Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Is it nice in your snow storm, freezing your brain?

The high today was10 degrees with a wind chill in the negatives. It's been snowing and blowing all day. Since it didn't appear to be letting up, I took the day off from work. We already have about ten inches of snow or more and when I heard that even the University was closing I decided it wasn't worth driving in to town just to turn around and come home again. Of course, it's so nasty out that I couldn't even stand to be outside more than a few minutes. Thankfully, my wood stove is working well so the house has been nice and warm! Here's what it looked like outside for most of the day.

Here's a close up of Scout napping 

and Yalla! exploring, both photos taken from the comfort of my house.

In the afternoon, when my son let the dogs out for a quickie, he saw a coyote right up near our house. Sandy took off after it and Buddha quickly peed and came running back to me. I knew Sandy would be okay because she often runs after coyotes so I went outside and gave the horses some grain while I waited for her to come back. I'm sure they enjoyed their noontime treat and, with the cold weather, they needed the extra calories. 

While I was out at the barn Sandy came running back to me and rolled around in the snow. She really loves snow. Although today, she had snow balls in her feet so we hurried inside. Once inside, I noticed some blood on her chin. I called my son and we rolled Sandy over and looked at her. We decided that she might have a small cut or maybe she caught the coyote?


We wiped it up and there was no more bleeding after that so who knows?

There is no place for the horses to escape the blowing snow so tonight I decided to blanket the girls. See all the snow in the stall?
The powdery snow brushed easily off of their backs and I threw blankets on both Nadia and Annie. Annie is very susceptible to the cold and I'll often find her shaking. She has a rather thin coat and in the middle of these cold spells I'll find that she's shedding long hairs. A lot of them! Why is that? I would think that horses would only shed when they're hot. None of the other horses are losing hair.

Tomorrow morning, I will bring out a nice warm mash for all the horses. Meanwhile, stay warm.



Is it nice in your snow storm, freezing your brain? - song: Sweet Thing (Reprise), artist: David Bowie, album: Diamond Dogs

8 comments:

Dan and Betty said...

As usual you have a lot more snow on your side of the mountain. We have two inches in Corrales and probably more as you get closer to the mountain. But it's cold. Sweet Betty is having to do everything since I'm still in recovery from my surgery and she's being a real ranch woman.

Dan

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Darn snow blowing from the east. Our barn isn't much protection either.
We saw coyote tracks coming from behind our house and straight to our chicken coop. Of course, the chickens are locked up inside, safe and warm, but the tracks showed the coyote stood at the fence, probably trying to figure out a way in. Must have been freezing cold and hungry. I almost feel sorry for it. Almost....

~Lisa

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

We got the cold, but not the snow....Thank Goodness!

I dunno about the guard hairs. Frosty does the same thing. He gets much longer guard hairs than any of my other horses and sheds them frequently. His undercoat is very fine and I am sure if he wasn't so fat, he would be chilly. I have wondered it it wasn't a nutritional thing, but with everyone on supplements and having just been dewormed, it seems unlikely.

Ed said...

Hope it warms up for ya, I'm playing in the midwest and after the storm the temps up here are rediculous, good thing I have a nice warm truck..:-)

Achieve1dream said...

Actually the temperature has nothing to do with shedding, it's how much daylight there is. As the days get longer they start shedding. That's why inside dogs shed constantly because they are under artificial lights all day. :)

Poor Sandy! If you didn't find a cut she might have bit the coyote or found a kill of his or something. I'm glad she's not hurt.

It's supposed to get negative zero at night this weekend. Ugh!!! I'm so not looking forward to it at all!

I love that picture of Yalla! :)

Achieve1dream said...

In my comment about the shedding I think I wrote "temperature has no affect on shedding" and I should have written temperature has "little" affect on shedding. The length of the days is what affects it the most. I'm horrible about using words like never when I should use a different word. Just wanted to clarify. :D

Fantastyk Voyager said...

Thanks Achieve1Dream, however, still, I wonder why it's only Annie because she doesn't have much coat to begin with.
Yeah, dogs shed constantly so that makes sense there.

Achieve1dream said...

Has Annie always been the first to start shedding? Or is this new for her? If it's new it might be worth asking your vet about. I can't think of anything that causes that so I doubt it's anything to worry about, but who knows for sure. Have you changed anything about feeding, stabling, blanketing, etc lately?