I’ve yet to find an electrolyte paste that my horse doesn’t despise. Any tips on any sweet ones that he might take to?
Is there a reason you can’t add some loose electrolytes to a little bit of grain? That’s usually how I get mine to take them. Smartpak also makes a smart-lytes pellet that even my pickiest eats.
He usually noses around the loose redmond salt I put in his grain (or wont eat it). He will eat a solid salt lick, but only if its a molasses/salt block like a sweetlix, which the barn runs out of occasionally, and he does not have daily access to.
I like to keep tube paste electrolytes for the super hot days where he is sweating lot and isn’t passing the ‘pinch’ test. Barn has automatic waterers, and does not allow for extra buckets so dissolving a powder in a spare bucket is out unless I can make him drink on command while I hold the bucket - so paste is the easiest way to deliver electrolytes on an as-needed basis.
Try either wetting the grain down so he can’t pick out the salt (I also use redmond fwiw) or get the smartlytes from smartpak–he’s less likely to pick these out of his food. I haven’t personally found a paste of any description that horses actually like the taste of.
I think electro-plex by oral-x is the least offensive based on my horses’ reactions.
I like Compete by strictly equine and had been using it for a while (hard to find but I get it from Big Dee or through a local vendor who carries it because it’s popular with the Standardbred race crowd). It has creatine, dmg, glutamine and some other stuff and I really notice a difference in recovery after workouts and endurance after administering it to my senior horse. However, I recently got some on my forearm and it caused a burning sensation on my skin. I tried the electro-plex on my skin and did not get the same sensation. The electroplex has chelated electrolytes. I don’t know if that is the difference. I think KER makes a buffered electrolyte paste. I haven’t tried it but maybe that one doesn’t have the tingle/burn sensation either. At any rate, I’m much more cognizant of it now. It’s a shame because I really did like the compete paste but I just hesitate to use it even though my horse didn’t object. It might be worth testing whatever you’ve been trying to see if it also has a burning or tingling aftereffect.
I do add loose sea salt to the feed but I’ve never had luck adding electrolytes to feed or water with my picky eaters. I wish they made one without added potassium since horses on pasture and hay already get plenty. At any rate, I like giving the paste instead of mixing with feed because I’ve noticed that putting electrolyte powder in the feed often causes them to go off the feed, whereas after I give the paste, their water and feed consumption usually goes up.
My picky eater likes the Smartpak ones, they’re in pellet form which is the only thing she’ll touch. When I do need to use paste for really hot days I use whatever brand I can get locally. Then I mix it in a second syringe with something better tasting, apple sauce normally. It seems to make it a bit better, though no matter what it’s still a syringe and they still hate it.
Buckeye’s Perform N Win. It’s a powder (tastes like pixie sticks). I mix it in a dose syringe with Pro-CMC to buffer the stomach.
