February 2013 Winter hydration

Blog for February 2013

Hydrating during the winter

When the weather starts to get cold and gross, keeping your horse hydrated and healthy can get rather challenging sometimes.  If your horse has issues keeping hydrated during the cold, here is a recipe for mash that might help.  Check your horses’  skin elasticity and the manure.  If the skin doesn’t snap back, (in front of the shoulders, just where the neck goes into the shoulder blade) they may be dehydrated,  or the manure is hard and dry.

3 to 4 cups of grass hay pellets (I like the timothy or grass pellets from Standlee Hay)
*1/2 gallon to 2/3 gallon + of hot water
*Add the PGR, if you feed grain, and the supplements that you use.
*Add  1/4 to 1/2 oz of DynaSpark,( electrolyte)  and some DynaPro. (prebiotic)
*Chopped or grated apples and/or carrots are always appreciated, too.

Soak for 10 minutes.  You can play with it too see if your horse likes it super sloppy (add more water) or a little dryer.   My horses love their mash!  As a side note, soaked hay pellets can cover alot of other nasty tasting things you might need to feed, like antibiotics or other drugs from the vet or joint supplements.

Magnesium is a natural laxative, you can add that to the mash if needed.  I use a Dynamite product called Easy Boy if and when my horses need it.

A number of years ago the Horse Journal did a study that showed that horses prefer cold water over warm.  Stock tank  heaters can keep the temperature above freezing, but some horses can feel any little tingle of electricity and won’t drink element heated water.  Some horses don’t like the metallic taste of the element in the water either. Keep the cord out of harms way too, my horses will play with it and pull the heater out of the tank, and one year, one of them chewed into the cord!  Now I put it under rocks and duct tape the cord to the tank.   If none of these ideas work, you can always soak your hay before you feed it.  Careful of always providing warmed water, because if they don’t get it for some reason, (power outage, you get sick) they can go on a water strike.

 

www.dynamitemarketing.com/jenniferodle  for product info and ordering