Snow is coming! The kids are excited with the prospects of sipping hot cocoa, listening to Christmas music, and watching the heavens swirl their magical crystals into sparkling drifts over our front steps. I’m not looking forward to doing chores in subzero temperatures, no matter how pretty the snow is. When the water tanks freeze over and I can’t peel the layers of frost-covered hay off of my big round bales to feed my horses, winter isn’t fun anymore. If only we could enjoy the snow without it being so cold…..
We spent last weekend working on fixing up a stall for our weanling colt. There was a space inside the old corn crib at the farm that was used long ago to store ears of corn. Since then, it had been opened up to allow some cattle to come inside and get shelter. They had broken some of the supporting boards loose and made quite a mess of it. But yet, it was a stall with a roof and shelter from the wind, so we worked to clean it out and repair the broken boards. It’s now clean and ready for our weanling stud to inhabit during cold nights and blizzards.
Our colt is currently living with some bovine companions. We have a yearling heifer named Georgette in with him, as well as a bucket calf named Fluffy, and another heifer. They spend their day around the bale feeder, filling their bellies. When we come out to feed, the colt gets excited and goes to work sorting cattle….he shows a lot of promise as a cutting horse. We put grain into several different large feed tubs, spread around the pen. The colt takes one bite from the first tub, then runs quickly to another tub to chase away the calf that is eating there. Just as the heifers get settled in to eating at another tub, here comes the colt at full speed, darting in with ears pinned to chase them away and eat their grain. The colt spends more time chasing than he does eating. The heifers are bigger than he is, but he is one ornery little beast they don’t want to mess with. Overall, it’s a pretty good situation because he is getting better feed than he would if we put him in the pen with his mother and the big horses. We are also afraid the big horses would run him through the fence, so for now he gets to live as King of the Castle in the heifer pen.
In winter, the most important concern is making sure the horses have plenty of hay and drinkable water. In a blizzard, or very low temperatures, giving horses free choice hay is the best thing to keep them warm. A horse with a full belly is warmed from the inside out by the digestion and fermentation process of the feed. Our horses normally drink from the creek, but when it gets very cold they prefer drinking from a water tank with a tank heater in it. Insulating the tank with straw bales around it and partially covering it with plywood will help keep it from freezing over.
I also read a very interesting article in the December 2011 issue of Equus about horses’ hooves in cold weather. It says, “Hooves are designed to not only withstand subzero temperatures for prolonged periods but even thrive in them…when the horse’s brain receives a message that the hooves are too cold, shunts in the vascular areas of his feet open to allow the blood to move from arteries directly to the larger veins, bypassing the capillaries and the chance to cool down. After the feet have warmed sufficiently, the shunts close again to restore blood flow to the capillaries. A horse’s tail and ears have similar shunting systems.” The article went on to say that horses’ feet thrive in snow, making them healthier and harder. So I was happy to learn that they really aren’t as cold out there as they look!
Our horses do have a run-in shelter they can go in when it is raining or windy or cold, and that’s another good way to protect them in the winter. We are worried about the new mare, because she is rather an outcast from the herd and does not feel comfortable in close quarters with the others. Our old mare Cricket (who, aside from the new buckskin mare, is at the bottom of the pecking order) is very aggressive to the new mare, and likes to bully her. So I am worried that it might be cold and she may not be able to come inside the shelter when she wants to. We are planning to put her back in with her colt if it blizzards or gets extremely cold, and she can stay with him in his new stall. They have been separated since the first of October, so he is completely weaned and they can be put back together if necessary.
When I was a little kid, it seemed like the cold weather had no effect on me. We would ride all day every day, working cattle, getting in sick calves to treat, and going on long cattle drives. I would never have complained, because I would have met with the offer that I could just stay home if it was too cold—and nothing could deter me from getting a chance to ride! Now that I’m grown, that youthful eagerness has subsided, and my self-preservation instincts drive me to basically hibernate as much as I can. I usually don’t ride from Thanksgiving to spring, but there may be more cattle work during calving season this year, so I may get the chance to relive my childhood a little. I just don’t enjoy the cold so much anymore.
One of my family’s traditions when I was growing up was cutting a live Christmas tree on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It was always a whole family affair—-all nine of us! Dad would drive Mom and the little kids out to the tree strip that ran around the north side of the alfalfa field. The older kids would grab a bridle, hop on a horse bareback, and careen wildly through the snow, showing off for Mom and shouting and laughing amongst ourselves. We would scout the tree strip for a likely candidate, peruse the length of the pines, and come back to cut the one we liked best. Dad would often climb the tree with saw in hand (these were full grown pines that we just lopped the tops off of for a tree). We would watch and exclaim excitedly when the top fell down through the branches to the ground below. Mom was always snapping photos and getting us all to smile for the camera. It was one of the best days of the year!
The best days of all are the ones you get to spend with your family—and your horse family—no matter how cold it is.
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What you just described with the horses’ feet adapting to the cold I think is similar to how polar bears and other cold weather creatures get by on the snow. My feet get cold so easily… it’d be cool to have the same mechanism they have!