With the warmer weather officially upon us, it’s always worth considering the amount of salt your horse has in their diet. But why is this so important? And how should it be included?
Sodium is one of the main electrolytes that are commonly discussed. Electrolytes are minerals that, when dissolved in water, break down into elements called ions. Ions have a positive or negative charge. These charges allow the conduction of electricity, which ensures electrical signals are carried across cell membranes and along nerve and muscle cells permitting functions such as the balance of fluids within the body, muscle contractions, and the regulation of thirst just to name a few.
The 5 main electrolytes include sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. However, as a thirst regulator sodium is considered the key one. When sodium and chloride combine, they make sodium chloride, which is the composition of common table salt.
Horses are a little different from us in the fact that when they sweat, they actually lose a lot of electrolytes, which once lost would need replacing. In extreme temperatures, it is possible to find a crusty white layer covering areas of the horse. This layer is actually dried salt. Although this may make sweating sound like a concern, sweating is vital in helping the horse to stay cool.
So how much salt does a horse need?
The National Research Council indicates that a 500kg horse in no work (maintenance) requires 10g sodium, and 40g chloride per day. This level is just to cover the base level maintenance need, when horses are in work their needs increase, and the level of sodium increases to 17.8g and chloride to 53.3g per day for a 500kg horse in medium-level work.
Can my horse get enough from hay alone?
Well, the short answer is no, and here is why. Forage (hay, grazing, etc) which should be the basis of every horse’s diet, generally has fairly low levels of sodium (0.05-0.5%) and chloride (0.5-0.75%). Therefore, if a 500kg horse was to eat 2% of its body weight per day without additional feed, the diet would only provide around 5g of sodium which is not even enough for maintenance-level coverage.
Therefore, quality feedstuffs that contain salt are needed. Concentrate feeds will often contain added salt so when working out how much salt to feed your horse chatting to your chosen brand advisor will help you greatly in calculating what each horse actually gets. Often these products will provide enough for lower-level workloads, however, hard-working horses are likely to need a lot more.
In order to ensure proper coverage most horses will require salt to be added to their feed, especially those not being fed large amounts of concentrates or those not having any concentrates at all. Regular table salt is approximately 61% chloride and 39% sodium so 30g (approx. 2 tablespoons) of salt per day would be enough to provide 11.7g of sodium which would cover maintenance needs.
Salt can be provided via a salt block, however, not all horses will utilize them enough to cover their needs. When placed in paddocks etc. it’s hard to know if each horse is getting enough, or if one horse is using it more than others. Therefore, to ensure your horse gets enough adding a minimum level into the feed is the most ideal. Horses are known to have a “pica” for salt, which means they are aware when more is needed. For example, in hot weather horses may seek out a salt block, or lick objects with a salt content, to try and satisfy this need. Therefore, a salt block can still most certainly be used and will allow the horse to have access to additional levels when they feel the need.
At HH we have many types of salt blocks available and often the choice comes down to what your horse prefers.
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