That horse your riding in the avatar is white? Wow you should bath him....
So winter is here. Wham, hit us 2 days ago, we had a long wonderful fall, still 6 to 8 degrees C in the day, 2 or 3 at night. Overnight -10 with a wind chill to -17 C and blowing snow. Horses all brought home and feeding started finally the day before, they had it good out on huge pasture till then but that area's water is not moving enough to stay ice free.
So other than free access to loose salt (not blocks) and minerals, shelter from wind and enough bulk in feed to keep them warm what do you do for your horses in cold weather?
Due to my shift work and unreliable schedule I prefer to round bale feed the herd, free access to a hay that is lesser nutrition higher bulk when I can get it. Thus they get the nutrition they need because they eat more this way, so they make up for the hay being lesser) yet they don't get too fat or founder for those that are prone, the sheer bulk of the hay prevents them from eating too much. Free water and salt/mineral mix so they will drink all the water they need and anyone not keeping up gets beet pulp with oil, but that is only the hardest of keepers or rescues that come to me too late in the year to have gained the weight back already. Most do really well with this, in fact it seems to even the herd out, the fatties get thinner and the thin get fatter. Problem is the better hay growing years when you can't find a lesser hay. I always hay test, the sugars matter as does the protein and TDN.
So the herd found a way out this am, at 4:30 in the morning I awoke to the distinct sound of hooves on the front deck. Yes, Coal, my CTR go anywhere gelding had loaded up the stairs to have a look around. We have a door onto the deck out of the master BR so I went out, in nightie and shooed him off then went out the back door and called them all back to the pasture. They unlatched a gate we had been lazy about putting the snap on all summer, had been no need and I failed to check that when I brought them home.
