Caring for Horses during High Heat

As the temperatures climb back up into the mid-90s and even approaching triple-digits in some areas, it’s important for horse owners to care for, and pay attention to their horses.

Dr. Jen Gold with WSU’s Large Animal Medicine program said horses can get fairly dehydrated if there isn’t enough water, or if they’re not stimulated to drink.

“When they don’t drink enough water they can actually get impactions which is basically when they get feed that builds up into their colon and that makes the colic.”

If they’re exercising while it’s hot, horses can experience heat stress, dehydration and have a drastic drop in electrolytes.

Gold said these heat problems are not that prevalent in the Northwest, but if the heat sneaks up on a horse owner, or they’re not used to the extreme heats.

“Make sure that they have enough fresh water to drink. Hosing them down helps with evaporative cooling. They can’t pant like a dog, so evaporative cooling helps. For those people that have horses not outside, having good ventilation in the barn and/or fans to move air around.”

Gold said horses can start to experience these heat symptoms as warm as 85 degrees.

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