>Dr. Foss stated that there's
no possible way to replace ALL the e-lytes lost in competition, but that the
administration of e-lytes (salt!) will encourage the horse to drink, just
like when we eat salty food which in turn makes us thirsty...we drink.
Darlene, there is a considerable difference between
voluntarily eating salty food and having a wad of salt arbitrarily stuffed in
your mouth. I don't know about you, but the latter tends to make me want
to throw up, and certainly does very little toward my well-being, particularly
if I am already dehydrated. There is also considerable difference in the
application of salty FOOD to the lining of the GI tract vs just the application
of SALT. And that is something that I think we need to
consider--especially in view of the oral ulcers we see in some of these horses,
never mind the gastric ulcers we are now beginning to discover. Everything
has a flip side. The problem here is that vets are preaching that one
should e-lyte, e-lyte, e-lyte--and that is not right ALL the time for ALL
horses.
This isn't about making e-lytes look bad--it is
about helping people to understand both the pros and the cons of e-lyting so
that they can make intelligent and appropriate decisions for a given horse at a
given time, instead of just doing something by rote that may be helpful or may
be harmful, depending on the circumstances.
