 |
RE: [RC] [RC] Study on electrolyte/ulcers - heidiYou don't want to do a 180 and take this extreme approach, either. There's no right answer without riding your horse and seeing how he does. It's not good to automatically start giving lots of elytes because "everyone else is" and it's equally not good to decide that they're a bad idea for your horse just because some people post on RC that they don't use them and their horses do fine. Elytes, whether administered by syringe or taken in with feed, are necessary. You'll need to see how your horse does, how he eats and drinks, etc. and make decisions based on what you learn from him. Elytes *are* much more important to consider giving in the hot humid SE US, and elsewhere that is hot and humid. I give far fewer elytes when I go to NM to ride. Here in E. Texas (aka the sauna), my horses do better when receiving more elytes, even though they do eat well. Certainly each horse is an individual, and people need to make choices based on observations of their own horses--but that's in part my point. Additionally, you don't KNOW if your horse needs e-lytes if you just automatically shove them down him at the slightest provocation--you need some observation time. And that observation time is during his first 2-3 years of competition, before you are asking him for a maximal effort. Oddly enough, the times I've won BC have been hot and humid rides (in areas where we are not used to them)--seems like those days, my non-e-lyted horses have adjusted to the difference better than many whose riders were frantically pushing the e-lytes simply "because it was hot and humid." Likewise, some of the more dramatic treatment efforts I've seen and/or been involved with have been in horses that received large amounts of e-lytes, often overdone due to riders thinking, "Oh, it's hot and humid, I need to give MORE!" I would submit that perhaps more important than e-lyting in heat and humidity is riding to the conditions... Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|