Hey Y’all,
Im going on a brief trip about 4 hours away. I’m trailering with a couple of friends -not my trailer-and there’s gonna be a detour on the way back to look at a horse. So 4 hour trip down, say 6 back. We are staying Fri night, Sat, and returning Sunday afternoon.
My horse is not a great drinker away from home-or at home either actually. Of course I’m bringing water but I don’t think there’s room for more than 5 gal. and it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference to him anyway.
So of course he’ll be eating soup! ie lots of water in the feed. But what would y’all recommend re feed? Half his usual? Feed the same? No food? Lots of hay of course.
Advice appreciated!
Regards,
Huntin’ Fool
[quote="Huntin_Fool, post:1, topic:781980, full
Hard to say without knowing his regular meal. Mine gets a beet pulp mash with salt and VMS so she’s used to wet mash plus it’s easy to digest. I will give her molasses tea if she isn’t drinking enough.
The other horse I care take despises mash being too wet. Basically if the finished mash is soupy she dumps it out to drain and just eats the solids
Generally I’d say keep the travel food same as at home with caveat not to feed a grain dinner before getting on the trailer.
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Before you go I’d try seeing if he likes alfalfa pellets soaked really wet with some apple juice in for flavor. Because it’s hay you can feed more than usual to give him hydration.
Another favorite of my horses is a 50/50 mix of apple juice and warm water. They will slurp down a whole bucket.
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I try to keep my feeding when I am away the same as what I feed at home. No need to add an extra stress to the mix.
If your horse does not drink well when away, work on what they will drink no matter what at home so you can do that when you are away. (Adding molasses, Gatorade, Kool-Aid, etc.)
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Thank you all for your good advice!!!
I feed my horse the same amount of grain and alfalfa he gets at home and let him have as much grass hay as he’ll eat, which usually still works out to a bit less than what he has at home 
I do a lot of traveling/ camping with my horses. They get same amount of grain (which is really, really small anyway lol), free choice good hay and I do alfalfa/ beet pulp mashes with salt and elytes. Before they get on the trailer they get 1/2 Purina Outlast and any time we stop en route, I’ll offer water and give another handful or two of the Outlast
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I don’t haul a ton, but when I do I keep to our normal schedule. I will offer him hay cube mash before we leave, and before we come home, to get as much extra water in his system but he is pretty good about drinking not at home water. If we are at a show/clinic, he will have free access hay while we are there. I also add Platinum Balance for extra probiotics for his gut while traveling.
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I ship long distances (7-8 hours) fairly regularly at this time of year, and my guy has zero interest in drinking when he’s on the trailer. After a few years of tinkering I’ve found my “program”.
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really wet soaked alfalfa cubes before I load him (that happens to be my guys’ breakfast so it works out)
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In the trailer I have a bucket of soaked and drained chaff (triple crown or lucerne, etc.).
The key to both of these is to go to Tractor Supply and get this AMAZING thing they have, a “colander style” tubtrug. The large one sits perfectly inside a regular tubtrug. I heart these things like whoa, best invention ever.
I soak the cubes overnight in a regular bucket, dump them in the colandar tub sitting in the tubtrug, add add’l water then pull the colander out to drain into another bucket. When it has mostly drained off, I take the alfalfa “tea” and pour it over the chaff and let it drain off while they are finishing their cube mush. Then for good measure, I give the alfalfa tea (that has now drained off the chaff) to the pony who is getting on the trailer shortly. Alfalfa tea is like crack for mine. At least if he’s not drinking on the road, I have peace of mind that I got some fluids I him before he ships.
Mine drink well once they are off the trailer, but my suggestion would be to get some Horse Quencher and add it to one bucket, leaving the other as plain water so they can choose. Horse quencher with electrolytes would also be great when you come in from an intense hunt. It’s our go to drink coming off marathon in CDEs.
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Great advice! I’m planning to haul my two (older guy and new guy) to Aiken for a two week Adult Pony Camp and have a few things I do for that sort of trip. My new guy is VERY sensitive so he’s on Outlast already; my older guy is going to get that as well, during the trip. I have some omeprazole tubes for the new one; I give just a 1/4 of a small tube per day and will do that a couple of days before, during, and then a couple of days after the trip. Older guy has done this enough years that he doesn’t really need it, and I think the Outlast will do nicely for him.
My trailer has mangers, so I’ll fill those with western alfalfa/regular hay that is somewhat soaked. And, I’ll hang small buckets with soaked hydration hay, which is just chopped forage, more or less, so they can slurp on that as they wish. My older guy is very much a non-hydrator on trips so I’m hoping the buckets and the soaked alfalfa will help with that. I know the new one will do the hydration hay because the person who trailered him up to me from FL used it.
I’ve tried the Quencher stuff and it worked on my now-retired much-older guy, but not my non-hydrator one, so we will see how the soaked forage works.
While we are there I feed as much western alfalfa and grass hay as they want, along with their regular feed. Alfalfa is excellent for their guts, and I always feed it while hauling.
Have fun! I love going on horsey trips, even with the anxiety about horses being horses and trying to make us crazy. 
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When I soak hay, the water is the most appealing thing any horse has ever had to drink, ever. When I soak a bunch in my big rolling cart, when I pull the hay nets out of it I’ll have four geldings competing to slurp down the most.
Try it, maybe that will be a good way to fuel him up with a belly full of hay tea at both ends of the trip.
