Blanketing Your Horse

In North Carolina, fall and winter weather can vary widely.  It may be 75 degrees and sunny one day and then freezing rain and 35 degrees only one week later.  This can cause a lot of confusion among horse owners about whether or not to blanket their horses, particularly those horses who are out in the elements.  Are they warm enough?  Do they need to be blanketed?  If so what type of blankets do they need?

To begin with, let’s address how horses control their body temperature. Horses are naturally designed to spend their days outdoors.  In response to shortened daylight hours, the horse will grow a winter coat that is longer and has coarser hairs than the summer coat.  These hairs stand more erect rather than lying flat to the skin.  This allows the hair to trap and warm air close to the body and insulates the horse from the cold.  Additionally, fat deposited under the skin acts as a very good natural insulator for a horse.  Heat is also generated from the hind gut from forage digestion.  Feeding additional hay in the winter may help to keep your horse warm.

Each horse has a lower critical temperature, or LCT.  This the lowest temperature at which a horse can maintain their core body temperature without expending additional energy to do so.  Once the body temperature gets below the LCT, the hair coat and normal caloric intake are no longer enough to keep the horse warm.  The LCT depends on the temperature a horse is accustomed to, the amount of body insulation the horse has (length of hair coat and amount of body fat), and whether the horse has shelter from the wind.  When horses are exposed to wind, the hair coat can be ruffled and the warm air that insulates the horse can be released.  Under normal circumstances, most horses are fantastic at regulating their body temperature without the help of a blanket, provided that they have shelter from the wind.

If a horse has a shorter hair coat, has been clipped, is underweight, or is a higher risk animal (young, old, compromised digestive function, etc.), then a blanket may be necessary to provide warmth.  It is important to remember that it is possible for blankets to do more harm than good.  Sometimes good intentions can lead to undesirable consequences and can compromise the welfare of the animal.

There are several safety considerations associated with blanketing horses.  A blanket that doesn’t fit well or a blanket that is not constructed well can be prone to straps and buckles sliding or slipping.  A blanket could then get tangled up in the legs or neck.  As temperature fluctuates throughout the day, a horse could easily end up being blanketed too heavily.  For instance, a heavy blanket may have been put on at night because it was 10 degrees, but as the temperature rises to 50 degrees throughout the day, the horse is now over blanketed and may have to sweat to attempt to lower its body temperature.  If your horse is out at pasture and you cannot check or adjust blankets according to temperature, then your horse is better off without a blanket.

If your horse does need to blanketed, there are several different options available.  Blankets and sheets come in two main varieties: stable and turnout.  Stable sheets and blankets are not waterproof and are meant to be used when horses are indoors while turnout sheets and blankets are waterproof and are designed to worn outdoors.  Once you have decided which of these two varieties that you need, the next factor in the process is the level of warmth that it will provide.  Sheets are thin and lightweight and have minimal, if any, “fill,” or layers of insulation.  Blankets will have varying levels of fill.  The fill is measured in grams.  A blanket with 0-100 grams of fill is either a sheet or a light weight blanket, 150-200 grams of fill is classified as a medium weight blanket, and 300+ grams of fill is a heavy weight blanket.  Turnout blankets and sheets also tend to have a heavier denier than stable blankets and sheets.  Denier is the measure of the nylon fiber density of the blanket and is essentially an indication of how tough the blanket is.  Blankets with a higher denier, such as 1200, will be more durable and water resistant than a lower denier, such as 600.