From: Robyn Mayle
Jessica,
You'll be glad to hear my ugly, white toast rack is now a very pretty big, yellow beachball! I have a couple of questions.
Firstly - Winter, my filly, wont drink water in her paddock. I have tried several buckets of different shapes, colours and sizes. The water is cool and quite clean but during the day the only water she will drink is fresh water which I hold for her in a bucket. In the evenings she drinks from her stable bucket as soon as she comes inside (and then urinates!) I don't want a spoilt horse but I don't want a dehydrated horse either. She has a paddock to herself and is happy to eat when outside.
I'm delighted to know that your toast rack is now a beach ball -- she was certainly lucky to get such a good home.
I wouldn't worry too much about the water, as long as she is drinking enough of it when she DOES drink. You may find that as the summer progresses, she will drink more. There could be several reasons for her behaviour -- let me suggest a couple of possibilities.
It sounds to me as though drinking may have been an unpleasant or dangerous action for her before you bought her -- if she was crowded with other, older, larger, more dominant horses and everyone was competing for the same water supply, she may feel safe ONLY in her own stall, or when you hold a bucket for her. That's actually quite a compliment to you -- she trusts you! A horse with its head in a water bucket can't see much, can't smell much (apart from the water) and can't hear much over its own swallowing. If a horse is worried, it may pull its head up and stand with its head high and ears swiveling after each swallow -- or it may simply choose not to drink until it feels safe.
It's also quite possible that water was given to the horses only twice a day -- a century ago, this was quite a common practice. Horses, especially working horses, did NOT have their own buckets -- they were led out to the water trough in the morning and evening, and expected to drink THEN. In those days, you COULD lead a horse to water with every expectation that it would drink -- it needed to take advantage of the opportunity.
As long as she is drinking ENOUGH, she'll be fine. After she drinks in the evening, refill her bucket -- she'll have some more by the time you let her out in the morning. And be sure that she has access to a mineralized salt block, both in her stall and in her paddock.
In warmer weather and with more exercise, she will become more thirsty and begin to drink more. And if it's possible to turn her out, eventually, with a nice companion, she will exercise herself playing with her companion, and will probably drink whenever the companion drinks. Young horses are often looking for someone's lead to follow.
When you're worried about dehydration, pinch the skin just at the point of her shoulder, let it go, and count the seconds until it flattens into place again. If it pops back into place immediately, she's not in the least dehydrated. If it takes a second or two before the skin flattens again, she isn't dehydrated, but you'll want to check her again later in the day. If it takes three or four seconds, or longer, for the skin to flatten back into place, then you ARE looking at some amount of dehydration, and you'll want to feed the filly something sloppy and tasty -- a pelleted-feed-and-water slurry, for instance, or a very wet bran mash (a traditional way of getting an extra gallon or two of water into a horse) -- and consult with your veterinarian.
In the meantime, don't worry, just carry on and let the drinking situation sort itself out as your filly grows up and feels more secure. You're doing a lovely job, and I don't think you will end up with a spoiled OR a dehydrated horse.
Jessica
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