Beat The Heat! Tips For Keeping Your Horses Cool, Comfy & Healthy This Summer

Summer is a great time to ride, show, and spend plenty of quality time with our equine partners! While summer can be full of fun and new adventures, it also comes with certain risks. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can cause heat stress in horses, heatstroke in horses, and problems such as dehydration, muscle spasms, and colic.

Don’t worry! GlobalVetLink has compiled some helpful tips for preventing an exhausted horse and keeping your horse healthy, happy, and comfortable this summer!

Tip #2. Fans & Shade

• If horses are outside during the day, it’s important to provide an area for them to move away from direct sunlight. Large shade trees and lean-to buildings can be excellent tools that provide a break from the beating sun.
• If possible, try hanging fans in the lean-to buildings to help move some air. This will provide relief from the heat and pesky bugs.

Tip #3. Fresh Water

• It’s very important that your horse has access to fresh, clean water 24/7. At rest, an adult horse in a cool climate will drink about 6 to 10 gallons of water daily. They will drink significantly more while exercising or if they are in hot conditions.
• Consider adding salt to your horse’s feed or provide 24/7 access to salt blocks to encourage them to drink more water.

Tip #4. Fly Control

• Keeping your horse comfortable means keeping the flies away. Excessive stomping can cause stress and increase exercise in the hot weather. Minimizing the amount of flies on and around your horse can help make them much happier this summer.
• Try starting at the source. Stable and house flies breed in manure, organic matter and soiled bedding. Try keeping your stalls, paddocks, and pastures as clean as possible. Manure piles should be located 100 to 200 feet away from the barn to limit flies returning to the area.
• Try using Fly Predators in your manure piles. Fly predators offer fly control by consuming fly pupae in the cocoon.
• Another effective way to start at the source is to add feed-through insecticides to your horse’s daily meals. These supplements are passed through the feces to interrupt developing maggots. Used in conjunction with other fly control methods, it can greatly reduce the population of flies.
• Baits and insect traps can also be effective in reducing the population of flies around the barn.
• Fly sheets, masks and boots are effective in eliminating appropriate landing surfaces for attacking flies. Keep an eye on your horse to make sure the fly sheet is not doing more harm than good. If the horse is too hot with the fly sheet, it might be best to resort to just fly spray for excessively hot days.

Tip #6. Cooling Your Horse Down

• Should you hose a horse in hot weather? Yes, spray the horse’s head, back, neck, rump, and legs with a steady stream of cool water. Repeat this continuously until the horse is cool.
• For better results, try focusing on cooling the areas where the blood vessels are more prominent: head, neck, back, and rib area.

Tip #8. Offer Cool, Clean Water

• How to keep horses cool in hot weather: It’s recommended you should stop every four to six hours for rest and watering breaks. Each stop should be at least 20 minutes long to allow time for your horse to relax and rest as well as urinate.
• Try to park in the shade whenever you stop and do not leave your horse in a parked trailer for an overly long time. Lack of air flow while parked will rapidly increase the trailer’s interior temperature.

Tip #9. Leg Protection: Friend or Foe?

• Boots and bandages insulate the legs and can raise the limb’s internal temperature above normal. Excessive, prolonged heat can damage the tendon in your horse’s legs. For overly hot days, try trailering with the bare minimum, such as just bell boots or no boots/wraps at all.