So tonight when I was doing my nightly reading in one of many million horse magazines i stumbled upon a different way to detect dehydration in horses. Being a licensed vet tech, I found this very interesting..
SO usually...to check to see if a horse is dehyrated you tent the skin on the horse's neck to see how quickly it returns to normal. Another way is to look at the dryness of the gums. HOWEVER-- a study was done in 2008 in the Equine Veterinary Journal to see which practical tests of dehydration were the best.
They took blood tests from 50 horses while working in warm to hot temperatures, and this provided the truest measure of their hydration. They also found that skin tenting did not correlate with how dehydrated they were, but it did show that which side and what part of the neck it was done on, as well as coat moisture and the horse's age, affected this.
They concluded that looks at the gums was not a reliable test because gum dryness could be increased while handling the mouth or decreased after drinking, making it unreliable. The horses that were dehydrated (out of the horses they took blood from) drank SIGNIFICANTLY more water and had longer and more frequent drinking bouts, than those horses who were dehydrated.
SOOO...in conclusion, the volume and frequency of water consumption was the best indication of hydration stays, meaing the best test of dehydration also turned out to be its cure.
I think that this is interesting because while we try to find complex answers, the very answer is as simple as drinking water, a neccessity.
Just a thought.
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Very interesting post
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