Wednesday Video from Kentucky Performance Products: Cold Day at the Barn? Try Winter in Mongolia

This video of Mongolian horses in a winter storm should help you shrug off your first-world shivers.

No cozy blankets, run-in sheds or bucket warmers for these tough equines, who have adapted over the ages to soldier through incredibly cold winter temperatures as low as -45 Celsius. They grow thick, tight winter coats with a short, almost felt-like undercoat and long outside layer that insulates them from wind and snow. For sustenance, they use their sharp, strong hooves to dig through snow and ice for grasses below, and have also adapted to use snow for water intake on a daily basis as everything is frozen for months. During the winter and early spring, the horses lose about 30% of their body weight, which they must regain during summer and fall so as to survive another year.

Snow Storm in Mongolia

#EquestrianLifestyle | PegaseBuzz

Bientôt, en France.

via Их Ээ (Mongolie)

Posted by PegaseBuzz on Friday, December 14, 2018

 

Mongolian herding culture is unique in that it is largely nomadic, predicated on an intricate and time-honored system of seasonal migration. Herders traditionally move their animals between the high summer pastures of the mountains and their villages camps on steppe where they spend the winter. Herding families pick up and move two or three times a year, carrying with them their homes, livestock and horses.

This video follows the Kazakh eagle hunters of Western Mongolia on their spring migration, which takes between February and April of each year. Around 200 families make the long, brutally cold 150km trip across the Altai mountains — Mongolian people are just as tough as their horses, it seems.

See now? Bundling up for a chilly trek out to the barn doesn’t seem so bad. Channel your inner Mongolian, and enjoy some hot cocoa on the other side!

Concerned about transportation stress?

Ask your vet about Elevate®.

Elevate® Concentrate powder and Elevate® W.S. liquid.

• Research shows that even short trips in the trailer challenge your horse’s immune system, leaving
him more susceptible to illness.
• Providing powerful antioxidants such as natural vitamin E supports a robust immune response
during stressful situations like traveling.
• Elevate delivers a highly bioavailable source of natural vitamin E that is preferentially absorbed
and retained in the tissues.
• Support your horse when he needs it most with Elevate natural vitamin E.

For more information, visit KPPvet.com.