Anhidrosis in the winter

[MsM]

My horse has some anhidrosis. As is typical, he can stop sweating when the weather gets hot and humid. I have been using One AC and Guiness Stout. We did okay with some sweating and no distress until a heat wave at the end of August. I increased his beer and switched to Swetworks by Horse Tech since I needed to buy more of something anyway.

He started sweating again after about 10 days. It should be noted that it was also way cooler. It seems like he is sweating more freely than he has in a couple of years for whatever reason!

Last winter I took him off the supplement and started him back in the Spring. What do others with anhidrotic horses do? Supplement the same, cut back, or nothing in the cooler weather when the horse appears to be sweating?

[Texarkana]

What worked for me was to stop supplements like One AC in the winter, then “wait and see” in the spring.

For whatever reason, both my horses with anhidrosis (both aged TBs) didn’t have problems consistently. Some years it would be bad, other years it would be a non-issue.

[cayuse]

I do the same as Texarkana. Stop in the Fall, wait and see in Spring.

[PossumHorse]

I take mine off in the winter and proactively put him back on in March at the first hint of warmth. My reasoning is that without it in the spring, he seemed fine but was slow getting fit again (was sweating but apparently not enough). Did much better if he was already on OneAC and electrolytes.

[Renn_aissance]

Stop in the fall, start April 1st. They can develop tolerance to the dose, so if you can take it out of their regimen for part of the year, it helps.

[SmlHpy1]

I stopped mine a bit earlier than planned, but my guy was boycotting food, so I pulled all supplements. He’s a hot mess. lol I have him on Sweat Formula by Life Data Labs. I stop in the fall and start proactively in the spring. This was our second summer with anhidrosis except for one summer about 15 years ago. We never had an issue again till last year. What I’ve read in an Anhidrosis FB group is that you get a better response starting the supplements in advance of noticing an issue. Once you “get behind” the issue so to speak, it’s hard to get good sweat. This summer I started in May, a bit later than I planned but we moved barns and switched grains so this was added in later. My guy didn’t sweat as much as I had hoped, but more than last year and it seemed fairly adequate till later in the summer. So I was happy when compared to last year. I’m considering trying a different supplement next year simply because of the amount of Sweat Formula I have to give. I have a senior horse and sometimes his appetite isn’t up to par. He gets 4lbs of grain per feeding as it is, so the smaller I can keep his ration the better chance I have of him cleaning it up.

[lenapesadie]

I’m also in the camp of pull sweat supplements in fall and proactively start again in the early spring.