Considering moving my 20 year old gelding to a great barn. Only concern: no water in the winter outside in turnouts. Horses are out 7-8 hours… about 4 hours if weather is inclement. Water intake is monitored and plentiful in stalls. Experiences (good or bad) with this scenario???
That would be a no-go for me. Water should be available 24/7. Wonder why they don’t do water outside?
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Why aren’t they providing water in the turnouts? What about hay is there hay in the turnouts? if so horses really need to have water available.
Although i know someone local who’s horses have to eat snow for water,no water provided.
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Honestly…if everything else it great at the barn, it wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me. It’s understandable that it may be hard to keep water unfrozen in the winter, and running gobs of extension cords isn’t safe, either.
Several years ago (over a decade, wow, time flies) I knew a guy who had a whole mess of horses on some land that had no water source. He’d go out twice a day and water the herd. They all came up and drank their fill when he came. They did FINE. No one died, no one colicked–none of those horses had a single problem only having water available twice daily.
While it’s not perfect to be without for 6-8 hours in the winter, it’s not an unreasonable compromise to make for an otherwise awesome boarding barn.
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I wouldn’t even consider putting my horse somewhere where my horses were denied water for that amount of time, especially during the winter. Some people underestimate water intake in winter months because it is cooler. Water and access to it are crucial to a horse’s well being. That cannot be stressed enough.
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I do not love this arrangement and would never accept it as a boarder, but it is very common in many barns, especially in the true north where winters are harsh, and in some mid-west barns. I see it only as a recipe for impaction colic, but these barns that cut corners like that also tend to not really have “Free choice” hay outside… so the horse stands in the snow outside with no grass or hay for 3-4 hours and then comes in to a stall with his hay/grain… In this situation it sure seems like a good way to brew colic & ulcers pretty quickly.
Again, not a fan of the arrangement, though most horses only tend to visit a trough a few times a day, and stalled horses tend to drink the most either after a ride/workout or after a meal. It’s not as if a horse drinks every 30 minutes. I only see my horse drink from his water trough a few times a day. He certainly doesn’t drink every hour or so, more like once every six to seven hours.
Some barns don’t do it because the logistics make it difficult or they lack the staff to perform the task: the paddock is too far from the barn for a hose (or there’s no easy means to carry water 300+ft), or no outlet+extension cord could reach (this usually seems to be the more frequent reason) for a heated water tub. Some barns don’t do it because of “cross contamination” or shared water sources, though in my experience if that is a concern, the horse needs to be in an actual quarantine and not sharing the same breathing space as another horse.
In my opinion there really is no excuse for no water to provided in turnout so it would not be an acceptable compromise to me. You can either carry it out in buckets no matter how miserable the task, or accept that you are putting the horses at risk of colic and ulcers by this practice. As a BM, I used to lug out 15-20 5g Home Depot buckets of water on a cart a day to the grass paddocks that were 1200+ft from the barn… So I don’t want to hear anyone kvetch that it’s too difficult to provide horses with 24/7 water.
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I agree with @Simkie on this one.
If all things are created equal I would pick the barn with water in the turn out.
If the barn is otherwise amazing, all the horses are doing great and all that stuff a barn with out water in turn out for that amount of time during the winter would not make me say no.
(Clearly if I had a horse with an impaction history or some other medical reason for this to not work I would not do it.)
Though we like to treat them like they are delicate snowflakes, horses are adaptable and going that amount of time with out water is not likely to make most of them even give it a second thought. They will drink their fill when they come in.
Think about it, animals kept in large fields do not stand next to the water source all day sipping little amounts here and there. They graze for long periods of time and then go to the water and drink their fill and then go off grazing again.
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NO for me.
Especially for an older guy.
If barn management can’t be bothered to deliver water at least ONCE in that 7-8h stretch I would not be comfortable with that for any of my horses.
They might be fine, but I’d hate the alternative.
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My 2 horses haven’t been up to drink for a day now new snow on the ground,so eating snow/grass and hay. No hoof tracks near tank in the fresh snow. For most part they only come up to drink once a day, get their fill and off they go.
Horses do learn to drink when water is available if that’s only twice a day, or once a day they learn to drink their fill. No water in turnout wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me if the care was good. And horse had water available in stall all the time.
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^ this says it for me • too long :eek: of a time period without water !
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Every scum gutter swear word you can and cannot think of are rolling off my lips right about now, regarding that boarding barns philosophy.
RUN don’t walk your horse from that loser place--------------they are NOT the great barn they show themselves to be:(. Sorta like pretty frosting decorating a really moldy cake---------
i dont don’t care if my horses don’t drink water all day long ----- the water is going to be made available to them ---- and mine is in heated tub------
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It wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me. In a perfect world animals should have access to water 24/7, but to me 7-8 hrs without water isn’t the end of the world.
It’s surprisingly common in Canadian barns, from backyard up to A circuit. They’ll often have heated troughs in the paddocks closest to the barn. Older horses or those with colic history will often be placed there. In 20 years of boarding and working at many of these barns I’ve never seen a horse colic from this. I’m not denying that it could and does happen.
At my parents farm the horses will often go days without touching the outside trough in the winter, for some reason they come inside and drink while they’re resting. In the summer it’s the opposite.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.
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I’m mixed on this. My horse is never without water. And we went through 4 bouts of large colon constipation colic last winter because she didn’t want to drink in a cold spell.
That said, she certainly doesn’t drink continuously. And if you think about horses on the open range or mustangs they may travel many miles to a water hole then back out to graze.
On the other hand those horses are grazing fresh plants and they are getting a lot of movement and they are adapted to the rhythm which the also set for themselves.
A horse adapted to this will probably be OK.
It would worry me but I can see it being the norm in really cold climates.
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At the barn I work and board at, there is no water outside in the winter. The big water troughs are brought in around November. Horses are out from 8 to 2, and while there isn’t a round bale in every paddock, we tear the big 3’ square flakes in half for every horse, served in big wooden crates, when they first go out, and again at 11. This is how they’ve been doing it long before I got there, and as far as I know, there have been no problems.
There are three outdoor herds and they have heated automatic waters.
I wouldn’t because my horses aren’t used to it.
In the old days, though, horses were trained to drink twice a day when led to water. Certainly that was how my family did it with mules. There was no 24/7 access to water. And when I was a kid pre-heaters, we broke the ice twice a day and that is usually when the horses/cattle would drink.
Still, I think there are much better horsekeeping options available now! I strongly prefer my spoiled horses and their Nelsons!
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Keep in mind that no system is prefect or failsafe. There’s been a facebook post circulating around here about a horse that was electrocuted by a heater, they had even had all of their heaters and setup checked by an electrician beforehand.
A couple years ago I had one of my horses on outdoor board. The waterline to the Nelson waterer in their field burst. Luckily they were in the habit of checking them every day or who knows how long they would have gone without water. They had to spend the rest of the winter hauling water for 15 horses since the ground was frozen and the water line was about 1km long.
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I admit my initial reaction was shock and horror, but thinking back when I grew up in Hungary the horses were out in pasture during the day and there was no water source. It was only years later that we got automatic waterers in the barn, previously we would hand water the horses every few hours. Although this seems appalling to me now, the horses were healthy and happy.
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I live in North Dakota. Our horses are always on pasture 24/7. (of course, with hay in the winter) They can come up for water whenever they would like – but they usually only come up to drink once or twice a day. In the winter, they just don’t drink that often. When it’s nice out, they’ll go out and paw through the snow to graze. So they do get some moisture intake from that too.
So in your situation OP, honestly, your horse will probably be just fine.
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I stopped providing water in turnout decades ago. I have fabulous water tanks…I no longer use…because…the crows, hawks, owls and raccoons like to wash their animal kills in them…every single day. I got tired of trying to keep squirrel , rabbit and who knows what animals parts out of my tanks. I found it very unsanitary and no amount of washing and scrubbing made me feel comfortable leaving a potentially contaminated water supply in front of my horses.
I switched to hand watering and using small water only muck tubs that I could fill and dump easily the same day. They don’t get Long turnouts in winter so I don’t worry about giving them water outside. I also don’t want to create Icy areas dumping water, way too dangerous, which leads me to suspect that winter water tank cleaning is not something people are doing unless they don’t live in harsh areas.
In summary, my actions are taken to provide the most sanitary water supply I can. As such, I know that my horse are consuming 15-20 gals per day per horse out of clean buckets …with no ice or animal parts.
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I can only speak for myself… And you are correct. The outside water trough has a wood lid screwed to it, it covers half of the trough. The heater is in that half, the cover gives a little wind protection (saves heat) and keeps the horses from playing with the heater. The cover also makes dumping an cleaning really difficult.
Thankfully, for the last 10 years we have found that the outside trough stays pretty darn clean all winter. Maybe some hay bits end up settled at the bottom but that is it. It is too cold for all the slime that grows in the summer to grow.
The inside heated buckets get dumped and wiped out daily.
For the record, I have not had any wildlife wash dead things in my trough.
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