At the barn where I board, we just had an otherwise healthy middle aged horse die of colic caused by an impaction. He had access to water at all times, but the heated buckets hadn't come out yet for the winter. I had noticed that he wasn't drinking a lot of water in his stall- hard to tell what he was doing outside. His owner doesn't know what caused this colic. It was just such a sad situation. My farrier told me that he has already heard of about 20 colics this month with his client's horses.
This is so true. The only time I've had problems with colic is when the temps did a nose-dive and I didn't have heaters in the tanks early enough. Especially with the youngsters. They stop drinking (or just don't drink enough) and end up with colic. Which can be expensive (or deadly). The older horses don't seem as finicky, but if you heat that water, it's amazing how much more the older ones will drink, too. Cost of the heaters and the electricity is well worth the insurance. Not sure how much extra juice your heaters are pulling?? Just look at the wattage on the package. And then multiply that x 24 hours in the day x the cost for killowatt hour, and that will give you a ball park on what it will cost you to run the heaters. That's why I like the 125 watt built in buckets, as well as the 250 watt rings.
