A COOL Horse treat for your horse.

Summer is now officially here. In parts of the world it will be really hot. Humans have things to cool them selves with, either if it a treat that cools you down, or a fan, we all have something. I have thought about our equine friends, how do we cool our horses down this summer? well I have found a few great ideas to cool your horse down with treats this summer.

Please follow these ideas to cool your horse down:-

1) Every horse likes carrots, or apples right? well cut them into pieces and place them in the freezer. You then have pieces of frozen apple or carrot. You can put these in your horses food, or feed them as they are. With this idea you may place them in the horses water bowl, this then acts as a treat in their water. Please ONLY do this if your horse usually has treats in their water.

2) Take some of your horses, usual mixed feed, or some nuts. A small handful of the nuts or mixed feed should be enough to use. Sprinkle the mixture or nuts over an ice cube tray, make sure there is a bit in each compartment of the tray. Cover each compartment with water, you can fill the whole tray with water. Put them in the freezer and let them freeze, you then have frozen mix or nuts. You can also feed these to your horses as they are, or place them in their feed. Sometimes you can buy a bigger ice cube tray, that makes an ice cube that is bigger than the usual ones, maybe you could do this, and make a bigger ice cube for your horse?

3) This idea links back to idea 1. If your horse enjoys to eat turnip or Swede, put an hole in the middle of it, freeze it, then hang it in your horses stable.

4) If your horse is usually out during the day, and in at the night, fill a couple of buckets with ice cold water and place them in the middle of the stable, close all the doors and windows. This should then cool the stable down ready for your horse coming in at night. The air will not be as stuffy for your horse then, and will cool down quicker.

Tips:-

You can put some of the ice cubes in your horses water, this wont make your horses water ice cold, but it will make the water cold enough to drink.

If your horse doesn't like frozen things, or cannot eat frozen treats, cool some things in the fridge, they wont be as cold as coming from the freezer then, but will be cold enough.

Maybe you could add a little bit of cold water to the horses feed?

Make sure your horses has access to water and shade in hot sunny days at all times.

Warnings:-

There are a few warnings you have to follow about using the ice treats.

Don't over feed your horse frozen treats, for a start this is not good for your horse.

Don't be too hard on your horse - if it's a boiling hot day don't exercise them until the sun has started to go down or when the day it cooler

Do not feed iced treats to your horse immediately after exercise as this can cause spasmodic colic.

Thanks to www.wikihow.com for these treat ideas.