Carrots, honey oat granola bars, and apple treats

 

I don't usually feed treats (except to Spice!) but i normally give carrots, apples and occasionally bananas.

For Christmas we bought sugar cubes to spoil our ponies, and they all like those. We have to buy brown sugar cubes because Spice is so fussy she spits out the white ones.

 

My 20 yr. old son is very strict about what is given to his horses and when.

so, they are given treats at specific times. .... i.e. when they EARN them with good behavior or cooperate with us. And then they are given only part of an apple, cut into pieces (cut since our OTTB is prone to choke) or a few baby carrots....or certain horse cookies. He only uses a certain kind as most horse treats are too big for our OTTB to eat safely.....but there is one kind that comes in bite size nuggets and he often uses them.

They are alllowed NO other "human" foods.


Just apple pieces, baby carrots or small sized horse treats. Poor little horseys....lol.

 

I don't generally give treats and never hand feed. Right now our pear trees are full & pears becoming ripe so they get the occasional small pear. I do share a bottle of Guinness with Woodstock once a week though :wink:

 

We've given the normal apples and carrots. We also give them apple/oat flavored wafers. They like the sugar beets we find along the road during harvest time and they like to pull ears of corn from the farmers fields. Some of ours like black licorice too. They don't care for bananas or any other human food.

 

I have some horse crunch that I keep around. It can be used as a complete feed, but I just use it as a treat. They sure love them!

 

I go with carrots, apples, and pears (when in season). I also buy Dumor treats in TSC (they are rather cheap and have the smallest amount of vit/min added I could find).

 

Small pieces of carrot or pumpkin, their pelleted supplement, rosehips, fruit tree & other extra yummy leaves are my general 'treats' of choice, as I do often give them & use them as positive reinforcement in training too. Therefore I want to stick to 'health food'. But I don't think the occasional lolly, slice of bread, cookie, etc is bad - bit like junk food for us I reckon - it's fine if it's occasional, just bad for you if it's a routine regular part of your diet. My old horse used to love sharing the odd sausage roll with me...

 

I usually bring carrots to my horse, as well as the occasional apple. His owner also leaves a package of Dobbin's Delights Apple & Oat treats every 8 weeks when she comes to deworm him.

 

PB and J. Beau is obsessed. He gets is occasionally. But he loves sharing apples and carrots with me as well.

When I was a kid there was a horse at my lesson barn that loved coffee and donuts. Too funny.

 

Heres a good site:
Equine Recline - Safe and Unsafe Fruits and Vegetables for Horses

 

Gelding loves winter green mints, bananas, and extruded apple treats and my mare is picky, but she likes apples.

 

Peppermint, apples, carrots, Dumor cookies, oatmeal cookies, crackers, chips, beer, coke, chicken biscuits...you name it..Hickory will eat it.

Nikki and Lark will stick with the apples, carrots, and cookies..

 

My gelding LOVES peppermint candies.

He escaped one day and was running around a near by neighborhood. He was so full of himself there was no catching him. All I had in my car was old receipt...I crumpled it and it made the same noise as a candy wrapper. Horse.Caught.

 

Never used to give treats to other horses I was around, or worked, but since Ive bought Rodeo, I give him treats everyday I go out, yes I know it is not a good thing, but there are exceptions to when I give them. I give him one when I first get there, and 1 right before I leave. He LOVES peppermints.

Besides that, I really dont "treat" him. ;D

 

i give carrots, apples, watermelon, then waffers, any type of horse treats. chips. bread. sometimes pizza, uhhh peppermints, alfelfa cubes. thats all i can think of. Harley gets treats alot hes 13 adn doesnt get nippy an dif he does a flick in the nose stops him. the other two will get some but not as much they are 3 adn 4 and get very nippy and take a few flicks and they dont need them like harley does haha.

 

I give Lacey treats sometimes because, well, she's just so darn cute. And my lessons kids like to feed her something "special", so they get to feed her one treat at the end of every lesson if they want.
Her absolute favorite store-bought treat, of alllllllll time, is "Dobbin's Delight's: Apple and Oat". She will do absolutely anything to get one of those. Her favorite "real" things are apples. Can you say someone has a preference for apples, at all? haha
She used to be pretty willing to eat pretty much anything until I tried feeding her white cheese popcorn (not really sure why I thought that was a good idea anyway) this last summer.... She apparently thought that was disgusting and now refuses to take things that don't fit her idea of "food" from me. hahaha

She doesn't get nippy because I've trained her to look to the side when she wants a treat that you have. And since nipping/nudging/mouthing/whatever and looking to the side are incompatible, voila!

 

Our 3 horses split an apple and carrots twice a day.

In the summer when it's hot, dry, and dusty, we give them ice cold watermelon, which they really like mid afternoon when they're miserable.

For some reason, they don't like beer; can't quite figure that out, but what do I know?

Some say treats are bad, but frankly, I enjoy giving treats to them.

I'd NEVER spoil my horses.....NO SIR.....not me!:lol:

 

PEPPERMINTS ! my mare is crazy about them ! also pb and j =]