Granite Bay, CA Horses are made up of 2/3 water. Water is the single biggest resource your horse has to keep performing at his potential. Horses need to drink several gallons per day in order to stay properly hydrated. A dehydrated horse is a non performing horse. So, at what point is a horse dehydrated? It actually occurs much more quickly than you might think. Dehydration is simply defined as not as much water as you should have. Simple enough…but what does that mean?

When a performance horse is performing, they sweat. The sweat results in fluid loss for the animal. It is very difficult to detect losses under 5%. However, at a loss of 2% there is a 10-20% reduction in performance. A huge reduction in performance and we don’t even know it. This reduction can be observed in impairment in reaction time, judgment, concentration, etc.

When dehydration occurs, the blood thickens. Therefore, the cardiovascular system has to work extra hard to get the blood around to maintain muscles and vital organs. As a result, some organs and systems are left without proper blood flow – i.e. Skin. The skin then reacts and is able to tent. Tenting is when you pinch the skin and it stays in the ”tent” position for a second or two before returning to flat. As you can hypothecate, when dehydration occurs, your athlete, your performance horse, is much more likely to become injured as a result of improper blood flow.

Not only does proper hydration keep your performance horse performing at the top of his game, it also enables him to train harder and longer. But…how do we maintain these proper levels of hydration? We all know we can’t make our horses drink. Or can we?

A single soaked flake of hay can contain between one to two gallons of water. For a 1200lb. horse, with 4 flakes of hay per day, that can be up to 8 gallons of water. Not only does soaked hay provide necessary treatments for several equine ailments, it also allows for our performance horses to perform to their complete potential with less risk for injury. “The Soaker” an automatic hay soaker invented by Jennifer Azevedo, is an example of a simple, easy, and portable hay soaking solution for the performance horse. “After a horse competes, he may not be thirsty, but by feeding soaked hay it doesn’t matter. Dry hay soaks up necessary water for the competition horse. The Soaker provides an easy resource to ensure proper hydration and a needed drink for the horse. ” states Azevedo.

The Soaker is a portable automatic hay soaker invented by Jennifer Azevedo. The Soaker is hay and feed unit that automatically fills, soaks, rinses, and drains without human interference. It is completely water powered and does not require any electricity to function. You set it and forget it! It will fill, soak, and drain automatically, every day, whenever you want, as much as you want. Want to soak for 20 minutes? An hour? Several hours? You may soak for how ever long you want. Just place your dry feed inside - and let The Soaker handle the rest. When it is feeding time, simply remove your freshly soaked, drained and clean hay. It is that easy to feed cleaner, healthier food. The Soaker automates and makes it easy for you to treat your horse as nature intended - with hydrated, clean forage and feed.

The Soaker

Jennifer Azevedo

www.justsoakit.com