Anyone forgot to provide water tonight?

Just came in from topping up the (heated) water tanks in the barns. No one's shivering, no one's unhappy, they're all quietly munching the extra hay I gave them, no troubles.

What I'm more worried about is the feral cats that have appeared over the last year... can't catch them to bring them in, so I just made them extra holes in the hay bales, put out extra food... anyone have any other ideas?

The temperature today has dropped 58 degrees, and continues to drop. Global warming, huh?

Edit: Ally, actually warm water reduces the chance of colic. Less of a shock to the stomach, plus they drink more which reduces dehydration and impaction colics.

I noticed that the horses are barely drinking ...

I'll be trying the extra salt in my horses feed to encourage more drinking...tx to the response you got indicating that's a good way to make them drink more.

All the paddocks "heated" waters at the boarding barn have completely frozen. Horses only going out for a few hours in the afternoon and then right back in the barn. When the barn is closed up, it becomes very warm so the water never freezes there.

The farm where I work is a different story. All the buckets were frozen solid this am. I get there around 6:30 am. First thing I did was bang out all the ice and filled one bucket for each horse and gave it to them straight away. they were very thirsty. I left the other buckets empty so they can fill tonite. The bigger concern there is some sort of gas leak from an attached "ball room". I was really surprised they did not fix it yesterday. The barn was so filled with fumes that it made me sick to my stomach. Hopefully they fix it today or just shut the gas off.

Tank heaters all around, so we're all set here! Unfortunately, a friend of mine lost a horse to colic just hours ago. Tragic. Not unexpected, though; the horse was prone to colic, but it happened so fast this time.

Re: Global warming... doesn't actually mean everything is getting hotter. Just climate change....

That's every winter in colorado :) You should put them in a nice warm barn and go out a few times during the day to break up waters. I think drinking warm water during cold weather could actually cause a horse colic but I am not sure.

We increase salt in the feed, soak alfalfa cubes in warm water and feed immediately. . . make sure the ice is broken.

And, yeah, so much for "global warming," right? Actually we're entering another time in a 120 cycle of global cooling. But don't let Al Gore's fans know. . .he's made millions off the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth.

Yes. . . . .

And so called "climate change" is a natural occurrence. . . .cyclical. It's related to solar flares, not anything people are doing. 120 year large cycles with overall increases and decreases in temperature, and within that cycle are mini-cycles (roughly 13 year durations) of warming and cooling trends, but an overall warming trend or cooling trend, and we happen to be in the downtrend of the 120 years and going into another period of overall global cooling.

1995-1020's - global cooling

1930's Global warming

1950's global warming

1950's global cooling

1960's global warming

1974-1980'a global cooling

1988-2010 global warming

This affects us and our horses directly as the feed industries are obviously affected (hay and grains)- decreased production and higher feed costs. And affects me personally as I hate riding in cold weather. Horses like it, we don't.

Put apples in your buckets! They constantly bob around which makes it impossible for it to freeze and when the water is all gone, your horse gets a nice treat :)

I've found that mind over matter helps a great deal with bad weather.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Heated water buckets also help. Otherwise, pots of hot water and a hammer can be fun in the middle of the night.

We have a tank heater so no worries. I also serve a nice warm bowl mash. I live in the Texas panhandle, its only supposed to get down to about 10* here tonite though, then a warmer week :)

My barn has special buckets that make it impossible for the water to freeze.