FAQ – Water Intake

We all know the old adage:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

So, how do we make our horse drink? Here are some tips:

– Ensure your troughs and buckets are very clean. Empty and scrub with soap and bleach and rinse well. Algae and other muck growing can turn a horse away from a water trough.
– Ensure the water trough or bucket is not near an electrical source such as a hot wire. Stray voltage can make a horse refuse to go to the trough. Heated water buckets should be checked frequently for broken wires/shorts.
– Did you get a new horse? The flavor of the water may have changed. Add flavoring to the water to mask the change or get a 5 gallon jug of drinking water from Walmart or other store.
– Horses will drink more water in winter if the water is heated to 66 degrees if heated water is the only source available. They will drink icy water over heated water if both are available – but will drink less. Summary of the study: Winter Water Consumption | AAEP
– Color of the bucket – amazingly, horses have preferences when given options of colors. They prefer turquoise or light blue buckets to drink out of. Color Preferences Among Horses – Kentucky Equine Research (ker.com)
– Add salt to feed. Here’s a very basic explanation of why salt increases thirst: Why Salt Makes You Thirsty (indianapublicmedia.org) Commercially available electrolytes may or may not have enough salt to increase the thirst in horses. If they are not losing electrolytes through sweat, they do not need electrolytes. Sodium chloride is what increases thirst. Do not use Lite Salt as this is potassium chloride and it will not have the same effect. 1-2 tablespoons on the feed divided over the day on the meals should be sufficient. Salt blocks can help but only if the horse voluntarily goes to them and uses them.
– Other flavoring: Gatorade water – I have found that they like orange flavored best but others can be tried. Molasses water. Alfalfa tea – soak alfalfa for a while and then remove the stems – leave the leaves.
– Fake them out: add a handful of grain such as sweet feed or senior to a much larger amount of water. They think they are eating but are mostly drinking. Hydration hay with more water than recommended is also helpful. Handful of hay pellets in a large amount of water can also be used. In general, if you have a large colon impaction that you are trying to gut hydrate, you do not want to add a lot of bulk to the dam that is present in the colon. So using low residue feeds such as senior pellets or hay pellets is better than straight hay or hay cubes.
– Grazing wet grass. Grass itself contains a lot of water. But we can add more by spraying it down before the horse grazes.

Copyright 2021 HVC and Dr Karie Vander Werf