Cold water

[mark@madbbs.com]

In my experience, we have treated many horses (clients, not my own...knock on wood) with colic due to impaction in the winter here in the NE.  Going from grass to hay, which has much less moisture, calls for more water.  Some horses, especially those not raised on natural water, may refuse to drink as much when the temp goes down.

 

A horse could have a sensitive tooth, which would inhibit it's intake of water that was cold....think about it -

 

It is always best to monitor water intake, which is hard if you are using auto waterers that refill themselves.  Our new farm has waterers in all the run in sheds(I don't have any horses in stalls) and it makes me crazy because I am not sure how much they are drinking.  But it would be the same if they just had a stream to drink from.

 

Water is highly under rated by some - in my animal cruelty investigations, I see as many horses thin due to inadaquate water, than from too little food.

 

Years ago I had a great young mare that I had raised in a field with stream for it's only water source.  She was always a super easy keeper, even when being ridden quite alot.  I loaned her to a friend who moved her to their farm, to start conditioning on.  She started dropping weight at once, even though she was getting grain (for the first time in her life) all the pasture she wanted and water from a clean bucket.  We realized after a couple weeks, that her water consumption was down - she did not like drinking from a bucket.  We moved her to a different field with running water and she gained and maintained her weight. 

 

Laura Hayes