Paradigm Farms Horse Retirement: Back to Clipping

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Back to Clipping

After the spring clipping marathon was completed my body clippers were set aside and forgotten for a few short weeks. The last few days have found me back to the grind, or maybe more appropriately back to the clipping. During the spring marathon of clipping all of the PPID/Cushing's horses get clipped within a couple of weeks. Actually it is inaccurate to say all of the PPID/Cushing's horses, as not all of them fail to shed and/or attempt to grow a winter coat year round. However, most of the PPID/Cushing's horses need at least one clip per year, and that typically happens in the spring.

After the spring marathon everyone is in a good place with their hair for awhile, then it becomes a wait and watch game to see who will need clipping again and when. It varies from horse to horse. As I mentioned above some only need one body clip. Some horses I will clip four or more times from late spring through early fall. Some I will clip twice. It just depends on each horse. Sometimes as horses age they move from the once a year clip group to the multiple times per year group. Conversely, we have some horses who come to live with us that are already in the clip multiple times per year group, but after a year or so of "living like a horse" we find we don't need to clip them as often anymore.

We can't coast and make decisions based on how they used to be or how they've always been. The bottom line is we simply have to pay attention and make decisions on the horse that is in front of us on any given day.

Lily being clipped img_0770-800x600