Horses in the Heat Wave, PNW

[littledog]

Here in the Seattle/Tacoma area, our average high temp for June is about 75f (24 or 25 C) but we're having a crazy heat wave! Yesterday it got about 90 (33C or so) and today, for the first time ever, it got up to 102! (40C). And tomorrow they're predicting 109, and on Monday 115! This is insane. We've never had heat like this, very few people in our area even have air conditioning, and the horses are not used to it either.

So at the barn, we've been doing our best to keep the horses from overheating. All shows, clinics, activities in this area have been cancelled or postponed, and nobody's riding. The only work any of the horses at our barn have done, is casual longeing in the early morning or late evening in the arena, when the sprinklers are turned on! All the horses are stuck in the barn, since it's cooler than the pastures, which have very little shade for most of the day. Turning them out at night unfortunately is not an option, since we don't have cameras or anybody to watch them. They're all getting extra electrolytes, and a big fan in the barn during the day (unplugged when nobody's there, don't want a fire.)

The hottest part of the day was 4-6pm, so I bathed both horses with cool water, then let each one out to the one pasture where there was some shade by evening. Komet was fussy but not as much as usual (he hates baths but had to admit it felt good to cool off.) Fiona was happy to have a bath, and especially appreciative of getting the crusties off her udder, and her "nether regions" scrubbed. I sprayed them both with liniment after they were semi-dry, so that any small breezes would help cool them further.

Here are some pictures of Fiona after her bath - I didn't get pictures of Komet, because he just grazed until he was dry and then wanted to go back in.

Fiona's having fun cantering around - I better take a picture because she is so clean and shiny!
(They're not normally turned out in a halter, I just left hers on because I was there the whole time and wanted to be able to catch her easily.)

Settled down to do some grazing...

Thinking about more grazing? No...oh here's some dirt, yay.

AND, of course. Getting clean is great, but getting dirty again is even more fun.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, 109, and Monday is predicted to get up to 115! And I have to work, so I won't have time for more baths, maybe just a quick cool-water hose-down and liniment spray.
I wish my workplace would just shut down, these temps are ridiculous.

 

[Skye'sDucks]

Wow, that is insanely hot; especially for the temps you usually get! I hope you and your horses (and everyone) at your barn stays cool.

Fiona is really pretty--gotta love it when they roll in the dirt after giving them baths lol. Ginger the horse I train absolutely loves gatorade--do you give yours any?

 

[littledog]

Komet and Fiona both have have two buckets of water each in their stalls, so one bucket is water and the second I add electrolytes (similar to gatorade.)

 

[Weeg]

Ugh, same here! Were in a small town past Bellingham, and we usually have 70-80's this time of year, and on occasion we get a spike the to 90's mid summer.
Yesterday was 100, and today is supposed to be 102. Tomorrow 107! Or horses are in the same situation, expect we down have a bard. Only shady pasture areas, and baths in the warmest part of the day which has been form 3-6.
Thinking about running an extension cord for a fan, and maybe put a sprinkler on for them though both will probably shy away from it. Misty might play in it as she loves being hosed down. This heat is crazy!

 

[ChickenOfSpades]

That's definitely hot for up there! I was just talking to my wife about taking a trip your direction to get a break from the heat...but maybe we'll wait a bit or keep going north .

We're horse people here too. We're about 850 miles southwest of you, so get used to that sort of temp in July and early August. Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on it.

Making sure they have plenty of salt in addition to lots of water to keep electrolytes up helps a LOT. I prefer loose salt, but blocks work too. We also rinse them off after they get worked, but don't squeegee them off so they can take longer to air dry and cool.

In a pinch, a spritz from a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol can quickly cool them off...we don't do that too often so their skin/coat doesn't get dried out, but it helps as a quick cool down, especially at shows when they can't be rinsed off all the time.

 

[littledog]

You should definitely take a trip up here this year - so far, it's not half as bad as last year when I first posted my heat complaints. We had a wetter spring than normal, and it barely got above 70, then all of a sudden high 70s and 80s July 1st, which is more typical.
This week it's been low 80's in the day and a sprinkling of rain at night, which is as perfect as we can get, hope this continues!
About our horse-keeping, I prefer loose salt, too, now. I fed free-choice blocks for years, thinking it better for them to regulate their salt intake as they needed it, but they ended up wasting most of it by breaking it into pieces and kicking it around the stall, pooping on it so I'd have to waste more by rinsing it, getting pieces in their water and then refusing the salty water, ugh. So now I add loose salt to their grain, which works a lot better. They get boring-tasting grain (soaked beet pulp and rice bran) and the salt makes it tastier, plus I can adjust the amount according to the weather and how much water they're drinking. So much better for them! And less wasteful for my budget.

To cool them after working, I used to squeegee as well (as I was taught, old pony-clubber here) but apparently they cool off better when you leave the water on and let them them walk around and evaporate naturally. The old theory was their body heat would heat the water, so you needed to squeegee it off, and/or put on an absorbent cooler. But mine seem to cool off faster and more comfortably walking around in the fresh air. I only use a cooler after bathing them when the weather is under 65 or 70.
I also do the rubbing-alcohol spritz if it's really hot, but usually I only do their legs.