Looking After Your Horses in the Winter Part Six

You also need to allow the coat to grow as long as possible in the winter in order to provide them with more heat. Just as you swap from your jacket to your long coat in the winter, so should you allow your horses to do the same. Here you should consider the type of horse you are going to buy again if you find Shetland ponies for sale for instance then note that they have longer fur in general and so might be better suited to the winter months.

Meanwhile another way to help your horse in winter through its diet is to allow it to gain some weight. Fat is a great natural insulator and by increasing the amount of calories in their diet you can help them to build up a protective layer that will insulate them against the cold. Likewise this is important because during the winter it takes more calories for a horse simply to live. This is because its body and metabolism will be working at a faster rate in order to keep its body warm and it will thus need more energy in order to do this. If you don’t give your horse enough calories it will be cold regardless of the fat.

Of course you need to make sure that you give the horse the right amount of feed for its size – if you get Shetland ponies for sale or miniature horses for sale for instance then they are going to of course require less food than stallions for sale.

Related posts:

Looking After Your Horses in the Winter Part Two
Looking After Your Horses in the Winter Part Three
Looking After Your Horses in the Winter Part Five