Excess salt consumption and Cushings

[SusanO]

Anybody else seeing this? 20ish Cushings pony who does not sweat. Anhydrosis and under fans during the day in the summer. He is obsessed with his salt block and goes through the small ones in a hurry. When he comes into his stall to eat he heads to his salt block first and gnaws away and I hear him down in the barn all day gnawing on his block. I thought at first it might be due to a salt deficiency but he never gets back to normal consumption.

Yes he drinks a lot and his stall is saturated with wet spot everyday when I clean it. He probably pees through a 10 cubic foot bag of shavings a day.

I have just never had a horse this obsessed with salt. He gets ration balancer and orchard grass hay just like the two mares that are NOT obsessed with their salt block. He was not always like this - I have had him over ten years now. I am not feeding the same hay all the time - I buy from a reseller and some Tennessee hay but not the same grower.

[JB]

I assume he’s on Prascend?

A symptom of PPID can be increased thirst, which leads to increased peeing, which might then cause increased salt intake.

But also, some horses do become salt-obsessed, and if his PPID is under control otherwise, I would force-feed salt at 1tbsp/500lb

[SusanO]

He already pees a lot anyway. But when he is on a salt binge his water consumption doubles and he really soaks the stall. He is definitely obsessed.

[Scribbler]

My mare just loves salt. She gets 2 ounces in her mash and beavers away at her salt block. One summer I calculated between her 7 lb block and her mash she was taking in a pound a week.

[Lusoluv]

I’ve never had a Cushings horse, but I did have 1 mare who would obsess on her salt block. This made her drink a ton of water and soak her bedding. Once I realized what was happening, I added a couple ounces to her daily feed - no more free choice salt and no more soaked stall.

Her neighbor, who is a Cushingoid draft, licks his salt block all.day.long. He also soaks his stall in urine. I’ve told the mostly absentee owner and she just shrugs it off. She doesn’t ride or see him much, so she can’t be bothered to care. I think he does it out of boredom, but I can’t imagine this is OK or healthy for him.