Horses Need Salt All Year Long

I was at several cow horse events recently at different large horse facilities and as I walked around I noticed none of the stalled horses had access to a simple plain white salt blocks. It's true these horses could be getting electrolytes or salt dressed in their grain or pelleted feed, but not likely. Maybe the owners or barn managers thought that since the hot weather is gone so is the need for salt.

The lack of Sodium, or what most of us just call salt, can result in poor performance in horse speed or athletic events; make it more likely that a horse's muscles will get sore and stiff - referred to as tying up; or even affect the horse not being able to sweat adequately which is part of their evaporative cooling system. A lack of salt in the horse's diet can aggravate dehydration as it could cause a horse not to drink an adequate amount of water,.....and drinking less water is a factor for colic.

As with about anything related with a horse's nutritional needs and feeding programs, a person can go crazy trying to balance nutrients, electrolytes and minerals. A friend of mine used to keep a large tray of loose salt for horses' free consumption believing that a salt block couldn't provide was the horse needed because it was too hard to lick. He had to keep that salt tray out of the weather, inside the covered portion of the horse's stall, and as I remember, it collected a lot of dirt and sand.  And I have tried adding powdered or granulated minerals to my horse's feed only to have them get adept at eating around it.     

My horses are on dry feed, as pasture is hard to find here in West Texas. I choose to feed both grass (coastal Bermuda) and alfalfa for several reasons: 1 - I don't believe my horses need that high of percentage of protein in their feed as alfalfa is around 18-20% protein (grass hay is usually around 10-12%; 2 - the grass hay is usually in longer stems which slows down the horse eating, and provides good roughage; and 3 - the grass and alfalfa mix maintains a good ratio of Calcium and Phosphorus in the diet.     

Horses also need other minerals and it's hard to get all the minerals in dry hay. A mineral block is often suggested as an alternative, when pasture can't be accessed, but I have yet to have or even seen a horse who will lick a mineral block.

There are solutions other than a standard mineral block - which you find in your local fed store's as a trace-Mineralized block. Redmond Equine offers a rock shaped salt block that is advertised as containing over 60 minerals. I have one of these in each of my horse's feeders. I hope that the horse's will lick on it from time to time or have the movement of the rock in the feeder wearing minerals off the rock as it gets moved around with the hay. I can't say that any of my horse's lick these rocks, but at least it gives me alittle peace of mind that's it there. You can always topdress your horse's grain or hay with Redmond Crushed Rock loose mineral salt supplement, but again I have not had much luck in getting horses to like loose minerals crushed or not.  

I also feed a pelleted feed, now feeding about 2 lbs of Standlee mixed Timothy Grass - Alfalfa pellets in the evening which really just provides an additional source of dry, compressed hay, but the Timothy hay is different than the Bermuda I feed in bulk. It also keeps my horses used to that pelleted feed in case I have to feed more of than because of a lack of availability of hay for trips into the mountains. Pelleted feed is also handy for using it to introduce supplements which I have one horse on a hoof and joint supplement.

My mainstay is that throughout the year I ensure each horse has a standard white salt block. I leave them out in the open exposed to the rain and dirt, so I have to routinely clean them which only takes a few minutes once a week or so, if that.

The bigger issue I have with salt blocks is the holders in which I place them. I have several types of holders, some without drain holes and others with drain holes underneath the salt block so that the block doesn't allow them to drain water.




And if they can't drain water then the accumulated sand and dirt builds up and makes it difficult to clean. I resolved that problem by drilling a bunch of holes in the bottom and sides of my salt block holders. See the picture below of the salt block holders I drilled more drainage holes in.

I think that if you are unsure what to do, consider at a minimum providing your horses with a white salt block as this is an easy and cheap solution to provide adequate sodium into their diet. Some horses, likely not the majority of them, will chew on the salt block out of boredom.  And while horses generally have a high tolerance to excessive salt, if you have a horse that appears to eating or biting of large chunks of the block then I would remove it until you can talk to your vet about it with an idea on how much the horse is digesting.  You may notice the horse drinking a lot of water and there may an excessive amount of urine in the horse's stall. This habit is generally because of the horse being bored.