How to encourage horse to drink water?

You cant' 'make' a horse drink, but there are things to do that will making them absorb more water. Soaked hay and grain will ensure the horse gets more moisture. Cool water if your weather's hot, warm water if it's cold there. Offer a bucket of plain water, and one with some electrolytes in it so she can choose which she wants.

If she's having issues dropping her head to drink, hang the bucket higher for her.

Keep an eye on that 'gurgling on one side". You want gut sounds that sound like muted thunderstorms on both sides of the belly, equally. Sounds on only one side can be one of the signs of impending trouble. Keep checking her gums to be sure they're pale, pink and moist with a capillary refill time of 3seconds or less (press your thumb onto her gum firmly, then remove it.. the time it takes for color to return is your capillary refill time). You want to monitor manure production, texture and volume. You also want to check her heart rate. An average of 40 beats per minute is a sign of a comfortable horse. Anything above 44 bpm could signal discomfort in some cases.

Good luck.

You can be hard put to make a horse drink who doesn't want to. Adding salt to their diet can help, putting a teaspoon in with his breakfast or offering a salt lick, or giving electrolytes can all encourage them to drink.

I've known people dilute their water with a bit of apple juice as well to make it a bit tastier and this has helped. There are also some products out, can't remember the name of them but had a sample once, that encourage horses to drink and they work quite well.

Another thing to do would be to look at what water you're feeding, have you changed it? Some horses are very oddly fussy and will only drink certain types of water, so make sure you're offering good clean water, and maybe even see changing where you get the water might help.

If your horse was borderline colic though, a bit thought you need is why that got to that point in the first place. Is there something you've done to the water lately, or a change in situation that might have put your horse off drinking enough?

I have this problem with my mare when traveling to shows or different barns... Use a little bit of coke or Gatorade. A lot of horses won't drink water if the iron is too high, or is different from what they were drinking beforehand. If that doesn't work, there is paste you can buy to put in their mouth that will make them NEED to drink.

If it is because she is too sore to put her head down, raise the water up so she can reach it. Also if by chance you feed alfalfa, or even grass hay..buy some cubes and water them down. When I was in Alaska, water froze quickly..and even with a tank heater, they just did not drink enough. i would put hay cubes in a bucket and pour warm water over them until they started breaking up, then fed to them..2 reasons: 1 to reduce choking on cubes, and 2 to provide water. Works well.

I've heard that you can lure your horse to water by adding apple juice, I'm not sure if it works though. Also try adding some water to her feed. Best of luck!

Fill it with goat urine