for dental problems.

Normally, you should have your horse’s teeth checked once a year if you notice strange chewing behaviour, feed falling out or reluctant hay eating. Then it’s also a good idea to have it checked out. Perhaps a tooth has broken, a gum pocket has formed or another acute problem is causing the chewing process to be disturbed. If a horse has special requirements and should be checked more often or less often, you will be informed by your “equine dentist”.

As equine teeth take up about as much space in normal veterinary studies as human teeth do in human medicine studies (there’s a good reason why you don’t go to the GP with dental problems…), you should definitely consult an equine dental practitioner. It doesn’t matter whether the practitioner is a vet or not – it is important to have an additional qualification in equine dentistry. British Association of Equine Dental Technicians (BAEDT) is an association for equine dental practitioner in the UK, its members are not only appropriately trained but also certified by a qualified panel.

Conclusion: Only a horse with healthy teeth can chew its food properly and therefore digest it correctly. The teeth should be checked once a year. If this has not yet been done this year, it should be done now as a matter of urgency before a horse loses too much weight due to dental problems. You can find certified equine dental practitioners at www.baedt.com, they also list partitioner’s on their Facebook page.

Ensuring the water supply

One factor that is often underestimated in winter is the water supply. A horse normally drinks between 30 and 50 litres of water per day. However, depending on workload and feeding, this requirement can rise to 70-80 litres per day. A bucket of water a day is not enough.

Of course, in the wild, nobody walks around with a kettle and thaws out the pond the horses want to drink from. But in the wild, horses also suffer far less often from painful stomach ulcers, have fewer fights for a place at the drinking trough and – if they don’t like the taste of the water in one pond – can go to the next puddle.

Horses generally prefer to drink water from a container with a closed water surface. In other words: buckets are preferable to self-drinkers. Self-drinkers, which are activated by pressing down a lever or spoon during the drinking process, are particularly unpopular. This is because they ensure that the horse almost always swallows air as well as water. As horses cannot burp, such air in the stomach is particularly unpleasant. On the other hand, any bucket is preferred, even if the water in it is staler than in the self-watering trough.

If a horse has problems with gastritis or stomach ulcers, drinking large quantities of cold water is very painful. The consequence of this is that these horses drink too little overall in winter while the water is cold. If too little water is consumed, the function of the kidneys is also restricted. They need water to produce urine and thus remove toxins from the body.

While horses can still cover a large part of their water requirements in summer with the plant water contained in the pasture grass, this is definitely not possible with hay with its residual moisture content of only approx. 15%.

Separate water is therefore a must in winter. If a horse drinks too little – because the water is too cold, the drinking troughs freeze over or no water buckets are provided at all – the kidney function and thus the entire electrolyte balance is disrupted.

The consequences often manifest dramatically, either as impaction colic or kidney colic. If you’re lucky, and the symptoms are milder, the signs may appear during the spring coat change, when the horse struggles, appears lethargic, has a dull coat, worsening hooves, and a range of early metabolic markers start to surface.

In open stables, ball drinkers have proven to be quite effective as long as they are used frequently enough. This means that if more than four horses use the trough, it should be regularly dismantled and cleaned. This is because many horses have a habit of “cleaning their teeth” and therefore tend to accumulate a lot of grime. Hard plastic troughs must be tested for frost resistance – some can withstand frost, others splinter very quickly if a horse kicks it in sub-zero temperatures. The splinters are then often very sharp-edged and pose a serious risk of injury.

Bathtubs are still ideal for use on turnout paddocks and pastures. Not only do they ensure proper water quality (as they do not contain any plasticisers, unlike the black tubs), they are also easy to clean and heat. It is usually enough to place several grave candles under it to keep it just below zero degrees. If you also fill PET bottles with salt water, screw them tightly shut and then leave them floating in the water, a layer of ice will not form so easily and the horses will have free access to the water for longer. If it gets really cold, you can still offer water from it with the help of 60 watt light bulbs or terrarium heaters and an insulated box built around the tub, provided you have access to electricity. If you have access to electricity and a slightly larger budget, the Thermobar from Sweden is also very ingenious: www.thermobar.se

Of course, there are always the horses that enthusiastically punch holes in the ice of the bucket that has frozen over overnight with their hooves and then not only slurp up the ice-cold water, but also chew on the chunks of ice with relish. However, there are also those who hardly go to the water, drink only very little and very slowly and carefully, and then often develop ‘hollows’ in front of the hip bone (‘hunger hollows’, which often have nothing to do with hunger but with thirst) they tend to suffer from constipation colic. Warm water should be offered once or twice a day so that these horses can normalise their water balance.

Even better, of course, are heated float drinkers, which ensure that the drinking trough not only remains frost-free, but that the horse also has access to water at a pleasant temperature. Where this is not possible, horses often appreciate it in winter if you put hot tea in the water bucket to warm the water and at the same time not only to add healthy herbs, but also give the water some flavour. Hay cobs can also be offered lukewarm.

Once a horse has become accustomed to drinking little over a long period of time, its natural thirst instinct often no longer works reliably. Even the best and warmest water is then not consumed sufficiently. With tea, soaked hay cobs or practically liquid mash, you can motivate those type of horses to drink more liquid again. In doing so, you can slowly phase out the additional components until at some point the warm water is accepted again without any issues.

Conclusion: Too little water intake is detrimental to horse health. Make absolutely sure that all horses drink enough regularly – especially if the horses have self-watering troughs. It is better to regularly offer warm water from buckets as a control measure. Delicious flavour can be used for fussy horses. The main thing is that they drink enough.

Preventing snow on the hooves

Even if we are generally spared major snowfalls in most regions: It’s like having winter tyres on your car. When in doubt, you’re glad you have them. Because packed snow in the hooves poses a major risk. The horse can slip, pull a muscle or even fall.

Balancing on the lumps of snow packed in the hoof is also a major challenge and often leads to tendon and/or ligament damage. Horses with shoes generally have a poorer feel for the ground and naturally also slip more easily when the ground is slippery. This is why pins or studs are often inserted into the shoes. However, these inhibit the natural gliding process when the horse is on the ground, resulting in increased shock loads in the overlying joints and promoting the development of arthritis. Anyone who has always toyed with the idea of letting their horse go barehoofed: now would be a good time to do it.

Most horses don’t need shoes, at least at the back, so that they can balance a little better there if the ground becomes unpredictable.

Best to talk to the farrier or hoof care professional about the upcoming weather and take precautions. Snow grips should definitely be used for the next shoeing, as experience has shown that snow can be expected from the beginning of November. These rubber lips ensure that the snow cannot get stuck in the sole so easily and is more likely to fall out again.

Of course, this is not possible with barehoofed horses. They are inherently less prone to snow clumping in their hooves. However, depending on the shape of the hoof and the condition of the snow, horses can end up walking on “plateau soles” within a few steps due to the snow clumps in the hoof. These lumps of snow can also suddenly come loose, so that the horse ends up a few centimeters lower than calculated with the next step – as if we were walking down a flight of stairs and there was one more step than expected.

However, this usually only happens on days when the snow is particularly sticky, meaning you can build snowmen and make snowballs. Loose powder snow is just as unproblematic as the thawing slush. The only thing to watch out for in thawing weather is black ice, especially in the morning.

The horses have often come in from their thawed and muddy turn out in the evening and have forgotten by morning that it could be frozen again. As a result, they come out of the stables full of excitement, ending up doing the splits on the concrete. When there is black ice – even if it is only in the morning – it is essential to grit the ground for the benefit of the horses! Please do not use salt, as it attacks hooves and skin. Instead, use sand or sawdust if possible, as they provide the best grip on icy surfaces.

If the snow has already been pressed firmly to the ground by car tyres or many hooves, it also becomes slippery on the surface and poses a danger to people and horses. Fine gravel, which is pressed into the surface of the snow and thus provides better grip, can help here. Of course, it is best to clear the snow as soon as it falls.

And not just on the main paths that are frequently used by people, but also on the pathways if possible. Where this is not possible – e.g. because it has been trampled flat all night by the open stable group – it should at least be gritted to provide a non-slip surface.

Particular care should be taken around drinking troughs. This is because many horses turn their heads to the side after drinking while water is still running out of their mouths.

This can turn the area around the drinking trough into an ice rink. In icy temperatures, walk past several times a day with the grit to prevent horses from slipping.

Conclusion: In winter, let horses go bare hoof if possible. They then feel the ground better and are less likely to slip. If shoes are used, be sure to use snow grips. Clear snow around the stable and exercise area and distribute sand or sawdust over the frozen surfaces to avoid slipping and potential falls, please do not use road salt.

Parasite control

The trend away from ‘prophylactic’ deworming towards ‘parasite control’ or ‘selective deworming’ is welcome. Many horses don’t have worms at all and are only heavily burdened with active ingredients as a result of the worm treatments, which then have to be excreted again without having achieved anything.

The generous use of anthelmintics in recent decades has also led to resistance to all active substances. This means that there are worm strains that no longer react to one active ingredient or another.

As no new active ingredients are likely to come onto the market in the near future, we should make better use of our existing arsenal.

Long-term studies have also shown that horses do not automatically become wormy over time. Rather, most adult horses eventually reach a balance between host (horse) and parasite (worm). Applied to our stables, this means that statistically only about 10-20% of horses have a worm infestation requiring treatment.

In a stable with 100 horses, only 10-20 are infected with worms to an extent that they require a worming treatment. The others do not require a dewormer. Of the 10-20 infected horses, around 80% have an infestation of strongyles, i.e. around 8-16 horses. The other 2-4 horses share all the other species of endoparasites.

So instead of giving all 100 horses worming treatments, 80 of which only represent an additional burden for the organism that have no worms at all, first step is to establish which horse actually is affected. This can be established by using a faecal sample test kit. Strongyles are detected in this test, which are the most common parasites. However, roundworms, which are particularly common in young horses under the age of six, can also be reliably detected. It is only difficult with tapeworm, as they only shed their fragments irregularly and these are then excreted in the faeces.

You can clearly see them in the faeces, though, and if you keep your eyes open when mucking out, you will see an infestation. As with strongyles, it is currently assumed that a low-grade infestation of tapeworms is not a problem for the organism. A high-grade infestation, on the other hand, can be detected when mucking out or when multiple faecal samples are taken over a certain period of time.

If you suspect an infestation with pinworms – which lead to typical tail rubbing – you should send in an anal swab in addition to the faeces sample. This is more reliable as the eggs are only excreted irregularly and with the morning faeces, which you don’t necessarily catch for the faeces sample. Botfly larvae, which uses the horse’s stomach as an intermediate host to overwinter, cannot be detected in the faeces.

Although neither eggs nor larvae can be detected in faeces, most horse owners are familiar with the typical, tiny yellow eggs that stick to the horse’s coat in mid and late summer. They are preferably deposited on the fetlocks and shoulders, where the horse can easily reach with its teeth to scratch and thus become infected. If such larval eggs are found in the coat in summer, deworming should be carried out as soon as insects are no longer flying, regardless of the faecal sample.

This is the only way to interrupt the reproduction cycle of the botfly and ensure that no new flies can hatch the following year. Where deworming is consistently carried out, the distribution areas of the botfly migrate and after a few years it disappears in some areas but appears in neighbouring regions.

In autumn, the main issue is tapeworm (detectable by visual inspection in the faeces) and the Botfly larva (detectable in the summer from the eggs in the coat). Although this does not mean that a horse has not contracted another worm infection.

In autumn, the main issue is tapeworm (detectable by visual inspection in the faeces) and the Botfly larva (detectable in the summer from the eggs in the coat). Although this does not mean that a horse has not contracted another worm infection.

About 14 days after the worming treatment, a new faecal sample should be sent in to check whether the worming treatment has worked.

Due to the high level of resistance, it is becoming increasingly common for the worming treatment not to work. The horse must then be dewormed again with a different active ingredient and checked again 14 days later. The worm treatment was only successful if a horse is proven to be ‘in the green zone’. More information on this topic and detailed instructions on how to collect faecal samples and what else to look out for can be found here: www.westgatelabs.co.uk. In the long term, it is worthwhile not only to follow the various hygiene measures for parasite control, but also to ensure that every horse has a healthy, well-balanced gut and an intact immune system. This will significantly reduce the risk of parasite infestation.

Conclusion: Deworming yes, but only if a horse also has a parasite infestation. Most worms can be detected in a faecal sample, tapeworm fragments can be detected in the faeces when mucking out, and botfly eggs can be found in the horse’s coat in summer. In this case, you should definitely worm your horse after the first frost (when no more insects are flying). Use the active ingredients specifically after the proven infestation and 14 days later check the effectiveness of the treatment with a follow up faecal sample test!