Electrolytes for travel

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Boughtabay

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I have a stressy traveller - we’re making progress and I’m going to try a calmer (looking at confidenceEQ and buck off if anyone has any experiences with those - just to help with the stress of the box until he re-realises it isn’t a coffin).

We’ve done a lot of practicing and he’d got way better - travelling quiet and not sweaty at all on short outings (up to half an hour each way). But we’ve had an issue with kids frightening them in the field this last week or so which a) I think has been going on longer than we realised and b) has put him more on edge in general than I realised. So boxing him out last night tipped the balance and he came off both ends of our lesson a sweaty mess. He has access to salt freely but I feel like he probably needs extra in situations like that. So what electolytes are most palatable, that I can feed wet (speedibeet soup) or add to water before & after travelling to replenish. He has a sloppy snack when he’s on the box and when he gets home but I want to try and make sure he’s not sweating out WAY more than he’s taking on when he’s found it a bit much.

In the meantime we’ll be moving fields to summer pasture (away from excitable children), practicing more with the trailer & giving him more “downtime” before travelling and when we arrive at our destination (to have his electrolytes? Before travelling, after & once at home? Or just once per outing?). breaks my heart he finds it so stressful especially when I thought we were past that. Luckily it’s not affected his loading which gets better all the time but I’m worried it will if he doesn’t chill out on the box soon.
 
Lady Jane said:
Science says you should feed electrolytes all the time if they need them but there are products for top up post excercise eg Recovery mash: https://saracenhorsefeeds.com/sports/product/re-covery-mash

You should feed 50g of salt a day regardless
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He has free access to Himalayan salt which he does make use of - I was under the impression they can then self regulate? He’s also on a complete balancer which does contain salt. I’m just worried that when he’s getting really wound up on the box (which isn’t an everytime occurrence) he’s pushing everything out faster than he should be so something replenishing but also helping get the liquids back on board might be useful. Thanks I’ll have a look at the recovery mash!
 
Boughtabay said:
He has free access to Himalayan salt which he does make use of - I was under the impression they can then self regulate? He’s also on a complete balancer which does contain salt. I’m just worried that when he’s getting really wound up on the box (which isn’t an everytime occurrence) he’s pushing everything out faster than he should be so something replenishing but also helping get the liquids back on board might be useful. Thanks I’ll have a look at the recovery mash!
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No they can’t self regulate from salt licks; unlike cows their tongues are not rough enough.

Are you sure your balancer contains salt? Very unusual for any complete feeds or balancers as the salt destabilises other ingredients.
 
Right I’m only coming back to this once, as it’s not really on topic. I was looking for palatable electrolytes for instances of unusual exertion due to an intermittent stressor we’re trying to work through in an otherwise relatively low workload horse. But, as something which I believe is anecdotal has now been stated and backed up as fact, I had to go away and do a little research, my personal conclusion being:

I’m not 100% sure I agree on the salt block thing as a blanket statement - mostly because a) my horses in front of me do use theirs when they feel like it and b) because I’ve now gone away to look for some peer reviewed papers just to see if my horses are cow tongued freaks who do manage to lick down a block 😉 a 2022 study (Enke et al) showed ponies consuming up to twice their recommended daily intake JUST from blocks alongside their usual forage, and a few other recent-ish papers (since 2019) noted that intake from blocks decreased when salt was added to the main feed (self regulation). Another one on “athletic horses” noted that the measured intake was really variable between horses - some were consistently getting plenty just from the blocks, others not 🤷‍♀️ maybe some don’t like licking because it is harder work for them than as you say, a cow, or their tongues are sensitive to the rough surface (which is what comes up on blogs, trade sites, feed companies etc. if you google this topic & it does make sense for that to be true in some cases) but it doesn’t look like (my search could well have missed one!) that’s been studied directly as a main hypothesis, and from the recent studies that do exist linked to this it isn’t stated as something that would affect consumption (boredom, flavour, smell, additional salt in the feed, forage composition etc. are though), so it shouldn’t be stated as such.

so yeah, it would seem that supplementing in the feed is best for consistency/monitoring intake (unless you want to weigh your blocks daily!) but horses are individuals and many can and do use blocks, and adjust their use of them depending on what else they are getting in their diet.

I 100% agree that if you want to monitor salt intake accurately add it to the feed (and I gladly take that on board, I probably should be making sure rather than leaving it up to them). But to state that all horses CANT possibly utilise a lick due to their anatomy as though it were a universal fact isn’t strictly correct, or certainly hasn’t been proven to be so yet!


rhino said:
No they can’t self regulate from salt licks; unlike cows their tongues are not rough enough.

Are you sure your balancer contains salt? Very unusual for any complete feeds or balancers as the salt destabilises other ingredients.
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eta I’ve typed this all on a phone so I’m not taking any responsibility for my autocorrect’s skills 😉
 
I'm trialling the coligone syringe with added prebiotics and electrolytes for my stressy boy. Used it once so far and it seemed to help (he gets where he wont eat after a stressful outing). It's getting its second trial today.
 
Hackback said:
I'm trialling the coligone syringe with added prebiotics and electrolytes for my stressy boy. Used it once so far and it seemed to help (he gets where he wont eat after a stressful outing). It's getting its second trial today.
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Good luck! Thankyou for letting me know what you’re trialling 🙏
 
Remember electrolytes should never been given unless they are actively consuming water, else it can be detrimental to their recovery.

If he is so stressy is he really going to drink around a days travelling?

I do feed liquid electrolytes the night after hunting but always after they have had a drink and normally a sloppy feed and only if they are drinking enough anyway. This can be a struggle with the stressy ones who know they are going out or are still ‘up’ after.

I like the Saracen recovery mash but make it up with a lot more water than they recommend, so it’s more of a bucket of soup than mash. Mine love it another they drink all the soup water and then eat the bits at the bottom.
 
SOS said:
Remember electrolytes should never been given unless they are actively consuming water, else it can be detrimental to their recovery.

If he is so stressy is he really going to drink around a days travelling?

I do feed liquid electrolytes the night after hunting but always after they have had a drink and normally a sloppy feed and only if they are drinking enough anyway. This can be a struggle with the stressy ones who know they are going out or are still ‘up’ after.

I like the Saracen recovery mash but make it up with a lot more water than they recommend, so it’s more of a bucket of soup than mash. Mine love it another they drink all the soup water and then eat the bits at the bottom.
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So he’s a funny fish in that he goes straight up then straight back down again - when we arrived at our lesson the other night he’d wound himself up quite badly on the way BUT as soon as he was off the box and took a breath he had a nibble of his haynet and a long drink like nothing was going on. And again straight after we got home he had a drink, a nibble and happily slurped up his supper 🤷‍♀️ I know what you mean because usually when they’re “up” in a tizzy it takes a while to come back down. But with him it’s such an acute “moment” of stress when it does happen it’s a very fast expenditure of energy through stress there’s no build up/let down as you’d have with exercise at least that’s how I’m seeing it. This is the first time he’s got wound up like that since his very first journey in the new box over a month ago so maybe I’m jumping the gun 🤷‍♀️ I’m just trying to cover all bases while we continue to (re)build his confidence.

A wet recovery mash sounds like the best bet then really for what we’re experiencing at the moment - thankyou!
 
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