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Understanding water

Ruth Bishop

4 August, 2003

Water is often taken for granted, as horses often consume far more than they actually need, but the fact is that they, like humans, don't last long without it.

It's not surprising that water is an essential for life, as we are all mostly made up of it. Foals are around 80% water and the adult horse contains around two-thirds water. Most of this is in the cells of the body and the digestive tract.

It is difficult to predict exactly how much water a horse needs, as the amount varies according to outside factors. A horse may need to increase its water intake more than four-fold to cope with high heat and humidity, for example.

It goes without saying that water is a major compound of blood and oxygen — and nutrients are transported to the muscles and cells of the body by the blood.

One of the rules of good feeding is not to work the horse too soon after it has been fed. One of the main reasons is that the process of digestion uses water that would otherwise be in the bloodstream.

The volumes of water moving in and out of the gut are immense — up to 100 litres arrives from the various juices added during the digestive process.

As a result a greedy horse could easily dehydrate itself after a meal — and dehydration means less chance for the blood-borne nutrients to reach the muscles where they are needed.

Hydration facts

• A simple test for dehydration is to pinch your horses skin on its neck. If it doesn't spring back within a couple of second, then your horse is dehydrated

• Tiny levels of dehydration will affect a horse's performance. It is essential to maintain water intake before a pitch test highlights a problem

• Keep water intakes up by allowing frequent small drinks

• Automatic drinkers are convenient, but, unless metered, are not a good way to check a horse's water intake

• Poor drinkers can be encouraged to drink by sweetening the water with sugar beet pulp liquor or honey, or feeding moist, sloppy feeds.

• Feeding small very sloppy feeds can be a good way to water horses in transit

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Related articles:

• Ask H&H: dampening feed
• Avoiding dehydration
• The importance of water
• Replacing electrolytes
• Tricks of the trade: watering
• Understanding essential electrolytes
• Understanding the effects of dehydration
• Keeping your horse hydrated
• Q&A: Drinking from troughs
• The importance of water quality

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