How to Teach a Horse to Drink from an Automatic Waterer

A veterinarian and horse behavior expert offers advice for introducing your horse to an automatic waterer.
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How to Teach a Horse to Drink from an Automatic Waterer
A waterer that is quiet, refills automatically maintaining water in the bowl, and has a large water receptacle that provides a spacious view of the surroundings is going to be more inviting to the horse and will be easier for him to learn to use. | Photo: Courtesy Ritchie Industries

Q. Do I need to teach my horse to drink out of an automatic waterer? Or will he figure it out on his own?

A. Horses largely learn to drink from automatic waterers on their own. In preparation for this article, I surveyed a number of trainers and none said they actually had to teach the horse to drink from a waterer. My foals learn to drink from the automatic waterer at a very young age.

A waterer that is quiet, refills automatically maintaining water in the bowl, and has a large water receptacle that provides a spacious view of the surroundings is going to be more inviting to the horse and will be easier for him to learn to use. One that requires a push from the horse’s muzzle on a pressure plate and then noisily flushes water into the bowl might be initially frightening and more challenging for the horse to learn to use and might be too difficult for foals or small horses to operate

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Prior to attending veterinary school, Dr. Nancy Diehl completed a master’s degree in animal science while studying stallion sexual behavior. Later, she completed a residency in large animal internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center and worked in equine practices in Missouri and Pennsylvania. Diehl also spent six years on faculty at Penn State, where she taught equine science and behavior courses and advised graduate students completing equine behavior research. Additionally, Diehl has co-authored scientific papers on stallion behavior, early intensive handling of foals, and feral horse contraception. Currently she is a practicing veterinarian in central Pennsylvania.

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