Dehydrated Horse

[golddustsara]

As the trough has been solid with ice every morning for the last couple of weeks I check Orkan's hydration levels with the good old skin pinch test. Today his skin didn't pop back into place and took a while to go back to normal so he must be dehydrated. Tried offering him water but all he wanted was a few sips. Made sure his feed was warm and wet so hopefully he got some moisture from that.

He lives out 24/7 normally, so would you bring him in tonight with plenty of hay and a large trug of water with the chill taken off? We are forecast heavy snow tonight so the trough will get iced up again no doubt and if he has lots of hay indoors this may make him feel thirsty and thus start drinking more....?

 

[dwi]

Will he apple bob in his trug? Would encourage him to play with the water a bit, might go down as well.

I've never tried it myself but could you soak his hay in warm water? Normally wet hay is a good way to get water into a horse but I wouldn't try it with cold water in this weather.

 

[golddustsara]

He does love his apples so that could be a good plan.....

We have no running water at yard as all the taps are frozen but i can take some up in a carrier and boil it to put over the hay.

I live 20 - 30 mins away from the yard - wish I lived closer when its forecast to snow and I have a dehydrated horse... oh and YO is away! Gah for living in the city....

 

[Godknows]

If you bring him in and put the water away from the door it probably won't freeze over I don't think I'd wet the hay he may not eat it at all if he's not used to it. Make sure he has plenty of water though I bring my lad in at about 4pm and have to refill his trug bucket at about 10pm with another full bucket so he drinks approximately 2 full normal buckets a night and I just like to make sure he has enough. Plenty of hay too in case it's hard for you to get there in the morning if the weather is going to be bad. Alot of horses will get the fluid content out of the snow when they forage for the grass but if your lad is dehydrated do what ever it takes to get fluid into him like apples in water. Good luck

 

[Chestnutmare]

i'd bring in so i can monitor water intake...merls used to stop drinking had to make really wet dinners..almost soup like mmm nice, he had wet hay anyway so that was another way of getting fluid through
do you have a syringe you could fill with water and stick it down this throat? have done this too just to try and keep it up.

 

[Katie__Connie]

Old pony was a nightmare for not drinking... he would go days and i used to have to do the syringe thing sometimes... but apple bobbing is good

 

[golddustsara]

I have brought him in with a 'soup' feed that he was very unamused at. Put lots of carrots in his mountain of hay and a big trug of lukewarm water (not that it will stay lukewarm for long). Hopefully he will drink lots tonight....

 

[SO1]

We have the same problem troughs all frozen and pony living out - actually now very difficult to bash the troughs and everything freezes quickly - bought my pony up to the yard today thought he must be thirsty but he was not.

I had the vet up for vacinations anyway and asked him if they get water from eating frozen grass - no snow yet and he said yes that might be the reason he was not thirsty.

Also there are a some huge puddles in one of his fields (he has two fields to go into which are joined together and they both have frozen troughs) and they might be breaking the ice and drinking out of the puddles too.

It is worrying though when all the troughs freeze up so quickly

 

[wonkey_donkey]

I was worried about dehydration so Ive been feeding sloppy warm feeds, lots of carrots that I've been keeping in the house overnight so they are not frozen and topping up field and stable waters with warm water from the house.

 

[Izzwizz]

Speedi beet is good if made sloppy to add fluids.

 

[kellyeaton]

can you feed him speedi beet anything like that so you can get water in to him that way or just put apple juice in o a bowl of his water to see if that helps!