Treating The Dehydrated Horse At Shows

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Caring for the dehydrated horse can be quite the task when they refuse to drink. I have had issues with my World Cup horse at my last two shows where he took a dislike to the show water. So much so that he even lost his appetite and was becoming quite starry coated and lacklustre.  

We caught onto it quite quickly in both cases because we noticed his water level hadn't gone down in his bucket overnight so did the dehydration check as shown in https://theformula.co.nz/The-Vault/The-Vault-Details/a-basic-dehydration-check. Upon doing this we found that his skin was not going back in the way it should be and so we treated him immediately by giving him 50ml of Tuffrock GI https://www.horsetack.nz/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=70 to settle his stomach, followed with a hard feed consisting of half a cup of chaff and half a cup of Coprice mixed with several litres of water to create a sloppy feed top help get liquids into him. On one case when he wasn't wanting to eat, we syringed water down his throat to help get water in him.

He was also given an electrolytes and B-boost drench (available from https://vetpro.co.nz/product/b-boost/). And then he was given the option of a bucket of clean water poured from our truck water tank (filled from our home water) and another bucket containing water mixed with molasses in his yard. Within a few hours, he was 100% back to normal; passing the dehydration check and happily drinking and was able to be competed the next day as usual.

Had we have not caught onto it early, he would have struggled to be ridden and we would have risked kidney damage. That is why we are so careful to make sure our horses are always drinking. You can do this too by always your horse's water levels and doing the dehydration check above. Dehydration in horses is sadly very common and is related to many health and ridden issues so it is well worth checking often.