08/12/2025
Pay attention- know your horses! 💦
If you are going to own horses attention to small details is so very important.
Yesterday, I went out to feed my haffie cross and noticed her water trough was untouched.
The day before, she only consumed a small amount, and I chalked that day up to cloudy skies and lower temperatures.
But yesterday, I could tell no one was drinking.
In the past, squirrels have repeatedly drowned themselves in this tank, and that is why it has a board sticking out of it . But I thought, maybe there had been a not so brilliant squirrel that had not found the board and had drowned, so I went to look.
There was no squirrel.
Then I thought maybe there was some manure in there, so I reached my hand in to one of the weird, green clumps and got the bejeebers shocked out of myself.
Daggone, it that hurt.
What I had not noticed was that the squirrel board was wet and the tie rope had frayed, so the board got knocked over onto the electric line, and it was carrying electricity down into the water .
I fixed that, and then sat out there to make sure she would start drinking again.
For 25 minutes she stood over the trough, reaching forward and then pulling back, or licking and moving her mouth constantly.
Finally, she decided to brave it and consumed almost a 4th of the tank.
I know this mare is a heavy drinker because I know her and all her little details. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I know I might have lost her to colic or dehydration.
Know your horses and double check things.
The placement of the trough, the electric and so forth can be configured many ways, and most everything set up wise has some up side and downside,
But the moral?
Know the habits of your horse, so it can help you take better care of them, especially when something goes wrong.
