It works! A friend had never heard of this, had a horse get impacted and all stopped up because water consumption went down along with the outdoor temperature. Her horse is now drinking more water and things are moving along as they should be. What I do is add table salt to feed when weather changes, and through cold periods. Depending on the horse, drinking issues and how much water is consumed, I add up to a generous tablespoon.
I use broken up salt block pieces. I have a little container of them and put some crumbs in.
I also mix their feed with water and make a soup if not drinking enough.
That might work for some horses. but my horse won’t touch feed with salt added to it. Put a salt block in feed pan and half the feed won’t be touched.
I add a tablespoon of salt to feed at every meal, year round.
[QUOTE=tazycat;9006280]
That might work for some horses. but my horse won’t touch feed with salt added to it. Put a salt block in feed pan and half the feed won’t be touched.[/QUOTE]
I put the salt in wet feed, but if I forget, I sprinkle it on their mini meal of dry pellets. I had one that was a bit put off by the salt at first. He looked at me with a puzzled look. By morning he figured out his feed was not evil, and had licked his bowl clean. I mix the salt into my beet pulp concoction, which is 1.5# dry pellets soaked, 2# rice bran, #2 senior. Add the salt, add some hot water. I haven’t tasted it lately, but I don’t think it’s very salty due to sheer volume of dry ingredients and water. Mine won’t touch their feed with a salt block in it either. It absorbs moisture, becomes a salty mess.
Even added salt to soaked feed and horse walks away won’t touch feed.
My horse gets an ounce of plain salt in her wet mash year round, and is getting two ounces now that it is cold out. She also powers through a seven pound Redmond rock salt lump in about 8 weeks. So at least a pound of salt a week! But I’m not sure it makes her drink more when it’s cold.
I give flavored electrolytes in feed because they give additional cations besides salt. My horse like it.
I have a standard mineral block in his turnout, and a Himalayan salt lick. He LOOOOOOOOOVES the salt lick and really doesn’t touch the mineral block. I tasted his last new salt lick before putting it out. Yummy! In any event, he drinks well.
We just went through a rare cold snap where it never got above freezing for around 3 days. I made a ‘tea’ in a 5 gal bucket using some of their horse food pellets or some hay pellets. They drink the bucket immediately while I’m standing there.
We add feed salt to the wet beet pulp and grain mix they get once a day. I raise the quantity of salt when temps are dropping or high pressure is predicted, to keep horses drinking and well hydrated.
We can see a visible difference in water consumption in the daily amount they drink from the tank and stall buckets.
We have large horses mostly, who get a heaping tablespoon of salt year around. I give more salt when winter comes or those storms are predicted. The smaller horses, under 1000#, get one level tablespoons of salt or less, depending on their size, weanling, yearling, etc. year around. Small horses get more salt too, when weather is cold or storms are predicted. Large horses are in the 1300-1500# range.
When we had Princess Picky, I tied her up and pulled out her tongue to give her the salt. Stuck the spoon of salt into her mouth from the side, then she had to lick it off and consumed it! We worked out a system, and she DID get her salt inside the body, one way or another! I did keep trying to add salt to her grain, in tiny amounts at first, grain and wet beet pulp was mixed, could not eat one without the other! No hay offered until the mix was consumed in her stall. So eventually she did eat the added salt and quit being a problem AND drank a LOT better even in winter. She was the one who started the whole salt added thing, after trying to colic with impaction a couple times from not drinking well. I said “enough is enough”, you WILL DRINK and stop being such a Princess!" She was pretty wonderful about everything else, so dumping her was not going to happen! Cost of colic surgery from her just being picky was not going to happen either.
So a bit of work with your horse and his mouth, tongue, practice pulling it out to put the salt on, before you actually do salt his tongue. He is then used to that kind of handling then, so adding salt should not be a big issue.
I get the bags of white feed salt at TSC, 50# I think. With 7 horses, buying table salt is way too expensive with the quantity we give in winter! I do NOT get the mineralized feed salt, since I give minerals as a supplement already, don’t want to mess up my quantities going into horses. I feel the salt addition is worth the effort and cost. Each of our horses have salt and mineral blocks in their stalls, still licking on them as they wish, despite added salt to their grain. Not worried about overfeeding salt. Those white blocks are really hard, made for cows, so I don’t think a horse can actually get enough licked salt to satisfy his needs without adding the loose salt.
I put over a tablespoon in their afternoon porridge and am thinking about doubling that. I had some colics before I started doing that, even though salt blocks abound in the horse area. No colics now. Knock wood.
I also add loose non-mineralized stock salt to my mare’s feed, a fairly firm mash of alfalfa pellets, supplements, ground flax and concentrate. She finishes her lunch, and heads for a big drink of water. Works like a charm. I add more when she’s less likely to drink, and less when temps are good.
I tried Equine Junky’s pellets tea last night with raving reviews, except for the one that I was hoping would drink more. Of course! That one chose to go for the plain water instead. One geekster gelding (the Messy Marvin alfalfa waster, haynet muncher, hay pee’er, I don’t wanna eat the stems guy…one I previously wrote about) tried to bite the water. When that didn’t work, he lapped it up with his tongue like a dog! Made such unusual sounds for a horse, several horses looked on in concern. Or encouragement? :encouragement:
Goodhors, I’m going to try that open-mouth-insert-salt trick today on the plain water on Picky Penny Plain Water. Thanks for the tips!
