Salt and Electrolytes for Horses.

Jun 30

Sodium chloride (NaCl) is required by every horse, every day, and more when exercise or climate/exercise dictates. The recommended dose for a 500 kg horse is one ounce per day, which is 1 level tablespoon (15 ml), twice daily or over 11,713 gm. You can add salt to meals, but it is preferable to offer it free choice, so your horse can decide how much he needs. During hot, humid weather or exercise, salt requirements increase.

Salt blocks are commonly used but will not provide enough! Salt blocks are made for cows who have a very coarse tongue. A horse's tongue can sustain irritation and get microscopic cuts on it. A horse can't lick a block enough to meet their daily requirement because their tongue is smooth and can quickly become irritated, thereby potentially reducing the salt they'll want to take.

Electrolytes are pretty different from salt. However, they may contain salt — but not enough to meet the horse's daily requirement. Supplementing electrolytes is worth considering with moderate to excessive exercise, especially in HOT climates when your horse sweats a lot.

The best way to meet these needs is to provide plain white coarse table salt. Most horse keepers choose to top-dress their daily ration with 2-3 tbsp daily and offer free choice available in a bucket. It's a good idea to provide both, but it may depend on the horse's preference and tolerance for saltiness in their mash.

Please consider electrolytes only when your horse has a good sodium balance already or under the advice of a veterinarian. The electrolytes lost in the most significant quantities in sweat are sodium, chloride, and potassium. Smaller amounts of calcium and magnesium are also present in sweat and minuscule amounts of other trace minerals.

How can you tell if your horse is dehydrated?

Evaluation of dehydration is a subjective exercise. The traditional method of determining hydration status is to perform a skin-pinch test: gently tent a piece of skin on the shoulder between the thumb and forefinger and then release it. If the skin snaps back and smoothes out quickly upon release, the horse is probably adequately hydrated. If the skin is slow to smooth out and regain its normal appearance, the horse might be dehydrated.

Capillary refill time (CRT) measures circulatory status and is also useful in determining dehydration. For horses, CRT is performed on the gums. A thumb or finger is pressed firmly on the gum and then released. The time it takes for the pressed area to return to the same colour as the surrounding gum tissue (to perfuse with blood) is the CRT. Most hydrated horses have a CRT of less than 2 seconds. As dehydration sets in and worsens, CRT slows.

Here in BC, Canada, we are heading into almost two consecutive months of extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Prolonged exposure to heat can lead to mild persistent dehydration, and that’s where slow-release electrolytes from KER (Kentucky Equine Research) come in. Feeding a concentrated electrolyte dose causes an immediate surge in blood electrolyte levels. That’s the desired effect, right? Yes, however, this also stimulates increased excretion of electrolytes, flushing out the electrolytes you just fed and shortchanging the horse of vital supplementation. When sodium is delivered slowly over a period of time, it is fully absorbed and utilized by the body.

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