Summer Heat and the Best Electrolytes for Horses

Should you be giving your horse electrolytes this summer?

In this episode, April discusses whether horses should be given electrolytes during the summer. It depends on what the horse is doing.

Powdered electrolytes can burn a horse's esophagus and cause them to lose their appetite. Instead, April recommends using Dyna Spark, which is a liquid electrolyte that is more bioavailable and gentle on the system.

It also has ismene silica, which helps detoxify the liver and kidneys and pull out lactic acid.

April recommends giving electrolytes in small amounts, more often, as horses will only take what they need. The speaker also suggests using Dyna Spark to encourage horses to drink water when traveling or when the water source has an unpleasant smell.

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Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker 1

Hi, this is Lillian.

00:00:01 Speaker 1

I'm here with April Love.

00:00:03 Speaker 1

I was wondering during the summer should I electrolyte my horse or not?

00:00:09 Speaker 2

So, it all depends on what the horse is doing, of course.

00:00:12 Speaker 2

Powdered electrolytes burn the esophagus, and most people don't know that.

00:00:22 Speaker 2

When I was doing 50-mile endurance rides and people had the paste tubes they were fighting with the horse. The horse's head was all over. They were grabbing the bit and forcing it in their mouth.

00:00:33 Speaker 2

And it's like you taking a teaspoon of powdered Gatorade and just letting it sit in the back of your throat.

00:00:40 Speaker 2

It just really burns, and that's why they go off their food.

00:00:45 Speaker 2

People be like, oh, don't electrolyte and let them eat first

00:00:48 Speaker 2

And I'm like, OK, this isn't working for me. And then I found Dynamite Dyna Spark.

00:00:54 Speaker 2

So I do teach the muscle testing, yes/no 

00:00:58 Speaker 2

Does my horse need it?

00:01:00 Speaker 2

But I find that the Dyna Spark is a little bit more bioavailable and softer to the system.

00:01:07 Speaker 2

It's a raw organic molasses-based and it has ismene silica in it, which helps detoxify liver and kidneys, helps pull out lactic acid, but it tastes so good to me.

00:01:19 Speaker 2

It's like eating salt and vinegar, potato chips and any water you drink after that would taste so good.

00:01:25 Speaker 2

So, while everybody was fighting with their horse to electrolyte them, I had a little just pop-top water bottle, you know you could just with your teeth, pop the top up.

00:01:34 Speaker 2

And I had the liquid Dyna Spark in there.

00:01:37 Speaker 2

And I would just squirt it in the side of the horse’s mouth. Just a little bit, where the bit goes and they would try to eat the bottle.

00:01:44 Speaker 2

It was like oh, I really, really like this and I could actually do that from horseback because I had taught my horse in the endurance rides.

00:01:52 Speaker 2

I carried a water bottle on the saddle just for him when we were climbing really hard, steep hills, and I'd stop him and I would just lean to the side and squirt water in his mouth and he would just drink.

00:02:03 Speaker 2

And then we'd continue on up the hill so I could do that with the electrolytes as well.

00:02:07 Speaker 2

And I didn't have to get off and I'd be at the water trough doing my horse and all the other horses are trying to eat my bottle and they smell it and they're going, what is that?

00:02:17 Speaker 2

I'm like, electrolytes.

00:02:19 Speaker 2

They go and your horse wants it?

00:02:21 Speaker 2

I go. Yeah, he loves it. And he would only suck on the bottle as much as he needed so the electrolyte thing shouldn't be a big hard long dose.

00:02:32 Speaker 2

It should be little bits, more often.

00:02:34 Speaker 2

If you were a basketball player or something, you wouldn't fill up on electrolytes.

00:02:38 Speaker 2

You would take sips, you know, as you're sweating and the potassium, and, calcium, magnesium that you need for the muscle function and electrolytes and the salt, you know, you want that to be more over a sustained period.

00:02:51 Speaker 2

So, giving a little bit more often is always better.

00:02:55 Speaker 2

I've had horses that wouldn't eat anything or they're colicking and I'll let them, you know, suck that out of the bottle or I'll syringe it in their mouth and they'll turn right around and start eating or drinking.

00:03:07 Speaker 2

As long as there isn't a big colic in the stomach, I've crewed at the 100-mile Tevis race where horses were just dull and listless at mile 35 or 50 and not eating on the vet check, that they should and I squirt some Dyna Spark in their mouth and they turn right around and start eating hay. Or they go over and they drink.

00:03:28 Speaker 2

So it's a really nice safe thing where you aren't doing too much.

00:03:32 Speaker 2

They kind of take what they need.

00:03:35 Speaker 2

If you travel like I was doing on endurance rides and some of the water smelled bad, you could put like 1/2 a teaspoon in the water bucket and then the horses would still drink because when you're hauling and traveling.

00:03:48 Speaker 2

You need to have the electrolytes, they're sweating, they're pooping and peeing in the trailer.

00:03:52 Speaker 2

They're having to sleep somewhere that's uncomfortable.

00:03:55 Speaker 2

Or, a new barn or something and we would haul 8 to 10 hours to go to endurance rides and we would make them a little mash with like shredded beef pulp and oat hay pellets and warm water.

00:04:09 Speaker 2

And we put the Dyna Spark in there.

00:04:11 Speaker 2

And I mean, we were pulling them out on the side of the road at truck stops, and walking the horses.

00:04:17 Speaker 2

Around and they would just Sloop all this stuff up and when we got to our destination 12 hours later, they look great, you know?

00:04:25 Speaker 2

So it's really important to give them those.

00:04:28 Speaker 2

Do you know how much are they sweating?

00:04:29 Speaker 2

How much do they need?

00:04:31 Speaker 2

Let them sucking and, you know, drinking it and you always want to electrolyte before the event, not an hour before the event, but like the night before the event, you want to just start loading a little bit and the reason that it works so well with colicky horses is salt by osmosis, pulls water from the other surrounding areas and can give you diarrhea-ish kind of symptoms.

00:04:58 Speaker 2

So, if my horse went to an endurance ride and he had loose stools, I was actually happy because there's a lot of water in his gut before we're going to go do 50 miles.

00:05:08 Speaker 2

I'd rather see that than hard packed poop balls coming out, which tells me he's dehydrated and his system isn't moving along really well.

00:05:19 Speaker 2

So the Dyna Spark is definitely one of the products that I always had on hand, and one of the first things I would give to horses that were showing colic symptoms along with my lift, the ribs on each side and do the butt tucks.

00:05:34 Speaker 2

Part of my yoga to really get large and small intestines moving and move any blockages so you can find the Dinah spark on my dynamite website.

00:05:44 Speaker 2

It's very tasty and all animals like it.

00:05:49 Speaker 2

But you know, I would just give it to your horses at least once or twice a week.

00:05:53 Speaker 2

And the weather's hot and they're sweating. And remember to keep those water troughs clean. So, mosquitoes aren't, you know, laying eggs and stuff in it. And my ebook is study www.horseacademy.101.com. That's a good free e-book that you can get on where all the horse problems start.

00:06:18 Speaker 2