A Horse Owner's Guide To Using Salt and Licks:

naturalhorse1
Dec 11, 2015
2 min read

Updated: Jul 17

Otto ate the whole lick in 3 hours! Which is most worrying. — Otto ate the lot in 3 hours!😲

Introduction

I treated my horses to a new paddock lick this week, which I bought in a large plastic tub from my local farm store. I'm aware of the failure of mineral uptake by these licks, so I had planned to use it purely as a boredom buster for my horses!

Unexpected Consumption

And although this big rectangular plastic housed lick claimed to last for months, my white-faced big fella, Otto, horrified me when he got through it in just 3 hours!

Just look at that big brown stain on his face too—lol :) and that innocent expression that says—who me?—lol.

Health Risks

Seriously though, there is a real threat to health here. I have just run a glucose test on him, and it's absolutely scary sky high. I would seriously advise against using these, and I certainly will not be bothering ever again, as this has posed a serious health risk to my horse.

And I could kick myself as I know better...

Advice on Licks

So, I thought I would do a little article here to help others with this:

LICKS

We advise that if you want to give a lick, to use a plain Himalayan salt lick. However, please bear in mind that your horse will not get enough salt from using these, and you are basically putting it out as a boredom breaker only.

HOW MUCH TO USE

Therefore, I would highly recommend adding between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, depending on the size of your horse and of raw, unprocessed salt every day to your horse's feed, again in the form of pure Himalayan salt. I advise against using any other types of salts, as they have generally been processed to the point of eliminating all necessary nutritional benefits.

DANGERS

Like with all mammals, salt used in excess is as dangerous to horses as it is to us. It can raise blood pressure and cause many other potential health risks. Raised blood pressure (hypertension) is a major factor that causes strokes, heart failure, and heart attacks. There is also increasing evidence of a link between high salt intake and stomach cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, kidney stones, kidney disease, vascular dementia, and water retention, so please take care not to give too much.