Salt Licks

[Gracie]

I just realized my horses new barn doesn't have any salt licks...how important is salt to a horses diet! I know someone has told me this before... But it just seems to have slipped my mind! I feel soo silly! DO u recommend I should get my horse a salt lick? Thanks for any help!:D

[Wally]

It has to be said some horses love thier lick, but plain salt should be found naturally in their diet.

If you are doing lots of fast work and causing them too sweat a lot then I suppose it is a good idea to have one about the place to replace lost salt.
Naturally horses wouldn't do lots of fast work every day.

Mineralised ones can be useful if you, like us, suffer mineral shortages in the land. We have a terrible copper and cobalt and selenium deficiency, even our sheep get copper enriched mineral blocks.....which is unheard of south.

Added minerals is the only reason we give them because the land is constantly being drenched by the sea where we are.

[galadriel]

Salt is VERY important especially if your horse is sweating.

If you feed a marketed pellet or sweet feed, it most likely has an adequate amount of salt for day-to-day. I always add some form of electrolytes to their dinner if they've worked in the heat. Going to a show in a couple of weeks, and will be adding electrolytes to their breakfast as well as dinner.

[Gracie]

well right now my horse is basically living off of grass, because they tend to eat enough of that.... they are out for over 12 hours a day sometimes more depending on the weather. But in the fall/winter she well have sweet feed in her diet. Shes not a show horse and she doesn't get worked a lot... maybe a salt lick would be a good idea if shes not being fed right now?

[maverick927]

My pony's lick is very important to him as straight after exercise he licks away at it.

[virtuallyhorses]

Its certainly not going to do any harm and if you place a good sized mineral salt block in the paddock, perhaps near the water trough, your horse can make its own choices about how much supplementation it wants.