Horse Rugs

Advantages and Disadvantages

Combining Horse Rugs with Natural Horse Care may not seem appropriate as horse
turnout rugs are not natural, but they may well have a place for some of us.

Contents

A Horses Coat Rug Styles & Manufacturers Weights of Rugs Maintenance of Rugs Washing Rugs Fitting of Rugs Putting Rugs on your Horse Labeling & Storage of Rugs Natural Balance

A Horses Coat

Very simply without going into great detail, the horse has an amazing far more effective coat for keeping themselves warm than any horse rug. They can keep themselves warm and cool due to the innate properties of their coats.

We have wintered horses young and old and left their coats in tack. They have survived and looked
extremely well at the end of the winter season. Regardless of where you
live and the outside temperatures, they will survive extremely well (and better) without being rugged or stabled.

This maybe one answer to the many questions there are as to whether you need to rug a horse in the winter or not.

If however your main activity with your horses involves riding them, throughout the winter, you may find the mud and how they look when they come in from the field very challenging. It will depend on what your ground is like and how good the soil drainage is, as to how big a problem this may be for you, or not.

If it too challenging to leave them un-rugged and unclipped throughout the winter months, although they will be fine, you may need to find a compromise that works for you both.

If you decide to use horse rugs, or rug and clip them, here are
some suggestions about using rugs on your horses.

Rug Styles & Manufacturers

It is easier if you buy from one manufacturer as each manufacturer is likely to have slight differences with their particular
templates and sizing of rugs.

So find one manufacturer that you like and stay with them. This will save you time in the future with fitting and ordering different weights and styles of rugs at a later date.

Stored Rugs on Shelving

Weights of Rugs

You can buy three main types of turnout rugs:-

• A light weight horse rug which you can use just as it is getting colder. This is like a thin waterproof skin.
• A medium weight rug. The thickness is usually measured in grams and a medium normally is 200g in weight.
• A heavy weight rug for the colder part of the winter months and these usually are around 370g in weight.

You can also buy different styles of horse rugs. Some just cover the horse’s body,
others come up the neck a bit and others have neck covers that cover the neck and mane.

The neck covers sometimes are detachable. Laura, our right hand person, finds the detachable neck covers extremely useful with the summer/lightweight rugs and will take them off as a halfway measure, until eventually we stop using the lightweight rugs in the summer months.

So decide what will suit you and your horse best. If you get rugs with the full neck covers, the horse will obviously stay cleaner.

Maintenance of Rugs

When you change the horse rugs it is best to wash and put them away clean.

This would normally mean that the heavy weights only get washed once a year after use in the winter months and light weight and medium weight probably washed twice a year, i.e. after autumn and spring use.

Find a local saddler or rug repair company who can do any repairs for you. Get repairs done, however small, as this will lengthen the life of your rugs. Do repairs before they are
put away. If any of the clips have got broken you can normally buy these separately from horse suppliers.

Order Creates Movement

With everything you do in the yard if you keep the above phrase in your head, “order creates movement,” you will find you will achieve so much more and feel so much more satisfied, with your work.

Being efficient with daily work will create time for yourself and for others. As you master this the next challenge will be to lead by example. It is easy to correct others but first correct yourself and improve your own standards of work and efficiency, a challenge sometimes but in the long run I promise you this will pay dividends…..

So mending, cleaning labeling, all needs to be done on a regular basis with horse rugs. If you allow piles of maintenance to build up it can then become a mammoth job. Keep this in mind with general day to day repairs and don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise.

Washing Rugs

Washing rugs. If you have access to a washing machine this is obviously the easiest. Do not use any soap powders, just a warm wash, this will prevent the waterproofing from breaking down and so extend the life of your rugs by a number of years.

If they are very muddy it is better to hose them down first. If you have no washing machine find a local rug cleaning company who can help you.

If they need re-proofing you can now buy waterproof re-proofers that you add to the washing machine as well as waterproof sprays
which you spray on the rugs when they have been washed, or once dried.

The reproofing sprays can sometimes be strong smelling. so use a dust mask, or just wrap a scarf around your nose and mouth when spraying. Then leave the rugs to dry, preferably outside.

Fitting of Rugs

If your rugs are well fitted and of good quality and design you should find in general, you won’t get any rubbing problems. Check thoroughly the
design of the rug. Spend time being fussy and getting the correct size for each horse.

The main measurement that you will need is the measurement from the centre of the horses chest then going across the shoulder to the centre of the tail.

Rubbed Manes from Horse Rugs

If you get rubbing on the horses mane where the binding sits,
between the horse
rug and the neck cover extension, you can gently stitched some soft slippery lining material over the coarse
binding.

This will stop any further rubbing of the mane.

Putting Rugs on Your Horse

Horse Rug Clips

Check the clips and how they do up. With the Horseware rugs the front clips are designed so that they do up with the catch of the clip facing inwards. This is so that the clip does not get caught on any fencing or wire in the field.

(We made the mistake of once not doing this and one of the ponies almost had a nasty accident when some of the wire on the fence-line got caught inside the clip.)

Always do the front catch up first
when putting the rug on and then check it is sitting properly.

Rug Straps

Then do the straps up under the horses belly. Check that the straps under the belly are neither too tight or too loose. Check the fillet string is sitting under the
horses tail.

When you do the straps up under the horses belly, with most rugs they are designed so that they cross under the belly. If there is a third strap running across (as with Horseware Rugs) you do this up last, this is just an additional safety strap.

If you are putting a rug on your horse over a saddle (as is sometimes necessary,) then you might not be able to cross the belly straps due to the saddle; in this instance just do the straps up without crossing them.

Finally check that the rug is not sitting too tight over their shoulders or
front legs, if it is too tight it can tighten over the front leg and shoulders and interfere with the horses movement and circulation.

If your horse is turned out with a rug on and is not being ridden regularly you need to remove his rug and check him all over. Assess his condition and make sure the rug is not rubbing him anywhere.

Labeling and Storage of Rugs

With shelving and storage of horse rugs, ideally, you want to create one shelf, (or one section of a shelf) per horse. Putting up shelving need not be expensive but may take a little time working out how best to utilize the space you have
available.

Ideally you want to be able to see all the rugs at a glance so that whatever rug you are needing you can quickly find it.

Buying the same colour horse rugs (if possible) for the different weights of rugs can save you time
if you have a number of horses. So all light weight ones are green, medium weights are blue etc.

I suggest you name them all, either according to their:-

• Size,
• Weight i.e. (Summer sheets/medium weight/heavy)
• Or according to which horse they belong too.

How We Label and Organize Our Rugs

Each horse has its own shelf where we keep their rugs etc. Then each horse is given a colour and the rugs are colour labeled using different coloured ribbons which we attach to the front of their rugs so they are easy to see.

Mixed up tack and rugs is just such a waste of valuable time, so a little bit of planing at this stage eliminates daily agro.

See Labeling for more ideas to help you with keeping your rugs in order and labeling them.

Any spare rugs are stored together, but even stored items are kept organized and spare rugs are kept together but in their different sizes and neatly folded……..!

Storing Spare Rugs

The best way to store them is either on shelving, so they are easy to see, or on rug racks hanging on the wall. Rug racks will take up more space than shelving.

Anything that you can do to keep order in your tack room will be a bonus for you.

See Labeling for more ideas to help you with keeping your rugs in order and labeling them.

Natural Balance

To help create a balance if you use horse rugs aim not to rug them in the summer months.
The night before a show or an event you could use a very lightweight rug if that would help you keep
them clean in preparation for the next day.

Apart from that, keep them un-rugged for as long as you can.