Immediately after an intense workout, one should not eagerly pounce on cool water. Unfortunately, unlike a person, a horse is not able to give up water after training. If an inexperienced rider “regrets” the horse and decides to drink it immediately after the race, the animal may have serious health problems.

Features of drinking horses after intense exertion

To give the horse plenty of water to drink and immediately put her in the stall is extremely unreasonable actions that certainly will not bring benefit to the animal. After such an “act of mercy”, a horse can develop serious edema, and if you continue to ignore the rules of hygiene of horses racing, then a rheumatic disease, in which the connective tissue located between the bone and the horn wall of the hoof is very inflamed.

But milking can be avoided. It is important to let the animal calm down and cool down properly in order to prevent a sharp hypothermia of the body. Before you drink a horse after a race, you need to get it out well with a calm step, without load. This is an opportunity to preserve the health of the horse, not leave a chance for insidious rheumatism. Experienced horses in rare cases depart from this rule, and immediately give the animal quite a bit of water, but after that the horse is necessarily paced, and only then drowned.

Interesting fact: For horses, it is not just that there is a desire to arrange the so-called “water games” when the animal draws water into its mouth, loudly “slaps” and allows the fluid to flow freely. This is a peculiar way to rinse your mouth, which gradually develops into fun fun and makes the animal a little happier. Do not punish the wards for such innocent pranks.

Here it is important to feel the animal, it is good to know its habits in order to catch a thin line between “too much” and “just right”. Therefore, for example, in clubs where you can rent a horse for several hours, there is a strict prohibition on watering animals on their own.

How and how much to give horses to drink?

The horse intensively absorbs fluid, which distinguishes it from other domesticated animals. To provide the animal with comfortable conditions, it is important to position the drinker as low as possible so that the horse can extend its neck straight. During thirst quenching, the animal plunges its nose into the water, cute twitches its ears.

Interesting fact: some horses practice "hoof digging" before drinking, which often causes irritation in the inexperienced and not sensitive to the needs of the animal workers of the stables, owners. In fact, this behavior is a kind of "rudiment" of horses whose ancestors lived in arid areas, and thus searched for underground sources close to the surface. In such places, animals knocked out holes that gradually filled with water.

Water consumption depends on the season and type of feed.So, in the hot season, the need for water increases due to the heat, and in winter due to the fact that dry hay prevails in the horse's diet. Like humans, horses can form their drinking habits and taste preferences. Taste buds and the sense of smell in horses work better than in humans. Sometimes animals are capricious if they did not like the taste or smell of water. But if the horse flatly refuses to eat and drink, this is a clear signal that something is wrong with the ward. It is important to take emergency measures to identify the causes and normalize the condition of the animal.

After a long time or a difficult physical performance plan, you should not deprive the horse of the opportunity to make up for the deficiency of fluid in the body, but you need to do it correctly: after quietly walking without loads, taking into account the breed, the individual physiological characteristics of the animal.