Sunshine brings great things - lush grass for horses to eat, sweet red tomatoes (not for me, for the people!), and blackberries. We all love blackberries! You probably like the actual berries, but the other horses and I like the leaves as much as the berries. The blackberry bushes are blooming right now. Imagine that every one of those blossoms will be a berry in just a month or two - YUM!
The warm weather continues here on Vashon Island. It's warm, but not unbearably hot - around 82ยบ today. In the warm weather the horses do sweat, but that's good, as it keeps us cool. Here's an interesting thing about cooling out horses....
A horse sweats to keep his body cool, but sometimes sweating isn't enough to cool a hard working equine. If a horse is sweaty and hot after a ride, or even from running around in the pasture, hose him off, and then immediately use a sweat scraper to remove the water. Why? The water seems like it would continue to cool the horse, but a hot horse's body temperature will heat up the water you just put on him, and he'll actually get hotter. So scrape off the water right away, and keep him walking to cool his muscles and make a small breeze to evaporate the rest of the water on his coat. Sometimes we sweat a little bit around our ears under the bridle, and under the girth and the saddle pad. If that's all the sweat that's there and our breathing is normal, we probably just need a little brushing or sponging off to remove the sweat. If a horse sweats more or seems to be breathing hard, take his temperature and cool him with water (continue scraping and hosing) until his body temperature is normal.
What's a horse's normal body temperature? Good question.... we'll talk about that next time I'm sitting down at the computer! We'll talk about T, P & R: temperature, pulse and respiration, all of these vital signs tell a lot about a horse's health. Talk to you soon!
--Biscuit
