I want to address something I see/get asked about commonly: Do horses still need water when they have snow to eat? My answer: YES. Please allow me to explain. Horses can & do eat snow and they can survive/get by with doing so. However, I will refer to one of my earlier blog posts: there were some horses that a group of us rescued that were getting fed Wonder Bread & Twinkies (no, this is not joke). There were some alive, but in very poor health and many of them had already died. This is the best analogy I can think of, both things being extreme. Horses can survive eating snow, but it is not healthy for them and they can certainly have some significant health complications associated with only being allowed to eat snow as their water source. I see this mainly with older generations who do it because their father, grandfather, etc always did it. Often these same people hold the thought that a 15 year old horse is old and well 20 is so over the hill, they are on borrowed time & no sense in putting good hard earned money into something that is lucky to be still drawing a breath. I am not judging this thought process, we all learn by what we see/experience. But the changed reality is that our management, veterinary care, nutritional knowledge, dental care, etc has all been expanded so much in the last even 20 years that now, it is not uncommon to see horses in their 30's still in good body condition and even doing fine with being ridden. It is hard for us to change our paradigms...what is true for us and it is certainly an individual decision whether to do so or not. And it seems that horse people in particular get very set in our ways, not always a bad thing but sometimes it is. Which leads me to one more thought.....we must be careful where we get our information from. In this day of the Internet, we can usually always find the information we need to support/justify our stance. Please be careful that the information you are getting is true and not just a justification of our paradigm giving us a "we don't have to change" card. Happy Learning Trails!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Do Horses Need Water if they can eat Snow?
I want to address something I see/get asked about commonly: Do horses still need water when they have snow to eat? My answer: YES. Please allow me to explain. Horses can & do eat snow and they can survive/get by with doing so. However, I will refer to one of my earlier blog posts: there were some horses that a group of us rescued that were getting fed Wonder Bread & Twinkies (no, this is not joke). There were some alive, but in very poor health and many of them had already died. This is the best analogy I can think of, both things being extreme. Horses can survive eating snow, but it is not healthy for them and they can certainly have some significant health complications associated with only being allowed to eat snow as their water source. I see this mainly with older generations who do it because their father, grandfather, etc always did it. Often these same people hold the thought that a 15 year old horse is old and well 20 is so over the hill, they are on borrowed time & no sense in putting good hard earned money into something that is lucky to be still drawing a breath. I am not judging this thought process, we all learn by what we see/experience. But the changed reality is that our management, veterinary care, nutritional knowledge, dental care, etc has all been expanded so much in the last even 20 years that now, it is not uncommon to see horses in their 30's still in good body condition and even doing fine with being ridden. It is hard for us to change our paradigms...what is true for us and it is certainly an individual decision whether to do so or not. And it seems that horse people in particular get very set in our ways, not always a bad thing but sometimes it is. Which leads me to one more thought.....we must be careful where we get our information from. In this day of the Internet, we can usually always find the information we need to support/justify our stance. Please be careful that the information you are getting is true and not just a justification of our paradigm giving us a "we don't have to change" card. Happy Learning Trails!
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