Posts Tagged ‘winter horse care’
Horse Time
It was a quiet morning with the horses today. They were all business when the buckets of feed were served. I found a fresh clump of tail strands on the ground that has us wondering why. It’s the second time in a few weeks, but we witnessed the first strands dragging off of Light from beneath her blanket.
They are blanket-free currently, and their shaggy hair looks great on them.
When Swings walked over in front of me, her hooves clomped in the classic “horse sound” (knocking coconut halves together) as if she were walking on concrete. The temperature has dropped below freezing, and the rain-soaked, well-packed snow surface probably is as hard as concrete.
We’ve been collecting all the dropped hay to be scattered over the icy surface beyond the overhang to provide a little better footing for the horses (and us).
Yes, Swings has a funky laying mane. It used to bother my sensibilities, but I’ve gotten used to it.
It being January, we’ve incremented all the horses’ ages for 2026, in the convention of Thoroughbreds and the horse racing industry. So Swings is now 31, although her true date of birth is in April.
Mia is next oldest, coming in at 26 this year. Her birthday is in February.
Light is 23 (May) and Mix is 22 (March).
Mia tends to grow the least shaggy coat of winter hair among the four of them, but even she is looking good and fluffy this morning.
Mix’s winter growth tends to look wet even though it’s not. We would brush it out for her if she preferred, but we don’t bother them if they don’t want to be touched.
This morning, Cyndie bent over to fill in a hole dug by a critter, and Swings backed into her butt. Taking the friendly bump as a message, she stood up and offered Swings a scratch. It didn’t take much, and Swings moved away when she’d had enough.
If a person wants to turn their back on the ugliness occurring in the world for a while, spending time with horses is hard to beat. It is sure working wonders for me lately.
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Staying Put
Upon seeing Ward’s comment on yesterday’s post, I realized I haven’t written about our decision to keep our rescued Thoroughbreds through the winter. It’s actually been a gradual process for us to come to this conclusion. Recently, Cyndie affirmed our intentions with “This Old Horse” and this set in motion preparations for winter horse care.
They are fully supportive and provided contact information for some volunteer caretakers living near us who we didn’t previously know about. If we find ourselves needing coverage during a time we will be away, “This Old Horse” volunteers can step in.
We might update the horses’ feed rations or nutrition for the winter. “This Old Horse” will bring us heated water buckets for in the barn stalls. We will be contacting their hay supplier to coordinate a plan for when we will be needing more bales.
It is a wonderful partnership that serves the horses’ best interests and gives us the support that enables us to provide them a long-term retirement home.
We are very happy to report the horses are staying put for the indefinite future.
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Relative Something 