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Post by anastasia55555 on Jan 9, 2011 18:50:36 GMT 1
Dont think they do eat snow kanga, honestly never seen evidence of it. My brother in law suggested a pond heater might work, so I am going to try that he has one he is going to lend me to try, will keep you posted. I have, Tiny (Exmoor pony) eat the snow when it came, i stood and watch him several times. Even when we took warm water down, he still ate the snow along with drinking some water. I didnt see the others do it tho
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Post by donnalex on Jan 9, 2011 19:07:15 GMT 1
Maybe it is something they have to learn to do from their elders? We havent really had snow for long enough for them to learn either, except for these last two winters and a lot of horses are stabled all the time so wouldnt pick it up anyway.
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Post by kristine on Jan 9, 2011 20:19:01 GMT 1
Maybe it is something they have to learn to do from their elders? We havent really had snow for long enough for them to learn either, except for these last two winters and a lot of horses are stabled all the time so wouldnt pick it up anyway. You are definitely on to something. Horses do pass on what they've learned. Both my horses eat snow... one was raised in snowy Montana, the other here... just as cold. The Montana horse had problems coming back to the cold climate after being in California for a few years, but he's figured it all out again.
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heidi
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Post by heidi on Jan 10, 2011 0:54:03 GMT 1
I might be imagining it, but I think I read in H&H that they have to eat 6x more snow, to make what they'd normally drink. I don't think I explained that too well, but I know what I mean! I also think I read an advert in Equiads, for a water heating thing. I'll see if I can find it.
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Post by donnalex on Jan 10, 2011 9:13:58 GMT 1
Yes it was in H&H. Dont think it was 6 X more but not sure how much it was. Even so, if the snow is there and they know what to do it is possible. Forking snow through lots of hay would help them to pick it up though and of course they would take it in little and oftn rather than snow on its own which would not be as attractive to a horse as hay mixed with snow. My ponies have been using the watering hole constantly throughout the snow and ice we have had but as I said, they dont have to get their feet wet at all which would probably be as off putting in these temperatures as the cold water itself, crunching your way through frozen mud cant be much fun. The two that live inside have been turned out throughout the severe cld snap with the others to make sure they always had a drink. I also think that natural flowing water must be more attractive to a horse than barely liquid water that has had boiling water poured into it. Does this not make it 'dead'? It possibly alters the taste of the water. My ponies dont drink chlorinated water away from home unless they are desperate but they will drink happily from flowing water out hacking.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2011 11:47:55 GMT 1
Snow and ice are less dense than water so they do need to eat more of it (a greater volume) to get the same amount of water. My horse eats both snow and solid ice, even when there is unfrozen water available. I think they also end up eating quite a bit of snow when they graze. Manure packed round the troughs sounds like a good idea - muck heaps are always warm from the composting taking place. You'd need to put a decent thickness round it
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heidi
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Post by heidi on Jan 13, 2011 1:05:07 GMT 1
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Post by tomrabbit on Jan 13, 2011 15:16:47 GMT 1
Mine eat snow - I've seen them! My highland eats it off fences and trees too, so he's definitely not eating it by accident. Here's the proof! They must take in a lot of snow when they are grazing through it, because when the snow was over a foot deep, and they were having to dig for the grass, they didn't touch the water that I dutifully lugged to the field on my sledge every day . I found that if I tipped out the water from the bucket each night, and started with an empty bucket each day, it was possible to for them to have water at least until the ice got too thick to break. Leave the water in the bucket overnight, and the ice would be too dense to tip out the bucket. No snow and frozen buckets is a bigger issue I think, because in those circumstances, they come back from the field, and take a big drink in their stables. Interestingly, even though they always have a large bucket of water in their stables, one of mine always chooses to leave it, and heads straight for the field bucket in the morning. I guess as Donnalex says, the chlorine in the water is off-putting, but in the field bucket, it has had time to evaporate off.
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