Why won horses drink?
The reason why horses don’t feel the need to drink when they dehydrate is because of the nature of their sweat. When we humans sweat, we sweat mostly water and the salt concentration builds up in our bodies, that’s why we want to drink, to dilute these, whereas horses sweat equal amounts of salt and water, so the salt concentration in their bodies does not increase, so they don’t feel the same need to drink. Consequently even though they are clearly dehydrated, when you lead them to water you can’t make them drink! They’re not stubborn — their bodies are just not giving them an early enough warning signal. And when they do eventually drink, they are quite close to being clinically dehydrated before they even feel this urge to drink. It is odd why horses would be so insensitive to what, even in the wild, is something that is so obviously dangerous to them – i.e., dehydration.
