Winter horse care checklist: turnout, mud and the daily checks that matter

A good winter horse care routine means daily turnout where the ground allows, unfrozen water, plenty of forage once the grass stops, a daily look at legs and feet, and weight checked every two weeks.

None of that is complicated. What makes winter hard is doing it in the dark and the rain, which is when the small jobs slide.

This post covers the checklist itself, then turnout, poached fields, forage, water, frosty grass, legs and feet, weight, older horses and when to call the vet. Rugs have their own post: when to rug a horse.

What should a winter horse care checklist include?

Here is the routine I work from. The figures in it come from the sources linked further down.

The six-monthly dental check is for older horses with missing teeth, which Redwings recommends. Every horse should be seen at least once a year, and how often a horse should see the dentist breaks the interval down by age.

Should horses be turned out in winter?

Yes, as a rule. The British Horse Society’s winter care guidance is clear that it is still important for horses to get outside every day, even if you need to reduce turnout to stop the fields getting too muddy.

Turnout gives a horse movement, company and hours of grazing. The BHS notes horses evolved to chew for up to 18 hours a day, and a horse shut in for days loses most of that.

That does not mean a full day out in every weather. On the wettest days the options are:

• Shorter turnout so the field is not churned for hours at a time
• An all-weather area of sand, horse-safe wood chip, hardcore or rubber matting, which the BHS suggests setting aside for when the field is too wet
• Exercise instead: hand walking, lungeing, riding or a horse walker

Shelter matters as much as the hours. The BHS points out that trees which drop their leaves give poor shelter in winter, and that horses will look for a windbreak on cold, windy days even if they rarely use one otherwise. A thick hedge or a field shelter does the job.

How do you stop a field getting poached?

Spread the traffic and give the ground time to recover. Poaching happens where hooves concentrate: gateways, troughs, hay piles and the fence line horses pace along at feed time.

The BHS guide to mud management gives the most practical list I have found:

• Rest and rotate. Plan turnout so each area gets at least one to two months with no horses on it. If you cannot rotate whole fields, fence off the worst patches.
• Watch the numbers. Too many horses in one field means more traffic and mud that churns much faster.
• Protect the hot spots. Gateways and water supplies can take a high-traffic pad. Where you can, put the gateway on the driest side of the field.
• Feed on hard ground. Hay goes in feeders on hard standing, with leftovers cleared before fresh hay goes out. Hay dropped on mud only makes the mud worse. The winter care page adds: keep feeders away from troughs and gateways.
• Poo pick at least twice a week. Droppings left to break down soften the ground, and picking up also cuts the worm burden.

World Horse Welfare’s advice on preparing paddocks for wet winters suggests aiming for about one acre per horse, resting your wettest fields over winter, keeping drainage channels and culverts clear, and making hard standing big enough for the whole group to stand on at once. If you are adding hardcore or a field shelter, check local planning rules first.

Smaller, settled groups churn a field less than a big herd jostling at one gateway.

How much hay does a horse need when the grass stops?

Enough that the horse is rarely left with nothing to chew. Once the grass stops, hay or haylage has to make up most of the forage, and digesting it also helps a horse keep warm.

Our post on how much hay a horse needs works through the sums by bodyweight. In the field, the BHS tip is simple and it works: put out more piles of hay than there are horses, so the lowest horse in the pecking order still gets to eat.

How do you keep a horse drinking in winter?

By making sure the water is there, unfrozen and not painfully cold. A horse needs plenty of water whatever the temperature, and the BHS winter care advice is practical:

• Check troughs and buckets every time you are at the yard and lift out the ice
• Add warm water to buckets to stop them freezing overnight, which may also encourage drinking
• Insulate pipes to automatic drinkers, or put out buckets as a backup
• Keep an emergency supply of clean water in case the taps freeze

Water matters more in winter than it seems. In a Your Horse article on frosty grass, vet Dr Mike Barton points out that horses often dislike drinking icy water, and a chilled or frozen supply is a more likely problem than the grass itself, because the horse simply drinks less and becomes dehydrated.

For how much is normal and how to tell if your horse is short, see how much water a horse drinks.

Is frosty grass safe for horses?

For most horses, yes. For a horse prone to laminitis, it can be a real risk. In the Your Horse article, Dr Barton explains that sunny days and frosty nights cause sugars to build up in the grass. Those sugars raise glucose and insulin, which can tip a susceptible horse into a laminitic episode.

The horses to think about are those with a laminitis history, equine metabolic syndrome or insulin dysregulation, and the good-doer natives and cobs who already carry plenty of condition. For them:

• Limit turnout on bright, frosty days
• Give hay instead, so the horse is not gorging on grass the moment it goes out
• Watch for slipping on frozen, rutted ground, which is a risk to every horse

The same article says there is no real evidence that frosty grass causes colic, which is a common worry. The concern is laminitis. Know the early signs of laminitis before the first hard frost.

How do you look after feet and legs in winter mud?

By giving them a chance to dry out every day and looking at them properly. The BHS mud fever advice is to make sure horses have somewhere dry to stand for at least part of the day. Then:

• Don’t wash muddy legs as soon as they come in. Let the mud dry and brush it off with a soft brush. If you do wash, dry the legs completely.
• Barrier creams go on clean, dry legs, before turnout, or they trap the wet in.
• Run your hands down every leg daily. Scabs in the heel, heat or swelling are easier to deal with on day one than day ten. Our mud fever prevention and treatment post covers what to look for.
• Pick out the feet daily and notice any black, smelly material in the grooves of the frog, which is typical of thrush.

A horse that is suddenly very lame on one leg in winter has quite often got a hoof abscess, but sudden lameness always needs a proper look rather than a guess.

Keep an eye on the field as well as the horse. Autumn and early winter are when sycamore seeds fall, and atypical myopathy is a reason to fence off or clear any sycamores in or near the field.

Do horses lose weight in winter?

Some do, and for a horse carrying extra weight that is no bad thing. The BHS says some weight loss over winter is normal and helpful for overweight horses, while a horse that starts winter at a healthy weight may need its routine adjusted to hold condition.

The trouble is that winter hides weight. A thick coat and a rug make it easy to miss a horse that is losing condition, or one that is gaining it. The BHS suggests checking with a weigh tape and fat scoring every two weeks. Tapes vary in accuracy, so use one for the trend (steady, up or down) rather than an exact figure, and use the same tape each time.

Two posts from this week go into the detail: how to weigh a horse without a weighbridge and how to body condition score a horse.

What about older horses in winter?

They need closer watching, mostly because of their teeth. Redwings says a painful mouth is a common cause of weight loss in older horses, and the signs to look for are bad breath, quidding (dropping balls of chewed food), loose droppings and food stuck in the teeth.

For an older horse that cannot manage hay well, Redwings suggests chopped forage or high-fibre cubes, soaked in warm water if that makes them easier to chew, fed little and often. The BHS winter page adds that concentrates should go in small amounts often, since a big meal can reach the hindgut unprocessed and raise the risk of colic. Get advice from your vet or a nutritionist before changing the diet.

Redwings is blunt on one point: an older horse being underweight should never be accepted as normal. Check teeth and worm egg count first, then talk to your vet if the weight is not coming back.

When should you call the vet about a horse in winter?

Most winter jobs are routine. These are not. Ring your vet if your horse has:

• Any sign of colic: pawing, rolling, looking at its belly, no droppings
• Stopped eating or drinking, or is eating far less hay than usual
• Sudden lameness, a strong digital pulse or reluctance to walk, especially in a horse prone to laminitis
• A hot, swollen or weeping leg, or scabs that are spreading despite care
• Rapid weight loss over days or a couple of weeks rather than a slow winter trend
• Muscle trembling, stiffness or dark urine in a horse at grass, which can be atypical myopathy and is an emergency

Call sooner for older horses and those with known conditions. Bonfire Night also falls in this stretch, and our post on horses and fireworks covers planning for it.

Where the technology fits

Most of winter care is a head torch, a hay net and a hand down a leg. Stride has no weather feed, no field or grazing planner and no frost or mud alerts, and it will not tell you whether to turn out today.

What it can do is keep the record that winter makes hard to keep in your head:

• Water logs. Log each horse’s water in litres or with one tap per 15 litre bucket, so a run of low days stands out.
• Feed logs. Record what each horse actually got and when, hay included, separately from its standing ration.
• Observations. Log things like filled legs, heat in hoof, off food, not drinking or colic signs, with a mild, moderate or marked severity and the date.
• Body & Condition scan. A side-on photo gives an estimated body condition score out of nine, kept as a trend. It is an estimate from a picture, so use it as a prompt to fat score by hand, not a replacement. Stride does not record weigh tape readings as numbers.
• Health reminders for the farrier, dentist, vaccinations, worming and vet visits, with a suggested six-week farrier interval and a push notification three days before, on the day and once if it goes overdue.

It is a record, not an adviser. The decisions stay with you and, when it matters, your vet.

If you do one thing this week, pick the two dates you will tape and fat score your horse before Christmas, and put them in the diary now.