>>> I have to disagree if speaking about our lot (goodness, it's ages since we had a good disagreement! lol)
Yep, this is LONG overdue...and darn it, almost petty, too. ;) >>> Even the clipped horses, on cool days, are more lethargic in september than in, say, march (when they have even more hair and it can be just as warm here). I hadn't really thought about the old "hair/energy-zapping" saying in a long time until last spring - late February, maybe? Sina had a little ongoing lameness and seemed lethargic - I was worried about her. The vet came out and did a fairly extensive lameness exam (no x-rays) and could see her little "bobbles" but advised me to work her through it. (The vet thought she'd possibly tweaked something during pregnancy/delivery.) The vet pointed out that I needed to do a generous clip job on her to work her - I'd done a minor trace clip on her the previous fall, but we could see that wasn't going to be enough. I clipped her that afternoon. It took a while to work through the lameness "bobbles" but we did and she's fine, but the lethargy improved immediately. That was a huge relief to me, because I was reading that the lethargy was associated with her feeling bad due to the lameness. Once I saw her energy return, I didn't feel so bad about asking her to exercise. I re-clipped a couple of others after that, and saw a similar change. I think I appreciate the value of clipping a little more every year. Karen Thomas, NC
