I've found that the clipping in the fall helps to some extent, but the Lalli, who is imported from Iceland tends to be more sluggish mid-Sept-Nov. each year even if the weather drops into daytime 60's/nights 40's (we're in Santa Ynez, Calif). When I first addded him to our family 14 years ago, I thought something was wrong with him & drew blood incl a T3/T4. It was low for that period then came up. Each year I have drawn blood to track it & the same thing happened low T3/T4 for that period. Drew blood every 3 months year round for 6 years, but the thyroid came up each time after that fall period. Our other guy Selur, who is Canadian born gets a little sluggish, but have only a little drop in his thyroid. . not as much as Lalli. Other Icelandic owners around here (we used to have over 200 in our Valley alone) noticed the same thing even with clipping. Elizabeth Haug @ Viking Saga said that the first generation imports seemed to suffer the most, but even her Calif. bred horses got less energetic. Phill/Robyn/ Christine from the Icelandic Horse Farm told me the same thing when I was so worried.
Lucky you who have horses that this doesn't happen to yearly!!! Kaaren BTW, since I added the Hilton (Chamisa) Herbs/Himalayan Salt & actually started to do daily Jin Shin on Lalli for 10 min., they are much better, but still not as energetic as other times of the year. Lalli's blood work also shows improvement during this time since adding the latter. Maybe next year he will improve more??!!
