HYDRATION IS ESSENTIAL, DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR HORSE IS WELL HYDRATED?

Do you know how to test for dehydration in your horse??  During the summer if your horse is sweating and not drinking enough water, dehydration may become a factor that you need to address for the health of your horse in hot/humid weather.  I have heard that some people believe that giving their horse Gatorade in the water will help with hydration.  This is not so.  Consider how much Gatorade you will have to supply your horse to be effective?  One bottle in the water will not even come close to hydrating your horse.  Keep in mind that this animal weighs over 1000 pounds, and it will need much more than a bottle of Gatorade to combat the issue of dehydration.  To test for dehydration, pinch and pull out the skin on your horse's neck, then quickly release and take note that if the skin "tents" or takes some time to go back into place, you have a dehydrated animal.  If the skin snaps back into place, dehydration is not an issue.  To help reverse this condition, you must supply an electrolyte supplement.  This is a supplement that looks like salt, and may be orange flavored.  It is for supplementation in the water, but, some horses will refuse to drink the water and therefore, you are not helping the situation...water consumption is the only way to reverse dehydration.  I have successfully added the electrolyte supplement directly to my horse's feed and because this supplement is being ingested, it promotes water consumption because a large content of the supplement is made up of salts that need to be replaced from being lost during the sweating a horse will do to keep itself cool.. Remember  the horse is the only other animal besides humans that cools down by sweating.  It is an excellent idea to make electrolytes available during the summer months, and even in the cold months when a horse does not drink as much, it may be necessary to give electrolytes to make sure that impaction will not become a factor due to not enough water being consumed to move the food through the digestive tract.  When supplementing in the colder months, it is necessary to administer in the feed to encourage the drinking of more water.