This message is from: Sam & Sue Banks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Gayle wrote:
> I also have a question for those of you who live in the warmer parts of the
> country where you don't really get "winter". How do your Fjords handle the
> "heat"?
I live in Tidewater area, Virginia. We usually warm up to at least
40 on the winter days with 20's overnight, and in the summer we are hot
and humid averaging high 80-90 a lot of the summer. I don't have a lot
of Fjord experience, this is my first Fjord's third winter with me.
My horses handle the heat of summer standing around better than my
sister's crossbred hunters I have kept here. The Fjords will stand out
in the sun and eat much of the day whereas the hunters stayed in the
stall and sweated. The Fjords only sweat in the summer days when it is a
90 degree high humidity kind of day. I think the Fjords get sweaty
quicker when being worked in the heat than the lighter type horses I
have owned (TB and Morgan) and have less energy, but so do I. They cool
out quickly with no problem or breed differences.
In the winter, they seem to grow an appropriate amount of coat for
my area, but I do give them a small clip in the fall as described below.
They never stand around and sweat in the winter, even like this week
when we have had 60 degree highs. They do sweat when they are worked in
60 degrees, but working in 40 degrees just lays their coat down without
much wetness, but I don't generally work a horse "hard". They start
shedding out early and don't seem to have any worse problem in the
spring than any other fuzzy horse.
My problem comes when they start growing their coat - which is in
August - and we are still going to have 70-80 degree days for several
months. I do a modified clip which is slightly more than a strip clip
but not as much as a trace clip. My horses have access to stalls and
pasture at all times, and I don't like to blanket them if possible.
Since our winters have very cold rainy days rather than snow, I try to
keep them hairy above the "drip line" where the rain water runs off
their belly and legs.
So once in the fall, I clip along the windpipe, the width of the
chest connecting it to the belly between the front legs. I do the inside
and back of the hind legs to about mid-gaskin and the long hair on the
inside and back of the elbow folds. Along the belly line, I raise the
edge of the clipping up into what we call "keyholes" just behind the
elbow and just in front of the stifle. I find those areas sweat sooner,
have longer hair, and so gets dirty with sticky sweat and takes longer
to dry if I don't clip them.
My horses are happy and relieved when I clip them, which in the
past has been late September or early October. I think I need to try to
clip them twice, early Sept and then again in Oct, and now that I got a
set of horse clippers from Santa, I can clip them whenever I want!
Sue Banks, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
