How to Encourage Your Horse to Drink

How to Check Gums for Signs of Dehydration

• First, you need to know how hydrated your horse is. At the most basic level, our delicate equine friends need many gallons of water daily to digest their dry matter intake.

• Water is essential in the GI tract for proper digestion and the creation of healthy manure. A horse’s water intake requirements are usually 10 gallons a day, but this can vary greatly and even reach 20 gallons a day based on exertion, weather, fitness, and how much forage they eat.

• Most importantly, you need to know if your horse’s water requirements are met by checking their gums, skin, and heart rate.

How to check your horse’s hydration

• You can do the skin tent test. This test involves a quick pinch and pull of the skin on the neck to assess how quickly it snaps back. The faster it snaps back, the more hydrated your horse is. But skin loses elasticity over time, and shouldn’t be the only hydration test you perform.

• Check your horse’s gums. They should be pale pink. Call your veterinarian if they are red, dark pink, purple, blue, or yellowish in color.

• Now, check the moisture level of the gums. Feel between their upper lip and above their teeth. The gums should be slippery. Dry or sticky gums indicate dehydration.

• Next, check your horse’s resting heart rate. An increased pulse can indicate various things, such as recent exertion, pain, or dehydration. As a horse’s body loses water, the blood volume drops, making it harder for oxygen in the blood to reach its destination. A dehydrated horse’s heart must pump harder to move oxygen and nutrients through the body.

Horse Hydration Tips – Electrolytes and Additives

• You can increase your horse’s water intake by offering some gourmet waters. Adding flavors and electrolytes, like Gatorade or apple juice, can tempt them to drink more. Horses are naturally thirsty when salt concentrations increase, but, of course, horses are unique, and this situation doesn’t always occur.

• Feed electrolytes before riding or exercising. They need them before they lose them. A horse’s sweat is water, plus an enormous volume of salts and electrolytes. As they sweat, the salt concentration doesn’t increase as much, since a significant amount is lost. The thirst reflex goes right out the window.

Keep it, clean folks!

Salt in your horse’s diet

• Ideally, you are adding regular sodium chloride to your horse’s diet at the rate of 1 tablespoon per 500 lbs. You can’t trust a horse to use a salt block and get the proper daily nutrition.

• Offer a salt block in case they want more, but ensure they get enough with some loose salt in their rations.

Boost your horse’s water intake

• First, you need to find out what your horse likes. If you suspect dehydration, this is not the time to begin your grand experiments. Have a plan in place before you need to use it.

• Clean water is best, with free access to it. Clean buckets are best.

• The water temperature matters. Horses prefer to drink cold water, but will drink more of warm or tepid water.
• Offer water with a small amount of salt. It’s easy to drop a tablespoon in a gallon of water after a ride. Offer it right away!

• Experiment with adding apple juice, powder electrolytes, apple cider vinegar, unsweetened drink powders, salt, or peppermint oil to your horse’s water to see what they like.

• You can also toss a hay cube, some molasses, a bit of their favorite mash, or a palmful of their grain to flavor their water.

• A note about containers. Ensure your horse is comfortable drinking from water buckets, automatic waterers, natural water sources, and troughs. If your horse has a trough at home, and you are away at a show and use buckets, you will need to know that they will drink from a bucket. Some horses are picky about what they will stick their noses into. Sometimes, bigger is better.

Clean Water Tips

• Your horse’s water and buckets should be clean enough for you to drink from. 

• Use mosquito dunks as needed for troughs. 

• Drain and scrub algae away as needed, daily is preferred. 

• You can use bleach to clean containers, but use a dilution. Rinse well and wait a few hours before allowing your horses to drink from it.  

• Fish in the water trough is another option, but stay clear of goldfish. There are better options, and only if you can set your tank up properly. Read more here. 

If your horse wears a grazing muzzle, his water source should be big enough to fit his noggin and his muzzle.

More Tips to Encourage Your Horse to Drink

• Keep hay and other feeds close to water sources.

• Soak your horse’s hay, and add water to their grain and supplements. A flake of hay soaked in water can hold 1-2 gallons! Adding water to their fortified feeds also helps with chewing, staying hydrated, and preventing choke.

• Use a blue bucket. For some reason (science or anecdotes?), horses prefer blue buckets.

• Check hydration often.

• Track how much water your horse drinks if possible. Auto waterers can have measuring devices, and buckets are easy to measure, but it gets harder with community troughs.

When do you call the vet if your horse isn’t drinking?

Contact your veterinarian if you notice that your horse’s skin, gums, or heart rate indicate dehydration. Also, call the vet when their fecal balls are smaller and dried out. This is the early stages of an impaction colic. If your horse isn’t sweating, is sweating excessively, or has a fever, call the vet.

How long can a horse survive without water?

Horses can be without water for 3 to 6 days, but not without consequences. The body’s circulatory system and digestive tract, among other things, are affected within the first day. Long-term damage to organs and death can happen without water for days.

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Drinking habits of horses!