Shivering

BG was shivering last night and this morning, it makes me feel really mean and makes me worry.

It has been very cold and wet here, I don’t think her poor body knows what to do as Sunday was boiling hot and sunny. Last winter she was out in -10 degrees un-rugged and was perfectly fine, so I am hoping it is just where the weather has suddenly changed and her body wasn’t ready for it. She had two times last winter when she shivered, hence I bought her a rug just in case, but I really don’t want to have to use it. I like to keep her as natural as possible and especially don’t want to be rugging her now or else her winter coat won’t grow as it should.

She came down last night when we arrived. It was still raining. She had her head collar on good as gold and ate her tea. I didn’t notice her shivering then so led her out. The ground was too slippery to lunge her so I just led her up to go over the poles on the ground. She got a little tense as we approached the poles as it is where she knocked the jump yesterday, but she was walking quite nicely and went over it with no issues. I then went to take her head collar off and she had her head held high and tense, that was when I noticed her near hind shivering. I wasn’t sure if it was just nerves being in that section of the field so I led her back to her shelter.

She was still shivering in there, I went to get her some more food so we could keep her in out of the rain for a bit. She ate her food and then started to nod off to sleep. I am not sure if it is me worrying and seeing things but her tummy looked more pronounced too.

We stayed up there with her nodding off to sleep until we were sure she was okay and the shivering had stopped. When we left she watched us leave but stayed in her shelter nodding off to sleep. It is quite unusual for her, normally she only goes in the shelter to eat or in the summer occasionally to get out of the heat, so she must have known for once it was a good idea to dry off.

I think it has rained nearly all night and was still raining when we got up there this morning. BG came trotting down for her breakfast and, by the time I had her food ready, I saw her bottom vanish into her shelter as she took herself in.

She was shivering again, but in the twenty minutes we were there it stopped quite quickly and, when given the option, she went straight back out into the rain.

I think I just need to keep an eye on her, it is not something I remember ever seeing her do in her previous home. I wish I had stables and paddocks in my back garden so I could keep an eye on her. I would have made her up a hay net last night so she would stay in out of the wet, but where she is now P1 and P2 would probably have come down and they would all have fought over the net. I could have made up three, but they don’t really need the extra food, both P2 and BG are on the tubby side.

I have read a bit on it today and the common consensus seems to be to feed hay when this happens as this then warms them from the inside out and dries them out. I might look into an alternative to hay, some sort of mash or something that’ll have the same effect, so we can feed it whilst we are up there and it won’t affect the others. I want to keep the rugs off as long as I can (in fact, I had hoped not to use it at all this winter) so I will just monitor her and see how she goes.