[up-at-5]

What do negative temps even FEEL like? We might get into the single digits but I've never experienced negative temps.

Well, if you have a runny nose, that stuff freezes really quickly. The cold makes your eyes tear up, and then the tears freeze on your eyelashes. Even in heavy gloves, your fingerstips will start to tingle and get very painful after only a few minutes.
When you take a deep breath, you get a sudden feeling of being short of breath as your lungs reject the cold air. And after you are done chores, you come into the house and run to the thermostat to turn down the heat, because all of a sudden the house feels too hot(this action peeves my family off to no end)

[vtdobes]

Here in VT we are expecting -15F tonight with the wind chill about -25F. High temp for Wednesday is 1 degree....yay. Horses will be fine...they have access to their stalls during the day and are in at night...pile the hay up in front of them and the water buckets are plugged in!

However.....my Dobes are not going to be getting any exercise for the next few days!

[sk_pacer]

Heat wave here today, temps finally nosed up on the good side of 0°F but now it's whiteshitting again but no wind, yet

[eclipse]

I just did a conversion from C to F for reference. Sorry alibi_18, your -14*C is a balmy +6.8*F. I'd be happy with that, since my tank heater cannot keep up with the sub-zero temps we have now. Have to go out and break ice every couple hours with a brand new heater! Blech!!111!

And how do people in central Canada seem to have higher temperatures than we do here in Northern WI and MN? After all it's YOUR cold air we're getting. I demand you take it back!

No thanks, you can keep it!! A lovely balmy -8C here today (lowest this week) and all our snow has pretty well melted! I'm going to not try to rub it in too hard as I know that -30C will return at some point........

[NorthwoodsRider]

I got "ice cream brain" yesterday taking a breath when I got out of the car to check the mail. Your eyelashes freeze together, and like another poster said, snot freezes in your nose (or on your upper lip if it makes it that far).

[eclipse]

What do negative temps even FEEL like? We might get into the single digits but I've never experienced negative temps.

Once it drops below -15C it all feels the same! Although -20C with a blue sky, no wind and NOT damp can feel absolutley glorious (Alberta tends to have a "dry cold" which is much better anyway)..........wierd sounding if you've never experianced it LOL

[Finzean]

Well I was going to complain about a high of 31 here today with a low of 18 tonight and wind chill to boot. BUT after reading some of these posts, I'll take 18. Ugh I HATE winter.

[cloudy18]

31 is balmy, unless there is a cold wind behind it! It was -17 this morning. Sadly, after three days of below 0 temps it doesn't feel awful because there was no wind. I will take this over that wind we had on Saturday. My fingers really are the only thing I can't keep warm, even with the little hand warmer packs in my mittens. I did chores in about 30 minutes today (no barn, just check waterer, pick up manure from run-in and dry lot, put out hay nets, check horses and back inside).

The horses seem happy as long as the wind isn't keeping them inside the run-in, and there is no precip to get them wet. It's supposed to be in the 30's by Sunday, so this actually hasn't been too horrible. I hate it when we get wet snow with a nasty cold wind that blows it all inside the run-ins.

[alibi_18]

I just did a conversion from C to F for reference. Sorry alibi_18, your -14*C is a balmy +6.8*F. I'd be happy with that, since my tank heater cannot keep up with the sub-zero temps we have now. Have to go out and break ice every couple hours with a brand new heater! Blech!!111!

And how do people in central Canada seem to have higher temperatures than we do here in Northern WI and MN? After all it's YOUR cold air we're getting. I demand you take it back!

Well, it will be -20F tonight and that's without the wind factor.


There ya go. Happy now?

[FineAlready]

We were at -7 in SE Wisconsin this morning. Our horses are in (mine is clipped). Barn is not heated, but stays pretty warm with the horses in it (the water does not freeze...all the way). I gave my horse a quarter bucket of warm water last night, which he enjoyed. He put his nose in, splashed it all over me, and then took a nice long drink.

I really like giving them some warm water when it is super cold. Encourages them to drink when they otherwise might not...helps cut down on colic risk.

[FineAlready]

I should clarify, the horses are in AND blanketed!

[candyappy]

The air temp here this morning at 9 Am was -24 and with the light wind it was -40. My horses are never blanketed and have a barn that they can go into if they wish to. They have heated water and I feed 4 times a day hay in weather like this. They are fine. I worry more about my goats and milk cows in weather like this and they are inside.

[wireweiners]

Well, nyah, nyah boo boo. Saturday was in the high 60's, all the horses were sunbathing. Sunday was sunny and 50's and today's about the same. We got a nice break from all the rain.

[Hinderella]

Should be single digits here tonight, a little lower with the wind chill. I did put a medium weight blanket on the pony last night, mostly for the wind. She's a wooly mammoth so just plain cold isn't too bad for her. I wrapped her water tank with my "redneck insulator": a sheet of 2" thick foam, wrapped in contractor bags and held on with giant bungee cords It's ugly, but effective. I use a sinking tank heater, but the insulator holds the warmth in, and we can actually turn off the heater during the day.
MisyBlue, I like your idea of the floating toy. A friend encouraged me to try to figure out a way to have a constant trickle of bubbles in the tank to keep it from freezing. I know it would work, but so far I haven't been able to find the tool or pump to do it...at least not one that can just sit out in all kinds of weather.

[luvmytbs]

No blankets on my horses and this morning at 6 am (temp was 13F, wind chill 0) they felt warm under their manes.

They did spend some of the night in the run-in judging by the poop piles.

Looking forward to the high temp of 35 degrees tomorrow.

[rmh_rider]

Yes, here is the south we are expecting colder temps. Teens last night, tonight, and I think tomorrow. We barely got over freezing today.

But it is winter. Isn't cold weather to be expected? Even extreme cold weather?

We just had 9 solid days of total down pours of rain, and it was a cold rain. But it is winter, it is to be expected.

[cowboymom]

We've seen as cold as -45 below but as long as it's dry and not windy we don't worry about the horses/livestock. Usually when it's that cold you don't have snow with it, it's usually the bright sunny day that follows a blizzard... and the snow squeaks under your boots, your car won't even talk to you, and your nose freezes inside and out and makes you sneeze, and your hands/toes get cold, the dogs walk on alternate feet and 20 above in a week or so is a freaking heat wave. Everything is completely silent when it's -40... you can hear a pin drop at the neighbor's a half mile away. Our horses would run and fight and play to keep themselves warm; we would hunker in the house listening to the rafters pop and crack; it sounded like gunshots sometimes.

Here in another part of MT it's not so cold and the horses have a barn and we have no sympathy for anything over 0*.

[sunridge1]

Well, it will be -20F tonight and that's without the wind factor.


There ya go. Happy now?

Fabulous! I've had to break ice several times during the day on a tank that has TWO heaters. Today it was finally open when I got home only due to the fact there is less water. We never got to zero F today.Frost bit my fingers during chores..Horses were happy as clams with their 'all they can eat" smorgasbords. Sometimes I hate them...

[Gestalt]

Our temps are supposed to start dropping tonight. Typical New England weather as it was quite warm for the season the last 2 days. Normal for us...we have 4 distinct seasons...sometimes all in one day!

It won't get that cold though, just cold compared to what it's been. Supposed to go from 52 with a weird warm wind (was windy as hell last 2 days) today to teens tonight and 20's tomorrow. 30 degree drop, but we've seen worse and thankfully my current two horses aren't weather-colic-guys. I went and raked the main turnout after turn in tonight so the surface was nice and smooth for when it freezes. I don;t like frozen hoof-ruts in the turnout, can't be fun to walk on.



You can use salt on hay to encourage drinking. However, don't over-salt or use a lot of salt to encourage drinking or you just cause dehydration.
Easiest way I've found to salt hay is to use a small spray bottle and mist the hay so it's just a bit damp and then sprinkle some salt on it. Damp hay makes the salt stick. Horses seem to like the taste too.

You can add a toy ball to the bucket or trough, the movement helps slow down the freezing and horses tend to push on the ball if the surface is frozen and that can break up light ice.

As a safety/bonus, you can bring a couple gallons of *hot* water when you see your horse and add those to a bucket of cold water to make tepid water and offer that while you're there. You can move hot water (walking to backyard barn or driving to boarding barn) easily in washed out milk gallons. Or if you plan on doing that on a regular basis over winter, buy a 5 gallon gas can and fill that with really hot tap water before going to the barn. If using the milk gallons, after one is half full you can add a couple tbs of molasses to the jug, cover and shake to melt it and then finish filling it. The warmer temp and smell/slight taste of molasses makes most horses drain a full bucket.

Excellent information, thank you!

[NorthwoodsRider]

OK, now this is just making me mad! DH went out tonight to turn on the hot tub (which btw is in a covered/protected patio) and found it at 43 deg F and refusing to start. Fortunately we caught it in time and a couple of space heaters pointing at the hardware and it's running again. Don't know if it'll warm up enough to have a tub tonight, but just glad there's no permanent damage. Will have to switch things up to 4 cycles per day from the usual 2 until this finally breaks I guess. Ugh - we pay electricity on a time of day scale, and I hate paying at peak times, but I guess I'll have to bite the bullet for a while.