South African Equine Veterinary Association Congress 2015 Protea Hotel Stellenbosch
(like bath water) after sitting in the sun all day, owners should share some of the ice with their
horses.
For the client full of questions about electrolyte supplementation, have them take a close look at
the contents of the electrolyte supplements on the shelf the next time they go to the feed mill or
tack shop. They should try to determine out how much of each product would be needed to
replace the electrolytes lost during a good workout (1-2 hours) of trotting and cantering on a hot,
humid day: about 10 kg of sweat containing as much as 75 g of NaCl and 30 g of KCl (have them
take a calculator). They will likely find that many of the products contain more sugar than
electrolytes, yet we still don‟t know if horses really need this sugar as much as human athletes do.
Finally, have them compare the cost of giving these supplements to replace the 10 kg sweat
electrolyte loss to the cost of 75 g of NaCl and 30 g of KCl (equal to about 1.5 oz of table salt
[NaCl and 2 oz of lite salt [½ NaCl and ½ KCl] that they can purchase at the grocery store). I
expect that they will find the comparison a bit surprising.
References
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