Improve Equine

Improve Equine makes Flavors Hydration Mixes: powdered herbs, spices and whole foods that make a horse's water more interesting and aromatic, so the horse wants to drink. They have no added sugar, salt, copper or electrolytes. Put out a few choices, let your horse show you his favorites, and turn drinking from a chore into a treat.

How Do You Get a Horse to Want to Drink?

Every horse owner knows the saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Most of us have spent decades trying anyway. We add salt, electrolytes and sweeteners, and then we stand next to a full bucket hoping.

Improve Equine starts from a different question. Instead of asking "How do I make my horse drink?" it asks, "What would make this horse want to drink?" The answer is its Flavors Hydration Mixes, and the idea behind them is what founder Sara Kirkwood calls Hydration, Modernized.

Improve Equine helps horses that aren't drinking enough by providing healthy flavors, herbs and choices to make drinking a more enjoyable experience.

Why Do We Treat Water Like a Free Utility?

Improve Equine understands that consuming water is vital to the health and well-being of your horses. Think about how much planning goes into what your horse eats. We compare hay cuttings, read feed tags, debate supplements and adjust rations by season and workload. Water, meanwhile, comes out of a hose. It is always there, it costs almost nothing, and it gets almost no thought until something goes wrong.

And yet water is the most foundational nutrient a horse has. Digestion, temperature regulation, gut motility and performance all depend on it. A horse can lose weight and recover, but a horse who stops drinking at the wrong moment can become a veterinary emergency.

Sara Kirkwood, founder of Improve Equine, puts it simply: water shouldn't be an afterthought. It deserves the same kind of plan we give everything else in the feed room.

Who Is Behind Improve Equine?

Sara Kirkwood is a Navy veteran and a 30-year engineer and technologist. She brings a systems-design mindset to the products and processes horse owners have always relied on, and to the common situations we all find ourselves in.

Her goal is to re-evaluate the habits that are "the way it's always been done" and update them using what we now know from equine behavioral and scientific research. The aim is to improve the experience of the horse and of the person caring for him.

What Is a Hydration Strategy?

A hydration strategy is knowing, before you need it, how your horse drinks and what makes him drink more. It means prioritizing hydration all the time, not just reacting to a specific event. It covers his habits at home and how he responds to heat, hauling, show stabling and unfamiliar water, and it means having something familiar ready when circumstances change.

Most owners discover their horse's hydration problem at the worst possible time. The horse drinks fine at home, then refuses water on the second day of a show, three hours from his own barn. The water may be perfectly safe, but it doesn't smell or taste like home, and a stressed horse in a strange stall isn't in the mood to experiment.

A hydration strategy moves that experimenting to a quiet Tuesday at home, where it belongs.

Why Does Improve Equine Separate Flavor From Salt and Electrolytes?

This is the heart of Hydration, Modernized. Many products bundle flavor, salt and electrolytes together into one scoop. It sounds efficient, but it forces two very different jobs to compromise.

Salt and electrolytes are a replacement job. How much a horse needs depends on sweat loss, workload, climate and diet, and that dose should be set by those factors and ideally guided by your veterinarian or equine nutritionist. Wanting to drink is a desire job. It depends on smell, taste, novelty, stress and the individual horse's preferences.

When both jobs share a bucket, neither one gets optimized. If the water is salty enough to meet electrolyte needs, some horses won't touch it. If it is mild enough to be palatable, it may not be doing the replacement job at all. Many owners have watched a horse refuse the electrolyte bucket entirely, which defeats the purpose of both.

Improve Equine's Flavors contain no added salt or electrolytes by design. That leaves you free to manage electrolytes on their own terms, in the amount your horse actually needs, while the Flavors do one job well: making water something your horse is interested in. Separating the jobs doesn't make electrolytes less important. It lets each one be done right.

Who Has Time for a Water Buffet?

It is a fair question from anyone running a barn, and the answer is that the system is built to save time, not use it. Improve Equine calls it the Water Buffet Method, and it works in three steps.

After that, getting him to drink stops being a daily negotiation. The horse sees his favorite flavor as a treat. That is time back in your day, and a lot less standing next to a full bucket saying "please."

What Should I Watch For During the Water Buffet?

Sara describes three responses owners typically see, and every one of them is useful information.

Anyone who has owned more than one horse knows they don't all like the same things. The Water Buffet simply lets each horse tell you what he likes.

Which Improve Equine Sampler Should I Start With?

Improve Equine is set up so you can sample first and let the horse do the shopping before you commit to a larger bag.

The Six-Pack Water Buffet sampler is the natural starting point for most owners. It contains six 15-gram pouches: Root Revival, Golden Gulp, Carrot Cool Down, Basic Batch, As American As and Caked Up Carrot. That is enough to run a real taste test rather than offering one sip and guessing.

The Palate Profile sampler contains Soul Soup, Mint Condition and Ready Roadie. These are three of the stronger aromatic profiles, and they are especially useful for picky drinkers and horses who travel. If you own the horse who notices a teaspoon of anything new under a full bucket of feed, start here.

The Tasting Trough sampler is the newest addition, offering three more flavors to explore: Nanner Beets, Gourd Vibes Only and It's So Very. Sara plans to rotate selected flavors seasonally, based on what horses and owners actually prefer. Horses notice novelty, so a new option can re-spark interest in a horse who has grown bored with the usual bucket.

What Do I Buy Once I Know My Horse's Favorite?

Once your horse has voted, Travel Pouches hold eight servings, which flavors roughly 16 gallons of water. They are easy to keep in the trailer, tack trunk or show box. For regular barn use, the 2-pound Bulk Bag holds approximately 100 servings.

Multi-flavor bundles are available for owners, trainers and multi-horse barns who already know what their horses like. The full lineup includes twelve flavors, so there is plenty of room to find a fast yes.

How Do I Get My Horse to Drink While Traveling?

This is where a hydration strategy pays off. Discover your horse's preferred flavor at home and let it become familiar there, then bring that same flavor with you. Improve Equine specifically recommends establishing the familiarity ahead of time rather than introducing something new on the morning of the show.

A strange barn's water can then smell and taste like something he already knows and likes. Ready Roadie was developed with exactly those travel days in mind.

Can I Use the Flavors Beyond the Water Bucket?

Yes. The same mixes can be stirred into feed to entice a bored or picky eater, and they can help mask an unwelcome taste when a medication can appropriately be given in feed. Always follow your veterinarian's directions for medications.

The mixes can also add interest to lick mats for enrichment, and they make an easy base for no-sugar-added homemade treats. The Flavors are light, with fewer than 35 calories and no added sugar per serving, so they don't have to sit unused during months when your horse is drinking well.

What Should I Do If My Horse Won't Drink?

Start with the basics. A horse who suddenly stops drinking or eating, especially one who seems dull, uncomfortable or colicky, needs veterinary attention. Always provide plenty of clean, fresh plain water.

For the otherwise healthy horse who is simply a poor drinker, a picky traveler or a food critic in a horse suit, stop assuming you know what he prefers. Set up a Water Buffet, watch for the fast yes, the slow yes and the hard no, and let him tell you. Sample. Discover. Stock up. Then use what your horse has already told you he likes.

Why Choose Improve Equine?

Got a picky drinker, or just want to give your horse healthy drinks that brighten his day? Improve Equine's Flavors Hydration Mixes make water something horses want, and the Water Buffet Method lets each horse choose.