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COOL HEAT BLANKET

Pilo Erection (raising and lowering of the hair) is one of the processes a horse uses to control Thermal Regulation (warming and cooling of the body). Long term rugging leads to the destruction of a horse’s Pilo Erection ability. This is because small muscle fibres attached to each hair follicle become inactive due to constant flattening and atrophy occurs(muscle wastage) and a horse can no longer raise its hairs to retain body heat. The horse then becomes dependent on permanent rugging.

The big advantage of the Cool Heat blanket over traditional blankets is that the blanket is raised 12mm above the skin. Hence Pilo Erection is not significantly impeded.

Sweating is one of a horses natural cooling processes, so is quite normal. The problem is that when horses are rugged with most traditional blankets, sweat is soaked up into the blanket as well as being trapped against the skin. This creates a sauna-like environment which overheats the horse as well as causing skin conditions which generally result in flakey skin and the horse becoming itchy.

A Cool Heat blanket does not trap the sweat against the skin or allow sweat to be soaked up into the blanket; hence under the blanket exists a much cooler and more comfortable environment. When the horse does sweat when wearing a Cool Heat the sweat is wicked up off the skin by hair movement and out onto the ends of the hair follicles. It also lingers on the blanket lining until it is naturally dried off. It is also important to realize that if a horse is sweating with minimal movement it is the horse’s way of saying it does not need rugging
Horses have a core body temperature of 38 deg celsius and for optimum health this should be maintained which they effectively do when running wild in either the heat or the cold. As with the human body, if the horse’s core body temperature fluctuates only a small amount then they start to feel unwell. Constant overheating can lead to cell damage as well as other unseen problems.

Most blanketed horses spend their days overheated. When you place your hand under your horse’s blanket the hair should never be toasty warm but barely luke warm, even bordering on the coolish side. We humans rug ourselves up with multiple layers of clothes in the cold weather but even with the slightest amount of exercise we have to remove a layer because we start to feel uncomfortable. The same applies to our horses, but unfortunately they cannot remove their clothing. Double rugged or horses with doona style blankets even on the coolest of days only have to walk or trot a small distance before they start to overheat and feel uncomfortable. So to counter this they deliberately restrict their daily movement to a minimum.

Q. How Does the Cool Heat Work?

A. Horses use a thermo regulation process to regulate their body temperature.

When a horse is cold the "arrector pili", small bands of muscle fibres attached to the hair follicles, contract, resulting in each individual hair standing erect. This action is known as "piloerection". This process slows the loss of body heat as it leaves the skin by trapping the heat between the outer skin surface and the hair follicles.

The opposite occurs when the horse’s body heat increases due to exercise or rising outside temperature. The "arrector pili" relax allowing the hair follicles to lie down against the horse’s skin. This results in body heat quickly dissipating, as it is no longer trapped amongst the hair follicles. A secondary function also occurs to aid cooling. When body heat significantly increases due to exercise and the normal heat dissipation process is inadequate, small sweat glands which cover the skin open up expelling body heat in the form of sweat. So in short when the horse is cold the hair stands up and when the horse is hot the hair lays down.

Traditional blankets lie firmly against the horse’s body compressing the hair follicles preventing "piloerection" which severely impedes the natural heating and cooling process. In cold weather the loss of piloerection and the compression of the body hairs results in rapid heat loss increasing the horse’s sensitivity to the cold. The horse owner then reacts by adding extra blankets which greatly increases the weight and is also time consuming. Then during the course of the day either the weather warms up or the horse runs around and the body heat increases and the horse starts to sweat to try and cool itself down. This leads to a number of problems

1- The horse becomes chilled
2- Increased body heat leads to overheating of internal organs and cell damage which is not obvious to the horse owner
3- Skin conditions arise due to the skin’s inability to breathe adequately as the sweat and sebaceous glands are impeded.
4- Itching causes the horse to rub against sheds and fences, resulting in stress, hair loss and premature and costly damage to the blanket.

The "Cool Heat" blanket significantly increases the horse’s natural thermal regulation ability. The outer shell shields the horse’s body from radiant heat, wind chill and rain. Underneath the insulators follow the contours of the body lifting the blanket up off the horse’s skin which prevents the compressing of the hair follicles, allowing the piloerection action.

So when the horse becomes cold the hair can stand up reducing the loss of its body heat and when the horse’s body heat increases the hair can lie down effectively allowing excess heat to escape. At the same time air can circulate over the horse’s hair which helps regulate constant temperature. The lines of insulators are specifically placed to spread the weight of the blanket more effectively over the entire body eliminating pressure points.

Piloerection
(External) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piloerection

Arrector Pili Muscle -This is a tiny muscle that attaches to the base of a hair follicle at one end and to dermal tissue on the other end. In order to generate heat when the body is cold, the arrector pili muscles contract all at once, causing the hair to "stand up straight" on the skin.

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