I’d like to make sure my 18 year old gelding is getting enough water with the cold snap we’ve been having lately (temps in the low teens, below zero at night). I’ve been giving him a quart of soaked (almost soupy) alfalfa pellets with his AM/PM feeds. He’s at a pretty decent weight right now, so I don’t want to give him too many extra calories. He’s still in moderate work, being ridden 4-5x a week for an hour or so. What’s the best way to add some extra water content (added forage would be a plus) to his grain meals, without adding a lot of extra sugar/calories? Thanks!
Well alfalfa cubes are just hay and probably a pound or two in a soup wouldn’t add significant calories. Beet pulp is a bit higher calorie but again a lb in a mash is not much.
Perhaps alfalfa or Timothy cubes as opposed to alfalfa pellets would be more forage.
Beet pulp gives you more bang for your buck water-wise. It can hold a tremendous amount. Just make sure it doesn’t have added molasses. I have always had better luck with the shredded variety. I dump almost boiling water in my bucket with the shreds and by the time it is cool enough to eat, the water has been all soaked up.
I would imagine though, that if your guy has 24/7 access to thawed water, and especially free access to a salt lick, he’s probably going to regulate his water intake OK.
There was some research from years back that feeding soupy food doesn’t add “extra” water; rather, the horse will decrease his water intake proportionally to the amount of water added to the feed. (sorry, it’s before coffee and I don’t have the citation handy)
But that doesn’t mean feeding soaked products is without benefit. Especially since some horses would rather deprive themselves of water to the point of dehydration than drink cold or icy water, or drink out of a tank with stray voltage. I can’t say I blame them on the latter…
My first preference in this situation is hay cubes, because they absorb A LOT of water and are the least processed. You’re basically just giving the horse extra hay. The downside is they can take an extended period of time to soak.
Hay pellets don’t absorb all that much water before breaking down. Beet pulp is a good option if you’re worried about weight gain, since it soaks up more water than pellets, plus it has a low calorie to volume ratio-- a quart of dry beet pulp shreds is only a few hundred calories, and will puff up to fill a good portion of a bucket when soaked.
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I soak beet shreds, faster to prepare than beet pulp, and alfalfa cubes too. Not served at the same time. I also soak the grain pellets because I add their supplements to grain. All except their chia seeds which I serve dry. Chia seeds help with hydration. I use warm water to soak the shreds and cubes and grain pellets.
I also frequently soak my horses’ hay although not when it is freezing.
I agree with this.
Though it does not mean I am not a believer in wet feed.
Like Texarkana said in the rest of their post, some horses do not drink well sometimes (even if they are given safe heated water) so adding the water in a way they are going to get it into them is a great thing.
I tend to use hay cubes for this. In my case I use alfalfa cubes but they sell them in various types of hay. Pick which one works best for your horse.
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Give the horse warm water rather than soupy food.
I don’t feed it “soupy,” but do feed it wet. I also monitor water intake and warm the water my horses get in cold weather.
Encouraging horses to drink water is important anytime of the year.
^^ These.
At some point, eating wet meals removes ((or at least reduces) the “I’m thirsty” feeling, without doing a great deal for actual hydration. It’s all a matter of how well your horse currently drinks. If he’s drinking a reasonable 1 gallon per 100lb body weight, more or less, that’s fine for the Winter in most cases.
Studies on offering horses a choice between warm and cold water resulted in them choosing the cold water, but when offered each separately, they would drink more of the warm water. The theory, or at least mine anyway, is that cold water is initially more satisfying, but it’s easier to drink more warm water.
Right after your riders, offer him a big bucket of warmed water and encourage as much intake as possible.
If your quart of soaked pellets is the post-soaked volume, that amount of water is a drop in the bucket relative to their required intake. So it’s not hurting (most likely) but also isn’t doing much to increase intake either.
But if you were looking to maximize water intake while minimizing calories, beet pulp shreds are the way to do. Alf cubes or pellets can range from 1000-1200 cal/lb, usually closer to 1200 because there is more leaf and less stem, and beet pulp is more like 1000-1100, so almost a wash, but beep is a bit lower on average. But more importantly, the volume of 1lb of all 3 of those is different.
It takes about 9c of beep shreds for 1lb, compared to about 3c for alf pellets. A quick search indicates that 1qt (4c) of alf cubes weighs a little over 1lb, so between pellets and beep.
The bigger difference is that beep absorbs a LOT of water when able to be fully hydrated, so that 9c expands a great deal, much more than hay pellets or cubes do. So you can feed the same weight, for fewer calories and more volume.
Last winter maresy got turned off drinking water and gave herself constipation colic several times. The preventative did turn out to be getting more water into her.
That included alfalfa cube soup, and warm water with molasses and salt. These she would eat enthusiastically for a few days then get bored with so had to switch them up.
She has always had her hard feed in a mash but moving forward she now gets two mashes a day that each take almost 2 gallons of water. These are mash not soup but as wet as they can be and still be mash.
Also I added a 5 gallon wall bucket in addition to her big muck bucket in the othet corner and made sure everything was always super clean.
Altogether this seems to have worked.
So it’s worth experimenting with amount of soupyness your horse will tolerate. You don’t want him picking out the solids and then dumping the water on the floor 
or walking away from a soup, but you can play with the water ratio to get it as high as possible.
It’s true beet pulp soaks up and expands the most but alfalfa cubes give I think more flavour.
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A friend of mine’s retired horse was not drinking well last winter. He has a heated water bucket in his stall and in the field. Still not drinking well. He gets soaked beet pulp all year anyway so no way to add more water that way. He is picky about his food and I don’t think he eats alfalfa cubes or pellets. After the 3rd or 4th colic in about 4 weeks and multiple vet visits she added electrolytes to his feed. He started drinking better and no more colic.
Adding salt or electrolytes to his feed may encourage a bit more water consumption.
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My old lady mare reduces her water intake when it gets bitter cold, so I just turn her grain into soup. She gets about two quarts of hard feed, plus four gallons of hot water. Let it sit until the pellets are broken down, give it a stir, and she sucks it right down. If it’s REALLY cold, I’ll split her grain into AM/PM–so 1 qt grain, 4 gallons water, twice a day–or add another quart of grain in the morning with the water.
My other three horses drink fine, but also appreciate their soup. Everyone gets the same treatment, and no one has ever refused. Buckets are usually empty by the time I’ve left the barn after feeding.
I don’t think you necessarily have to add anything or make feeding more complicated…just add more water to the grain ration and see what happens.
My only “issue” with offering warm water is that sometimes, you own a diva donkey who decides warm water is the ONLY acceptable way to hydrate in the winter. :lol:
Side effects include incessant braying at all hours of the day/night escalating in impaction colic when you try to give her a dose of “tough love” and force her to drink out of the perfectly fine trough. :rolleyes:
Not all equines are as histrionic.
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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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I recently found the Timothy Balance cubes from Triple Crown and really like them. They soak up a lot of water and soften quickly. Also low NSC as a bonus. My three get a couple handfuls as part of their morning/evening ration every day along with a generous amount of water.
When my Appy was in his 30’s even keeping warm water available at all times wasn’t always enough for him when it was really cold out. So he got soupy meals twice per day but I added an additional ‘night check’ feeding of what we called his sweet water. It was about 1.5 cups of Triple Crown Senior in about two gallons of warm water. He LOVED his sweet water and it was always gone in the morning.
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Thank you so much for all of the suggestions, everyone! I really appreciate it! A couple of other horses at the barn where I board have had impaction colic issues this winter, and I just don’t want my guy to be next.
Horses at our place are currently on grain/beet pulp soup for both meals with salt, boiling water added in weather below around -5 C. I don’t worry about them decreasing water intake due to the soup in general. Its more of a tool to get water in them with their food if they’ve stopped drinking enough in the cold.
I find the salt has makes a noticeable difference in water consumption. I can tell in the am if we missed it from the bucket levels. Once the weather warms up, they will still get food that is wet but not soupy like it is now
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I lost my favorite gelding to colic and we suspect it was due to not drinking during a snow storm.
Alfalfa pellets are usually under 1000 calories/lb and beet pulp is usually ~1200 calories/lb, but considering an average horse needs about 15,000 calories a day I’m sure you’ll be fine with either.
Like others said, your horse is likely already drinking enough, but adding water to his food will certainly not hurt. I’m water obsessive in winter now and would rather be safe than sorry. If you’re really worried about water consumption, you can add electrolytes to his feed.
i have one older gelding (23) who is always a good water drinker, decide he wasn’t going to do much drinking a few weeks back. I added about a teaspoon of table salt to his feedpan stuff; he has white salt next to his water stations. Adding that little bit of salt helped him head for his water tub for a good drink after he was done eating:)
Also, all my tubs and buckets are heated but one in particular heats the water a tad warmer than the others. This horse prefers that warmer water.
Just a thought if you have have buckets that heat a little warmer, or maybe your horse prefers colder water — like my other horse prefers <sigh, I just do the work and try to figure out who wants what>
Yes ^^^. I add salt too plus Cool Stance to my soupy feed mix. All of my horses go for a drink right after they eat – Cool Stance is a thirsty making feed to begin with – and they drink a lot the rest of the day/night as well. Water troughs are heated which is fine with them, but they will always go for the colder trough first, the one I just refilled or topped off.
