The Freakin' Heat

Summer arrives officially on the 22nd of June.  But here in Florida, we are already feeling the extreme heat.  The Weather Channel app on my phone reports it is currently 94 degrees out, with the humidity, feels like 104 degrees.  The motto of those of us still riding our horses is ride early, as close to sunrise as possible, or ride late, as close to or after sundown.

The problem in Florida, and several other Southern States, is that horses, can "shut down" or stop sweating. There is no "cure" for anhydrosis or"non-sweating",other than to send the horse to a cooler climate. However, non-sweating can be managed. Horses need to be kept out of the sun under fans and as cool as possible.  For more information on non-sweating, check out these websites;http://www.non sweater.com/anhydrosis and https://vetmed-extension.sites.medinfo.ufl.edu/files/2013/05/Healthy-Horses-2013-Presentations.pdf.

I am off for the summer and have the luxury of being able to ride almost every day.  I am aware that keeping my horse cool and out of the extreme heat can prolong his usefulness and keep him healthy.  It is a slight inconvenience, during my vacation, I must get up earlier than I want to.  I feel I must  rescue my horse from the sun and flies around 6:30 in the morning.

In some ways, it is still better than visiting my mother in western New York for the summer, where the assortment of flying insects is much greater.  There, I must still rescue my horse.  When the sun breaks the tree line,shedding light on the barn area, the flies "wake up".  In New York, the  freezing winter temperatures, send the insect population into dormancy.  In Ft. Lauderdale, we have stable flies and mosquitos, but nothing like the amazing variety of insects that inhabit rural Western NY. For a number of years, my husband and I visited my mother from mid-June through early August. There, I had to rise early to get the horses in before the flies woke up. They seemed to "sleep" when it was dark or below seventy degrees. The flies were so bad that, once the temperature rose above 70, the  horses actually preferred to be in the barn.