horse drinks after eating hard feed

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Always Blue

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Blue has alfa a chaff, equilibra 500 balancer and garlic soaked with water to moisten it... after he finishes eating he goes straight to his water ....is this normal?
I'm sure I have heard someone say that it just flushes the good ness of the feed down or something along the lines???
 
No, they eat, they drink! Assuming you have not completely filled his stomach with a massive feed then I can't see that any water is going to 'flush it out'. Best just to leave a horse with free access to water and let them drink as and when they see fit. The whole 'rationing water' theory seems to have died a death a long time ago :)
 
Always Blue said:
Blue has alfa a chaff, equilibra 500 balancer and garlic soaked with water to moisten it... after he finishes eating he goes straight to his water ....is this normal?
I'm sure I have heard someone say that it just flushes the good ness of the feed down or something along the lines???
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As you have your AI :p you will know, of course, that one of the BHS rules of feeding used to be 'Always water before feeding'.
This was because they thought that if the horse drank afterwards, it would wash all the feed out of its stomach, and therefore not digest it properly.
As you are no doubt a graduate in equine science, you will also know that this has been proven to be untrue - the water passing over the top of the food (due to the shape of the stomach) without doing any harm.
Good luck with your Stage 4. :p
S :D
 
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Nepenthe said:
As you have your AI :p you will know, of course, that one of the BHS rules of feeding used to be 'Always water before feeding'.
This was because they thought that if the horse drank afterwards, it would wash all the feed out of its stomach, and therefore not digest it properly.
As you are no doubt a graduate in equine science, you will also know that this has been proven to be untrue - the water passing over the top of the food (due to the shape of the stomach) without doing any harm.
Good luck with your Stage 4. :p
S :D
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I thnk that that feed rule goes back to the days when they used to water horses at certain times of the day, so the horse would drink larger amounts when offered (often they were actually taken to a trough in the stable yard), so it was thought better to water first. Nowadays the horse chooses when and how much he drinks, which is obviously better. Most horses drink a bit after eating hard feed.

ps. I'm not THAT old that I remember this - just that this rule was explained to be out of date when I did my AI over 20yrs ago, and that was the reason why!
 
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Happy Hunter said:
My Mare LOVES her after dinner drink! Like clockwork every meal
Even if her chaff is made like a soup!
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^^^

I often add too much water to my girl's chaff and it ends up like soup - straight after slurping it all down she goes for a nice long drink and covers me with whatever is left in her mouth as she comes past me to get to her haynet :D
 
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