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gets turned out to drink from the field tub) they will take a sip or two from the dirty water.

For the most part, the horses will leave the dirty water alone, but that is the start of the cycle to cause colic without water, that food they are nibbling will not be able to pass through the gut and colic is just waiting to happen.

Rapid Change in Diet:

When we move our horses from one location to another, many horse owners are pretty good about making sure that they switch from the feed at the old location to the new feed in a gradual manner, but let's just recap on that.

My 12% protein feed may be very different from your 12% fat feed ration. It doesn't sound like much, but it is enough to upset the delicate equine digestive balance. Unless you are going to go through the guaranteed analysis labels on each of the different feeds
And ensure that the old and the new food is EXACTLY the same, you must assume that it isn't. When you move your horse, take at least one bag of the old feed with you. If the farm you are at won't sell you a bag, go to the feed store yourself and buy a bag. It may be an expensive way to buy feed, one bag at a time, but it is surely less expensive that the vet fees for colic to the risk to your horse's life.

At the new farm, provide explicit, written instructions on how to transition from the old food to the new. It will depend on how much food your horse gets, but a rough guide is to replace 1/8th of the feed ration with the new feed increasing the amount, an 1/8th at a time, every 3 days. So for example, my Welsh gets a half scoop at each meal. Look at the chart below for how I would change his feed:

Days Old Feed New Feed
1 though 4 1 scoop None
5 though 8 7/8 1/8
9 though 11 3/4 1/4
12 through 14 5/8 3/8
15 through 17 1/2 1/2
18 through 20 3/8 5/8
21 through 24 1/4 3/4
25 through 27 1/8 7/8
27 onwards None 1 scoop

The stress of relocating can also cause colic so don't mess with the food until the horse has had a chance to relax in his new home. For the 1st 4 days he gets exactly the same as he got at the previous home.

Of course, this raises the question of what is a scoop? Some scoops will hold twice as much as others. Some farms use a coffee can. The size of a scoop is as varied as there are farms out there. Before you move your horse, take a pair of kitchen scales to the barn and weigh a scoop of your horse's feed. Make sure you use the same feed your horse is being fed sweet feed weighs more than pellet because of the molasses, for example. Then

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