How to use salty water to keep your performance horse hydrated
Keeping performance horses and particularly endurance horses hydrated can be a massive challenge. And a big part of the challenge is that horses have a rather inconvenient thirst response trigger.
For horses to ‘feel thirsty’ they need a certain level of sodium in their blood.
BUT when they drink fresh water, it dilutes their blood sodium and that can switch off their thirst response, even if they are still dehydrated!
Which means you can have a dehydrated horse that isn’t actually ‘thirsty’! See … told you it is inconvenient.
But since we can’t magically rewire this system, we need to work with it.
And there is a really simple, very cheap workaround to get your horses drinking more and rehydrating faster.
And that is…
To offer their first drink of water when coming into a vet check or back from a training session as salty water!
To be specific… 0.9% salty water!
To make 0.9% salty water, mix 90 grams of salt (sodium chloride, also known as plain ol’ table salt) into 10 litres of water.
Using 0.9% salty water has been shown by research to increase water intake
Research by Butudom et al 2002, showed that horses who were offered 0.9% salt water as their first water offering after being dehydrated, drank 18.5 litres of water in total (of salty and then fresh water) in the first hour after finishing exercise.
Compared to…
Horses that were offered just plain water as the first and all subsequent water offerings after finishing exercise. These horses only drank 11.4 litres of water.
The reason the salt water ‘works’ is because when given 0.9% salty water as their first drink, it maintains blood sodium levels. And therefore maintains a thirst response… which means horses will keep drinking after their first drink of water.
Why does this matter?
Why does getting a performance horse quickly rehydrated matter?
It matters because until your horse is fully rehydrated, they can’t fully replenish muscle energy (glycogen).
It already takes quite a while (compared to humans) to rebuild a horse’s muscle glycogen. And any level of dehydration is going to slow this down even further! Which in performance horses, is something we want to try and avoid.
How to put this into practice and get your horse drinking more water
Here is how to do this properly:
Make up your salt + water solution by adding 90 grams of salt (sodium chloride) per 10 litres of water.
Offer this salty water as the first water your horse has access to when coming in after a training session or into a vet check.
Let them drink as much of the salty water as they like during their first drink.
THEN, give them access to fresh water (no salt) when they go back to their stable or pasture or for endurance horses, the rest of the time they are ‘in camp’. What should happen is they will still feel thirsty and drink more of the fresh water.
For endurance horses, it is REALLY IMPORTANT to get your horses used to drinking the salty water at home during training! Once they get used to it, you should find they will very happily drink it.
If they are a bit unsure, try using a flavouring they like in their water to help them get used to drinking it. A small amount of molasses in the salty water for example, would help to make it more enticing.
Happy rehydrating! Hope this helps keep your horse drinking, happy and healthy and you more relaxed!