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[RC] drink training - AprilI am planning to drain my water troughs and teach my horse to drink from a bucket when offered. I don't want to hurt him, obviously, but I think this will be more effective in the heat of the summer. How often do I have to offer water? Will offering water twice a day be sufficient? Every 12 hours or there abouts? If he doesn't drink for 2 days, should I freak out or just keep on? (He does get soaked beet pulp 2x daily amounting to 1+ gallon of water per day; plus he's on pasture with a large hole that has water after it rains.) One of Tanna's issues is that he doesn't like drinking out of a bucket very much. He drank fairly nicely over Summer Breeze, but mostly when I walked him to the community troughs or out of puddles/ponds on trail. He drank maybe 3 1/2 gallons all weekend from his bucket. And this was amazing in itself as he usually only drinks 1/2 gallon or so from his bucket. Just replacing the water trough with a bucket and free access to the bucket may be enough to teach him to drink from a bucket, but probably not when it's offered. So I thought I'd start with offering from a bucket and when he was good about that, just leaving the bucket for free access for a week or two before returning the water trough. This is my endurance gelding with 360 endurance miles and a history of not taking care of himself (although he did do better at Summer Breeze). He has done 4 or 5 LDs also. He went one 25 mile LD ride without drinking a single drop until the finish. At one 50 last year he went 30+ miles before drinking. Any thoughts or pointers would be appreciated. Thanks, April Nashville, TN =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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