Safe Treats For Your Horse

Many of us give treats to our horses and ponies as a reward during training or simply because we care for them. The healthiest treats are those similar to a horse’s natural diet. To ensure safety, make sure your horse remains respectful and doesn’t become aggressive or nippy.

Many horse owners don't believe in feeding treats at all. This is your decision, and you need to take into consideration the respectfulness and personality of your horse or pony. If your horse is at all nippy or has other band ground manners, you may decide that the risk of giving your horse treats is too great and that it may make your horse a danger. Horse bites hurt, and especially if little children feed a treat, fingers can get bitten, pockets can be ripped and your horse can mow you down in eagerness.

So use your discretion, despite how you personally feel about treat feeding, especially feeding treats by hand.

Safe horse treats include:

• Raisins
• Sugar cubes
• Pitted dates
• Hay cubes
• Apple pieces
• Carrot pieces
• Sunflower seeds (with or without shells)
• Peppermints
• Purchased pre-made horse treats
• A portion if its normal grain or concentrates

You'll find horses have different tastes too. Some may love peppermints or sugar cubes and some prefer carrots or hay cubes.

If you often carry treats in your pockets or feed from your hands, you might teach your horse a bad habit. He might decide that all pockets or fingers contain treats and nip at your clothes and fingers. A horse that is pushy about getting treats can be dangerous. It's easy to get bitten or have your clothing ripped by a greedy horse. The safest way to feed treats is to put them in a bucket or feeder.

Some treats can be a choking hazard. Apples and carrots are safest to feed cut into pieces. Only feed a very small amount of any hard foods like mints and hay cubes. A greedy horse may not chew the treat completely and bolt it down. The food can then become lodged in the horse's throat, causing choke.

In the book, "Arabian Exodus," author Margaret Greely describes the Bedouin custom of feeding horses whole dates. After their meal, the trough would be covered in pits. While swallowing a few date pits might not cause a problem, you'll want to remove the pit or stone of any fruit you feed if it is large enough to cause a choking hazard.

Some things are not good for treats:

• Lawn, hedge or garden clippings.
• Anything in the mustard family like broccoli, cabbage leaves, kale or cauliflower.
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Acorns
• Chocolate, which, if you are competing, can cause a positive drug test.

Avoid giving treats to unfamiliar horses, as they might have medical conditions that prohibit certain foods. Also, some owners do not support treat feeding. Always dispose of food wrappers securely, as a peppermint-scented bag could be ingested, causing a potentially deadly blockage.

Horses will eat surprisingly weird foods, from roast beef sandwiches to ice cream. Historically, horses have been fed some strange things to survive, like fish. However, horses are herbivores, or animals whose digestive system is geared to digesting grass and soft plant matter. Although some horses can eat these things with no apparent ill effects, it is always better to stick to treats similar to their natural foodstuffs. Learn about foods a horse should not eat.