Horses that urinate excessively suffer from polyuria (PU); to remain adequately hydrated, the horse must increase his drinking, called polydipsia (PD). These conditions, which often go hand-in-hand, can indicate disease or a behavior problem, or be a consequence of diet, says Dr. Harold Schott of Michigan State University.
A horse's kidneys filter waste products from the blood and eliminate them from the body in the form of urine. They also regulate the volume of water in the body by concentrating or diluting urine. Nearly 100 percent of water filtered from the blood is reabsorbed by the kidney tubules. A small decrease in water reabsorption can result in a large increase in urine production.
Diet affects urine output in distinct ways. A foal drinking his dam's milk may ingest as much as five times as much water as an adult horse and produce clear urine 10 to 12 times a day. A mature horse on an all-hay diet may only pass dark yellow urine two or three times a day. Horses fed mainly alfalfa may have wetter stalls with fewer manure piles; this is because legume hay is higher in protein and calcium, and is more digestible than grass hay.
Excessive urination can be caused by chronic kidney disease (CKD), where the kidneys can no longer produce concentrated urine. A horse suspected of having this disease will need blood drawn to test its nitrogen and creatinine concentrations, which will be higher if the horse has CKD.
If urine samples collected from the affected horse show nothing out of the ordinary, the horse may be drinking excessive amounts of water out of boredom. This occurs most often in horses that are confined to stalls most of the day. This behavior can be modified by allowing the horse more turnout time or limiting his water supply to two five-gallon buckets a day.
Read more at EQUUS magazine.
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