10/14/2026
Good morning farm family,
Its been a rough week around here but I wanted to check in and say Happy Hump 🐪 Day!
The past few weekends we have been hit with storms both up the coast and through the middle of the country. 2 weeks ago a nor'easter battered our coastline and last Sunday the remnants of a hurricane 🌀 pushed rain into the area. Luckily, in both instances, we mainly got intermittent rain🌧 and brief winds. As humans, we tend to want to go inside and hunker down until the rain passes, but when we manage horses 🐎, we need to put their physiological needs up front as much as possible and they do not view the weather the same as us. We all agree that we dislike the mud left behind 🤭. As soon as we are almost dried out, more rain comes through and here comes the mud and the muck.
Horses are large masses of muscle that generate quite a bit of heat 🔥just by existing and moving. They are better equipped to deal with colder temperatures than warmer ones. They have a generally waterproof outer coat that sheds water thanks to the oils in their skin. Their under layer can puff up (pilo er****on) and trap air to keep them warm. Even when a horse looks exceeding wet, they are generally dry at the skin, especially if they are healthy and have some sort of shelter.
Horses are also designed to move, and their respiratory tracts move a massive amount of air through their lungs. Being outside gives them space to move and cleaner air to breathe. It also gives them critical time to spend with their friends, engaging in social behaviors that are key 🔑 to their mental health. Horses are extremely social animals that rely on one another for friendship, protection and to reduce anxiety.
Wile approximately half our residents live outside 24/7, the other half require some stall time due to their age, health or medical monitoring. We DO have some more medically fragile residents, and for them, we make accommodations. Sometimes that is as simple as putting on a waterproof rain sheet to provide additonal warmth and protection from the elements in order to extend their time outside! If the weather is colder and wetter, we can also add more hay 🌾throughout the day as forage provides encouragement to move (moving muscles 💪= heat) as well as calories to burn 🔥 through digestion, which also provides heat! When we bring them in, we can towel dry they damp top coat or even place a cooler (a robe for a horse made from wool or microfiber style material) on them to wick the water 💧 and help dry them faster.
Abby doesn't have enough shelter areas in her turnout so she gets a raincoat to protect her. Several of our residents use them and they are like a wearable umbrella ☔️. She had a great time rolling in the wet sand and making herself a general mess. That sheet was navy blue when she went out in the morning 🤭. It may be a mess, but she was outside getting to engage in her routine behaviors and that's the important part.
So, next time you drive past some horses out in the wet, rest assured that if provided with appropriate amounts of forage, shelter, water and friendship, that they are generally able to manage far better than locked in a stall for the comfort and convenience of us humans! And if you see a horse in a coat, you know why!
Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara
