Toc won't drink

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Tracey Lomax mwdodger@mweb.co.za
I am at the end of my tether!  Toc has never been much of a drinker (I really should rephrase that, but I'm not sure how!) and in Winter it is a continual battle to force him to consume water.  But it is now the height of Summer, we're in the middle of a heat wave (temps upper 30's), haven't had rain for almost a month, so the grass is really dry, and he is on a dehydration diet second to none!

For the last week, when I go out to check on him at 9pm at night, his water bucket, which is filled up when he goes into his stable at about 5 pm (sometimes later, if it's frightfully hot), is still full.  I can tell he's been playing in it, because it has that whole "drooly bits-coupled with hay" thing going on the top of it, but he hasn't DRUNK any.  By 9pm, PG usually has finished his first bucket, and it gets topped up.  In the morning, at 6:30, Toc's bucket is still half full and PG's is just about empty.  It is a 20 litre bucket.

He also doesn't drink much in his paddock, although I can't really see how much he's having as he has this tendency to play in it, and my dogs drink out of his bucket.  

After work, even if he's worked hard, he won't go straight to his bucket, like PG, but will only drink if I let him play with the hosepipe (so he can suck on the end of it and squirt bits at me out of the corner of his mouth).

In this heat, with bees and flies, I really can't be adding sugar or sweet stuff to his water, but I do electrolyte him daily.  I have made up a home-made elyte mixture, consisting of :

3 parts coarse iodised salt
1 part lite salt
1 part dicalcium phosphate
1 part epsom salts.

He gets 25 grams 2 x per day added to his feed.  I can't give him more, because he only gets 150 grams of food twice a day, and if I give him more elytes, he won't clean up his ration.  If I give him more ration, he goes mashuga on me.  

His sole reaction to a salt lick was to chew on the baling twine attaching it to the stable and stomp it into the earth.  Free-choice electrolytes are treated with the contempt you and I reserve for a spider!

This is worrying me, because you may recall that this horse has had the odd impaction colic in the past.  He doesn't sweat much, even in hard work in the heat, but as a precaution, I've only been working him early morning or early evening, when it's a little cooler. I also have my groom hose him down every hour on the hour from 11 am to 3 pm, so that he is not having to use his own body fluids to keep himself cool (please note : I started this after noticing that he wasn't drinking, not before)

What's a poor, paranoid horse-owner to do?


Tracey