PALMER — When last month's cold snap came on, no one at Bart and Beth Theisen's horse-boarding facility thought to plug in the block heater on the skid steer -- a small diesel-powered construction vehicle -- they use to heft 700-pound hay bales. A couple horses needed food so Beth pushed her luck and tried to crank the engine one too many times. Now the battery was dead.
They charged it and fed the horses. But over the next few days, several other farm amenities failed. Two of the so-called frost-free hydrants frosted, breaking the hose connectors and spewing water in the air. Then an underground pipe feeding an automatic waterer froze. Then someone didn't fully drain the hose in the barn and it froze. Not that the hose really mattered. The heated hydrant in the barn had frozen too.
The temporary solution: Fix the easy stuff and haul buckets of water by hand. Bart Theisen re-insulated the barn hydrant but postponed fixing the automatic waterer because it required rewiring.
"I'm waiting until … it warms up," Theisen said, explaining that gloves get in the way when doing electrical work. "My fingers aren't going to last at 5 below."
Then, as problems began sorting themselves out, a horse named Izzie did something that defied logic but reminded everyone why they love horses. She somehow managed to slip out of a nice warm horse blanket like Houdini escaping a straightjacket. The blanket was lying in the field with all the straps still buckled. Thankfully, Izzie was fine.
Welcome to horse ownership in an Alaska winter.
No excuses
As temperatures drop, even the most-prepared horse owners in the 49th state face an array of problems unique to frigid northern climates. Hoses freeze into rigid coils. Tank heaters come unplugged and end up suspended in blocks of ice. Electrical lines break in frozen ground. Horse manure freezes in jagged, rock-hard chunks. Owners brave the weather to shuffle chilly horses into barns. Those same horses get restless in stalls and want to go outside. If it's not one thing, it's another.
Linda Shue keeps a "small herd" -- 20 ponies and a full-sized horse -- at her place in Palmer. She's had ponies here for more than two decades and feels strongly that equines should get the care they need, no matter how bad conditions get for their owners.
"They don't even want to hear excuses. They just want their food. If you can't do that for the animals, you shouldn't have them," Shue said.
Shue drives to an Anchorage feed store every 10 to 14 days to pick up hay bales imported from Washington state.
Even when roads are icy and visibility poor, Shue makes the trip. Because there are often shortages of Alaska-grown hay, she accepts the extra import cost to shore up her supply.
If a hose freezes, Shue doesn't let her ponies go thirsty just because it's painful to be outside.
"You've either got to haul the hose into the house … or bring it into the heated garage or put it down in the water tank, which is heated," Shue said.
Anyone who assumes horse ownership is glamorous has never seen 100 or 200 feet of frozen garden hose thawing in a bathtub.
Keeping a horse warm
Jon Nauman, long-time owner of Horse Drawn Carriage Company in Chugiak, has 11 horses on his property this winter: Six belong to boarders, five to him.
Nauman and his draft horses are a familiar sight in downtown Anchorage, where he gives carriage rides. One thing people usually notice about his all black Percheron horses: They're huge. Each one weighs about 2,000 pounds, some 800 pounds more than most full-size horses.
Horses eat a lot and big horses eat even more. Nauman said each of his horses eats 50 pounds of hay per day. But when the temperature dips below zero, he gives each horse an extra 10 pounds of hay and as much as 10 pounds of grain per day.
Hay prices are extremely high in Alaska. Prices started this year at about $285 per ton for Mat-Su Valley hay purchased wholesale in bulk and went up significantly, especially for those buying imported hay in smaller quantities at retail. The extra cost of winter feed mounts quickly.?
"We don't like it, but the biggest thing is the horses eat more when it gets cold, and that's how they stay warm," Nauman said. "Give them more hay, and it's just a big fermentation tank."
Horse blankets are another common sight on farms during Alaska winters. Made of lined, waterproof nylon that can be strapped around the horse's chest and belly, the most expensive ones cost more than $400.
Most of Nauman's boarders put blankets on their horses, he said. But he only blankets his own horses when the wind is blowing or if they have been pulling carriages and working up a sweat.
Some people feed horses outside, but Nauman feeds his in barn stalls. They open to the outside and horses enter through sheets of clear plastic cut into strips, which helps trap heat. The horses can come and go at will. But they don't hunker down inside when it gets cold the way people tend to.
"I guess they prefer to be outside," Nauman said.
That's been Palmer resident Vickie Talbot's experience too. Her ponies, Junebug and Little Bear, can get into their stalls any time they want.
"I feed them in there but they are out most of the time. They choose to be," Talbot said.
Palmer-based professional farrier -- or horseshoer -- Will Peabody said he doesn't like to work in subzero temperatures because it makes horses uncomfortable when he "pounds on their hooves."
But that doesn't mean Peabody thinks horses are ill-suited for the northern climate.
"What always amazes me is how tough they are," Peabody said. "I don't know how many times I've gone out when it's freezing out and I think they'll be cold and they're not."
However, every horse is different. Besides his rugged, cold-hardy horses, Peabody has a 20-year-old horse named Shadow who always sheds his coat at the worst possible time. "He drops hair in November and doesn't get it back until January," Peabody said. "He's a special guy."
To keep warm, the special guy has to wear a blanket.
Winter riding
Even the fun stuff can turn into a lot of work in winter. Going for a ride means trudging -- carefully -- over frozen ground or through snow. Or it means loading horses into a trailer and hauling them several miles on icy roads to an indoor arena.
If the footing is good, Jessica Winnestaffer likes to take her family's horses -- Rumi, Digger and Purdy -- on trail rides near their home in Sutton.
"I wear snow pants, thick insulated muck boots, or other kinds of insulated boots, full rabbit fur hats and mittens," Winnestaffer said. "I bundle up."
She rides bareback -- without a saddle -- because more heat transfers from the horse. When there is snow on the ground or it is frozen and hard, Winnestaffer loosens the reins and lets the horse pick its own route rather than focusing on the kinds of precision movements she expects in better conditions.
"Their footsteps can't be controlled at every landing," Winnestaffer explained. "It's unfair to ask the horse to do that and it can be dangerous."
When footing is bad but roads are safe, she loads the horses into the trailer and drives to a large indoor facility in Palmer.
"It's definitely more pleasant to ride at 40 degrees as opposed to zero with wind," she said.
But even a nice amenity can create a dilemma for Alaska horse owners.
When a horse trains in a warm, sheltered arena, its hair tends to get frothy with sweat. Not sweaty like a person. So sweaty that it can take an hour or more to dry the horse -- even using a blow dryer.
"It's a life-or-death situation to take a sweaty horse out of the warm environment and kick them out into the cold," Winnestaffer said.
Some horse owners opt to clip their horse's coat so they don't sweat as much. But that removes their natural protection, making them susceptible to cold. Which means wearing a blanket all winter.
Keeping life interesting
People own horses for all sorts of reasons -- trail riding, English or Western competitions, packing supplies or wild game, companionship -- but one thing many agree on is that these large animals tend to keep life interesting.
You never know what will happen next, be it a huge, unexpected vet bill or something a horse does that just makes you scratch your head and laugh.
A couple nights into last month's cold snap, Beth Theisen led her horse Liam into a stall in her barn in Palmer, gave him a huge mound of hay and a bucket of water. Then, like always, she secured his stall gate with a chain and a latch. Not every horse needs the extra security. But Liam is a master escape artist.
The temperature kept dropping all night, down to 15 below. The next morning, it was so cold the dogs didn't want to go outside. But Liam the escape artist was still warm inside the barn, standing in a stall.
There was one hitch, however.
Liam had somehow managed to open the latch, let himself out of his stall, tore open a bag of grain, had a snack, entered a different stall and bumped the gate closed behind him.
The horse was standing there looking innocent, like everything was just the way it was supposed to be.
Shane Castle is a Palmer-based freelance writer.