Sunday Horses: Frosted Snowy Ponies

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Sunday Horses post, and with the winter storms we had starting last Sunday and going through Thursday, I thought I’d share some pictures I snapped on my cell phone and talk a bit about how the horses fared this week with the exceptional cold and snow. The good news is that horses are extremely well adapated to living outdoors, especially if like mine they do so year round. Obviously horses that are clipped (such as show horses) need to have blankets, and older horses that have a hard time keeping their body condition also need blankets to help stay warm. But if the horses have shelter and have access to hay/forage, and they have a good coat (and mine are fuzzy little horse bears), then they do rather well in the winter.

In fact, looking at them here, you might feel bad for them because they have snow on their backs. Yet, this is a sign that they’re holding in their heat and staying nice and warm. It’s like a well insulated house. There is snow on the roof because the house isn’t losing heat through the ceiling. Here, the horses aren’t losing heat out their backs, and so they are nice and warm inside. They can come in out of the snow if they want. It’s up to them.

The biggest challenge we had was the hydrant being frozen. This meant first hooking the hose up to the laundry/washer spigot in the house, but when that froze we then had to haul buckets of water. It took 10-15 five gallon buckets to fill the trough each day, with my husband filling them and bringing them to the front porch. Then I took them the rest of the way. Needless to say, I’m thankful that we don’t have to do that anymore now that it’s above freezing and the water’s flowing once more.

I’m thankful we got through everything as well as we did. Others have had it far worse. But for this week’s storm, here on the homestead, the horses and I are doing well, and we’re all happy warmer weather is coming.