Automatic Waterers

From: Jim & Karen

Hello Jessica:

Let us add our voice to the many who have thanked you for the valuable information you freely share with us every week.

We are almost finished building our barn, and hope to bring our two horses home in a few weeks (a 5yr. old Arab and a 4 yr. old Morgan). We have decided to install automatic waterers, since we are not at home all day long, and we want to ensure that the horses have free access to water all day. Do you have any suggestions for introducing horses to the use of automatic waterers (they are the type where the horse pushes a large flat valve with his nose)?

The "boys" have always been watered either by buckets or trough, so this will be a new experience. I'm especially concerned about my rather high-strung Arab who gets extremely nervous in new and unusual situations. Any thoughts you have will be most welcome! Sincerely, Jim & Karen

In the stall: the horses will explore whatever is there, including the automatic waterers. If you show them the waterers and operate them yourselves a few times (push the paddle and let them see you do it and hear the sound of the water and see and smell the water coming in), they're much less likely to react with fear the first time THEY bump the paddle.

If you're worried about them drinking enough at first, it would be an excellent idea to hang water buckets in the stalls. That way, the horses will have a source of water while they're learning about the automatic waterers. Don't just assume that the horses will begin using the automatic waterers the first day, although it's entirely possible. It's worth going to the extra trouble to hang buckets, and thus avoid any chance of dehydration.

Be sure to have salt blocks in the stalls, of course. ;-)

In the pasture, I'm guessing that you'll be using a larger automatic waterer, the sort that refills itself when the level drops below a certain point. These present no problem to horses that are accustomed to pasture troughs, so you won't have to do anything special to introduce the horses to the pasture waterer.

You WILL have to be careful to keep checking your horses for signs of dehydration, though! Make it part of your routine. Automatic waterers are a great convenience for owners, but that convenience can backfire if a horse stops drinking or drastically reduces its water consumption. In a stall with water buckets, you can tell at a glance whether the horse has consumed its normal amount of water; with an automatic waterer, you have no way of knowing whether the horse has had five gallons, or two, or one -- or none. So you'll have to be very aware of your horses' condition, and get in the habit of pinching their skin at the point of the shoulder and watching how quickly it flattens again. If it flattens instantly, no problem, the horses are drinking well. If it takes a couple of seconds to flatten, the horse is slightly dehydrated; if it takes several seconds or longer, talk to your vet and get his advice about the level of dehydration and what you should do about it.

You'll also have to be careful to keep those automatic waterers CLEAN. It's easy to tell when there's manure in the waterer, but it's not as easy to tell that a waterer has accumulated a coat of slime. Horses like clean water when they can get it, and although a desperate horse will drink mud, you don't want your horses to become desperate, especially if they spend a good deal of their time in stalls. Horses that are outdoors all the time move around enough to keep their circulation and their digestive systems active; which is one reason they tend to stay healthier than horses confined to stalls. They are also more likely to drink less-than-clean water, whereas indoor horses can go on "drink strike" until they have access to clean water. So give the waterers the same attention you would give buckets: a daily wipe-clean, and a weekly scrub.

Jessica

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