Re: Apple cider vinegar

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> What would the benefits of ACV be added to feed?  Do any of you do that
> and if so, how well did your horse accept it?  Also, how much do you
> work up to?  I added a teaspoon to their wet beet pulp yesterday and
> they ate it.  It is the unpastuerized kind, with the 'mother' in it.  My
> friend had been singing ACV's praises all summer and convinced me to
> drink it in water with honey and hey, I actually started feeling
> better.  She thinks the horses would benefit from it but we aren't sure
> how!


The primary benefit I *know* to be true about vinegar is that if the horse
is used to the taste in the water at home, they're more likely to drink
strange-tasting water away from home if you add some vinegar to *that*.
Might be a way to convince novice horses to drink from strange troughs at
base camp, though I can't realistically see a rider leaping off to add
vinegar to every bucket, stream and puddle along an endurance trail (though
I love the visual).

There's a traditional belief that adding vinegar will prevent or dissolve
enteroliths in the hindgut.  There was some research done at UC Davis that
found adding two cups of vinegar a day (of any kind) does slightly (the
operative word here being 'slightly') acidify the hindgut, but not enough to
single-handedly prevent or dissolve existing enteroliths.

Contrary to popular belief, feeding vinegar doesn't acidify the urine to
dissolve kidney or bladder stones, either.  You can do that with I think
ammonium sulfate if memory serves (I'm too lazy to go look it up), and a few
other things, but not straight vinegar.

There's also a traditional belief that ACV (the kind you described) will cut
down on flies, but I haven't tried it myself.  I've heard stories on both
sides of the fence saying it will and it won't.

Susan G