This blog is fully dedicated to horses but also polls!
Let your opinion about anything horse related be heard by the people here on tumblr dot com!
Current Polls
Silly hosire poll
Host; Bunny (any pronoun) autistic and dyslexic, both of which can be seen in many posts. I use 'horse girl' as a gender neutral, the only criteria is that you like horses.
Tags
- #Horse Polls
(All polls related to horses)
- #No Poll Horse
(Horse-related reblogs and posts without polls or polls without horses)
- #Polless Horse Ask
(Asks, excluding tournament submissions or propaganda)
- #Horse Study
(Polls which were given additional horse fact once finished)
I gotta say these poll results are not helped by the fact you picked the most gorgeous varnish roan striding through the snow at sunset, and the most mid true roan. Justice for true roans
I actually struggled to find any decent images of varnish roan at all, (hence why the image isn't from wiki lol)
I also mostly focused on having them be the same base coat since something like a black varnish vs bay roan or bay varnish vs starberry roan didn't seem like it'd be fair. It's a small difference, but they matter!
I had no idea people loved varnish roans THIS much, genuinely blown away. Never seen this much love for them before
Neither have I, it's a big surprise! Varnish roan can look vastly different despite (supposedly) being the same genotype, so I guess it also partly depends on individual horses. Some coats may not look that pleasing, while others are more so despite both being varnish.
If anyone wanna look at more example of vanish roan*, here are some!
https://theequinest.com/colors/white-patterns/appaloosa/marble
*I personally would not class some of the horses shown as vanrish roan, but I also do not know if they are gene tested or not, nor what that test shows.
Speaking of leopard horses, I follow a breeder located in Namibia called Joseph's Dream Stud who has some of the most beautiful leopard complex coats! Highly recommend checking them out if you like leopard coats.
I don't know horses, so this is a genuine question: doesn't the temperature thing depend massively on the horse? Western european horses are probably not happy right now as it's >30c all day and half the night, but the middle east pretty famously has horses and this would just be normal weather for them?
This question is actually one of the reasons I wanted to make the poll in the first place!
Full disclosure, I haven't had time to find any real studies on the matter (only articles that lack factual information sources), so all I'm about to say is just from personal knowlage/experience.
I can only assume that a breed such as the Arabian would not do too well in Iceland, much like how Icelandic horses would feel uncomfortable in West Asia.
I am not sure how much size might affect them regarding temperature. The largest we have are draft horses, however, they have been used in farm work around the world, so they likely had to endure working in high summer temperatures. That doesn't mean they weren't suffering from the heat, but they did survive it. Horses are relatively good at adapting to different climates, and a lot of that is likely due to their ability to grow thicker fur and their ability to sweat through their entire body, just like humans.
Okay, so I finally had time to dig into this!!
I have not proofread any of this, so y'all have to suffer with my dyslexic ass.
I also found this article that does a really good job of going into details on everything: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00484-023-02467-7 It goes through how to spot signs of heat stress and how to help your horse cool down.
Readers cut so the post doesn't clog up the dashboard of people who don't care, ANYWAY HORSE VS WARM WEATHER YAP BELOW
Okay, the thermoneutral zone (the ideal temperature, if you will) for horses is between 5-25°c (41-77°f). This is when they are not being trained, so they do not have excessive weight, nor are they moving around an unnatural amount at high speeds.
About 70% of the heat loss in exercising horses occurs via sweating, meaning hydration becomes even more important if you choose to exercise in warm weather. But as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. It also means that if you have high humidity, your horse's main self-cooling system won't work as well, and you're better off waiting for cooler or drier weather.
Obviously, thicker fur will cause issues, so if your horse has a problem losing their winter coat, they might need help. Clipping the summer coat won't really do much, it's better to keep them cool by making sure they have lots of shade, hose them down, and adding fans will help. In fact, fans are better at cooling down a sweaty horse than cold water is, unless it's humid, then cold water does work best.
And I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT SCRAPE OFF OR DRY OFF THE WATER. You want the cool water to sit there to do its job of cooling your horse!
Horses cannot breathe through their mouths, so you won't see them pant like a dog. However, they can start taking deep breaths if they feel too hot as a means to bring cool air into their lungs and cool down from the inside. In other words, if your horse starts "panting" maybe start to think about helping them.
If your horse has a thick mane, you can braid it to minimize the neck area it covers, or, if you want to go to extremes, you can roach it. Many believe the mane protects against insects, but among equus species, the only one with a long, thick mane is the domestic horse. Wild donkeys, zebras, and even the Przewalski horse have a short mane.
On the wikipedia article for Heat Index you will find this chart
Which can come in good use when trying to evaluate if it is safe to exercise a horse or not, HOWEVER, the heat index is a measure of temperature as perceived by HUMANS.
Remember, horsie thermoneutral zone 5-25°c (41-77°f).
As we all know, horses are not humans, and their means of cooling down are somewhat different than ours. Keep that in mind when doing your evaluation on whether it is safe to ride or not; just because you as a person will be fine does not mean your horse will be fine.
