Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

At 09:37 AM 12/12/2005 Monday, you wrote:
> About 6 weeks ago my tank heater
> shorted out and shocked my 7 horses. The tank heater had only been
> plugged in for about 2-3 hours that day. I have always kept my tank
> heater plugged into a GFI outlet and the water tank is attached to a
> grounding rod. It turned out my GFI outlet was not working so it didn't
> trip. The grounding rod probably kept my horses from being electrocuted.
> It was 4 days before I realized my horses were not drinking. Since then I
> have tried everything I can think of to get them to drink out of the
> water tank again. I normally have a large metal tank that serves 2
> pastures.  I removed the metal tank, put in 2 Rubbermaid tanks, I
> have moved the horses to different pens with different tanks, I have
> tried floating carrots and apples in the water, I even put peppermint
> extract in the water because I heard horses like peppermint, but I can
> only get 3 horses to drink out of the water tanks. The other 4 will only
> drink out of buckets. I have tried to take the buckets away and the
> horses start eating snow which will not provide them enough water. I
> can't keep hauling buckets of water all winter. The buckets freeze
> quickly and the horses don't have free access to water. I'm afraid they
> will colic. Does anyone have any ideas?
> Mary

I assume you have the tank heaters reinstalled in the Rubbermaid tanks.
Horses associate sounds with things that happen to them. I found that
when my hotwire fence was wet it was making slight crackling sounds and
sometimes just a humming sound where the insulators were bad and the
horses were staying in the middle of the pen away from the food and
water. Maybe your tank heater is making some very slight noise that keeps
them away. Maybe you could bring in a new horse that hasn't been shocked
and it will teach the others to not be afraid. Good Luck
Don Huston