Interesting. I was wondering last year if I should add salt to my horse’s feed…he LOVES salt and mineral blocks, but he winds up eating them pretty quickly, so I stopped providing them. :lol: Might want to look at loose salt to add.
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Decades ago I started feeding loose salt in my horse’s grain, about 1 tsp. each meal in the winter to encourage them to drink water. I continued in the warmer months for the salt lost by sweat. This went on for years.
I did buy the salt for horses, the stuff with the added minerals.
If I remember correctly the horses increased their water intake in the winter, just like I wanted them to.
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I have a himalyan salt lick up and they love it, but they also have free choice minerals, which (of course) has salt as well. I use that primarily for the added minerals, but let’s not kid ourselves, they only use it because … salt!
Before I added the loose minerals to my program I used to add electrolytes to the grain. But now I only add electrolytes to the Horse Quencher water mix I set up for fitness work days (or any day I anticipate a horse coming in very hot and needing extra electrolytes to help minimize heat related muscle damage)
I have tried to switch to free choice loose salt on several occasions, but my horses never touch it. Yet they still love their salt blocks, so I make sure they have free access to those.
I add supplemental loose salt to feed, but I do it sporadically and well below the recommendations for daily intake.
My horses get anywhere from 0.5 to 1 TBSP (eyeballed) during major weather events, more frequently in the winter. For example, during an extended cold snap, everyone gets a little salt. Also, during an unusually hot spell. Or a time of crazy weather fluctuations. I also supplement if the horse has had a heavier-than-usual workload, like a show, long ride, or even just someone being a knucklehead and washing out.
My muzzled horses get about the same amount of salt daily when they are wearing their muzzles, because I don’t think they can reliably access the block. They are in their stalls, unmuzzled, with salt blocks for about 1-2 hrs daily, but they rarely touch their blocks then. I purposefully skip adding it some days, though, or go deliberately light on it for a day or two because I just don’t know if they need it.
But I worry about over-supplementation of salt. Salt is certainly necessary, but the currently daily recommended intake seems so excessively high to me. Research has been really conflicted on the topic. This was one of the studies I read more recently highlighting some potential risks of over-supplementation:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5207637/
@JB, forage doesn’t seem to have much salt, nor do grains. I could only get FeedXL to 80%+ of the salt requirement, by adding salt. Supplements didn’t have enough either.
Just strange to me that this is the recommendation, but feed mfgrs haven’t jumped on it, and it seems a lot of horses can go without supplemental salt and be healthy.
I think I am going to supplement and just see what happens… if anything.
Right, they also get it from salt “hot spots”.
Supplements didn’t have enough either.
What kind of supplements? Salt is a very specific thing. You shouldn’t add vitamins and minerals (of any significance) to a salt product, unless it’s a force-fed product with the salt tailored to how much v/m intake you’re after, otherwise you can OD on salt, or not get enough of the vitamins and minerals.
Just strange to me that this is the recommendation, but feed mfgrs haven’t jumped on it,
It doesn’t make sense for them to. If the feeding rate for a 1000lb horse can be anywhere from 3-12lb, or if he’s eating 20lb a day because he does’t have teeth and is eating a complete feed, that would be a huge difference in the salt intake. And what if you’re already feeding salt?
Salt is a thing that is like forage - feed it/make it accessible as part of the basics of feeding. Everything else is based on additional calorie and nutritional needs
https://www.understanding-horse-nutr…om/sodium.html
how many horses are seeking salt when they are licking all sorts of things?
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Interesting but not entirely conclusive results. Can any of the scientist types on this thread weigh in? I notice right off that the experimental horses were fed 60:40 forage: grain, with forage at 1% of their body weight. And the discussion suggests that if a horse is fed a higher level of forage, the acidosis of the urine or the calcium loss in the urine might not happen. And they are feeding 100 grams of salt a day in this experiment, which is almost a quarter lb or 3.5 oz. One ounce is only 28 grams.
So I don’t think we need to worry about putting an ounce of salt in the mash.
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throws degree out the window :lol:
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Here in Fl., where most soil is actually a combination of minerals and looks like sand, it’s not unusual to see horses licking
and licking and licking spots in the sandy ground. Dogs too will do it.
2 TBS per day is a lot if horses ration of pellets isn’t that great. I usually give 1 TBS per day. Maybe I need to increase
that since mine don’t fool with salt blocks.
The NRC states anywhere from 10gm to 40gm for an 1100lb horse, depending on the amount of work (because of sodium lost in sweat).
10gm salt is 2tsp, and there are 3tsp in 1tbsp. So, 2tbsp = 6tsp = 30gm salt. That’s in line with the range needed for a horse doing any sort of work. The 1100lb horse in light exercise needs 30gm (which is 2tbsp).
If he’s working harder, he’s losing more so needs more.
The 600kg horse needs range from 12-50gm a day (no work and minimum activity, to very heavy exercise)
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I’m bringing up this old thread as a result of searching for the keyword salt - and found my answer. This morning I noticed (for the first time) my mare licking the wooden support posts for the stalls. She had completely wetted down one post up to wither high and had moved on to a second one. My first thought was, “she needs salt.” We’ve been hot and humid the past few days and she sweats - a LOT. So, I took my thing of Morton’s out the barn, poured some in my hand, and yup - she licked and licked and licked…enough so that I poured a small amount in her feeder and let her go to town. So then, I did what any normal person would do and came here to find out what to do!
From what I’ve read, I can add 1 tablespoon of iodized salt to each feeding (2X daily), and be within range of recommendations. I will also add it to my gelding’s feed, even though I haven’t seen him actively trying to get more (like she was). But I have a third mare who, when I offered her the same small amount in my palm, could not have said “NO! Yuck!” any more plainly than if she had spoken. So any recommendations for what to try and give her? Or just assume if she really needed it, she would hold her nose and take it down?
I add 1 tbsp 2 x a day to my ponies feed (all 5 of them) and wet it all before feeding (handful of grain, 2 cups flax, 2 cups beet pulp plain, other supplements and 2 lbs of timothy hay cubes - so a bit of a mix) so the salt dissolves and is quite diluted. Maybe your picky horse won’t mind a tablespoon of loose salt in her grain if its wet and essentially diluted if you feed a bit of grain with it.
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I tried feeding it to her in a mash one winter, and she let me know then she wanted no part of it by flinging said mash everywhere and looking at me like “Well, where’s my REAL dinner?” So she’s not fooled by wetting it.
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Yes, 1tbsp per 500lb is the general basic requirement, and you can increase from there as sweat increases
They don’t always want the salt they really need. Smart Pack makes a pelleted salt you could try. Some horses will only eat pink salt (himalayan, Redmond, etc).
FYI plain salt is 40% sodium, 60% chloride (chlorine), so 35% is not that much less than straight salt.
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Large bags of loose plain salt have been hard to find around here, but our TSC recently began stocking SEA-90 Essential Elements Premium Livestock Mineral Salt, and my gelding loves it. I add a tablespoon to his evening meal.
He also has 24/7 access to a Redmond salt block and, during the summer, he gets a serving of Let M Sweat in a meal earlier in the day.
Some horses need any addition or supplement added slowly to their feed. If the horse won’t eat mash with a TBspoon of salt try just a pinch and ramp up over a week or two.
My riding horse gets an ounce in her mash daily. When I was providing the 7 lb Redmond blocks, she would finish one in 2 months in the summer. So basically taking in a pound a week total. I switched to a 50 lb block and while she licks away at it, the last one lasted two years. So half a pound of salt per week off the block and half a pound (well, 7 ounces) per week in the mash.
I feed plain white “mixing salt” in the mash. I’d get a plain white salt block but they went out of production locally. There’s enough iodine in the vitamin mineral supplement.
The Redmond and Himalayan blocks were getting rather pricy for something we were going through so fast.
It varies. TC Sr for example has 1-2gm per 1lb, so 6-12gm in a 6lb serving which is what an average horse should be getting. The RDI is about 30gm a day. 1tbsp is in the 15-18gm range, hence the 2tbsp as a good starting point.
that’s certainly an ok product, just over-priced “designer” salt 
Surely they have a plain salt product in stock?
No, they don’t, not here at least. They used to carry it, but quit for some reason. I went through a phase of purchasing 4# containers of plain salt at Sam’s Club.
It’s $10 for 25# of the sea salt at TSC.
dang, that’s just unfortunate! Any actual feed mills around? I mean, there are worse things than that salt product for sure!
