Keep Your Horses Hydrated!

  KEEP YOUR HORSES HYDRATED!

One of my biggest pet peeves of boarding barns is the lack of concern when it comes to providing clean water for horses. I cannot believe how many barns will leave horses water buckets empty for hours, not clean buckets and provide dirty and warm water upon turnout.  The typical horse drinks between 8 and 12 gallons of water a day. They prefer cool water...temperatures between 50-65 degrees. Horses need to drink plenty of water, not just in the summer, but during winter months as well.

Every winter, it seems that there is at least one sad story of a horse that died because they did not have access to clean, fresh and cool water. Even here in Florida, it seems that after a freeze, you hear about a senseless death because the owners did not break the ice on the bucket and the horse coliced as a result of dehydration. Nobody ever talks about horse’s colicing in the summer due to poor water consumption, but I would not be surprised if there was a correlation, as I have been to numerous barns where the water in troughs was hot and the sides and bottoms were lined with algae.

It is a very simple horse management rule. Ask yourself if you want to drink the water that you are expecting your horse to drink. Is the bucket clean or full of algae, slime, dirt, and other debris? What is the temperature of the water? Freezing cold with a layer of ice or does it feel like sitting in a hot tub? If a horse does not drink, death can occur within 3-5 days. Often the signs leading up to death are colic and kidney failure. A dehydrated horse will be lethargic. A good way to test for dehydration is the skin fold test. Simply pinch a fold of skin. The neck is a good location to do this. If the skin returns to its original state immediately, all is good. If the skin stays rigid for 2-5 seconds, he is dehydrated and skin that stays rigid for more than 15 seconds indicates severe dehydration and immediate vet care may be needed. When riding on hot days, it is a good idea to perform a skin check periodically. When finished riding, offer your horse water immediately. When I was a kid, we were instructed to walk a horse after a ride and offer only small sips of water every few minutes and to not hose down a horse until completely cooled off. When Atlanta was chosen as the site of the 1994 Olympics, many studies were done to see how horses would be able to handle the heat and humidity. It was determined that offering cool water and hosing them off immediately after riding was the best way to combat heat stroke and dehydration. If your horse is like mine and doesn’t particularly like to drink from a bucket after a ride (particularly maddening when coming in from the cross country course!) you may find that he will drink from the hose instead.

There are many factors that impact a horse’s water consumption. Horses that are primarily on pasture have less water requirements than a horse that is stalled and fed hay and grain, as grass has a moisture content of 60-80%, whereas grain and hay are low in moisture content. In addition, horses fed a high protein or high sodium diet will have a greater urine output, and thus have a higher water consumption rate.

Temperatures also play a role in water consumption. Horses tend to drink more on warmer days and less on colder days. Because they tend to drink less in the winter, that makes it all the more important to make sure that they are getting enough fluids. If you find your horse drinking less water in the winter, a warm wet mash is a great way to encourage them to get more fluids. In the summer, mix a cool water mash to ensure they are getting enough water.

Another factor that may affect your horse’s water intake is travel. Some horses will not drink strange water at a show venue. One way to solve this is to acclimate them at home to water with Gatorade added. By adding Gatorade to their water away from home, they will usually continue to drink. I once had a horse that would not drink strange water, even with Gatorade. We would travel with extra water from home and mix it with the water from the show location and that did the trick.

So how do you ensure that your horse is getting enough water?

Buckets and troughs should be dumped daily. I have found the easiest way to keep buckets clean is to run your hand along the bottom and sides just before you dump the bucket in the morning. This will help de-slime the sides. Swish the water around and dump the old water before filling with fresh water. At minimum, once a week, you should give your buckets a good cleaning. Some prefer to use a squirt of dish soap to really clean the buckets. I keep a scrub brush near my hose just for scrubbing buckets. Some horses may be messy eaters or hay dunkers and their buckets may need to be cleaned more often. A barn that simply adds new water to a half filled, dirty water bucket every morning, is not practicing good horse management. In addition, it is a good idea to hang more than one bucket in your horses stall if they are going to be spending several hours in the stall. I always hang 2 buckets of water, and if I have a hay dunker, I will provide a 3^rd bucket away from the hay.

Troughs should be treated the same way. I prefer using muck buckets instead of big troughs, as they are easier to clean on a daily basis. I also like to leave a branch or have a large rock that juts about the water line in my troughs. Sooner or later, a thirsty squirrel or bird will investigate your trough and likely come stranded. Having something for them to climb onto will save their life and prevent contamination of the water. While you are filling up with fresh water, that is a good time to look around your paddock or fields, checking for broken boards, poisonous weeks or for any trash that may have blown into the field over night. It is all part of practicing good stable management.