Thanks for all your replies, I do no a lot of people who will not feed them because they say they are bad for them! I did once have a horse who could not have them in the summer due to her protein line showing in her sole. But everyone at my present yard of about 50 do not. I know they can make them fizzy.
apparently they contain alot of natural sugars and can send some gee gees crazy!
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That's new one for me! Everyday's a school day
I always feed carrots as a treat whenever I have them. I can't say I've noticed a difference in her. How many carrots would send a horse loopy as I'd normally throw 4 into her feed and maybe hide another 4 in her haylage.
I use a lot in winter but phase them out for summer as apprently it makes horses more attractive to flies. My mare is a fly magnet and after taking them off her last summer I found a big difference in the amount of fly bites. I feel mean though as she just loves her carrots and they don't make her fizzy.
We can and do give them to the others, it's just the Appy who goes bonkers if she has them, but she also goes bonkers if she has Alfa-a, she has a lot of arab in her breeding and she is ridiculously sensetive to feeds with any extra sugar (she also gets fat really easily)
My cob gets them but very rarely, as YO said her old cob went loopy on carrots, and as Dibbs went a bit loopy did everything possible to get rid of loopiness!
He gets plenty of everything else though, apples, parsnips, swede, pears, mints etc
My Cushings horse is not really 'allowed' them now ... although initially it was ok .... then Vet changed her mind
... but as he will not eat all his Vits (he really needs them as the soaked hay contains nothing and he get very little grass!) by adding little slithers of carrots and an apple is the only way that he can be 'bothered' to eat his tea. Recently he has even turned his nose up at the High Fibre Nuts he has for breakfast, but the carrots get eaten
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My Cushings horse is not really 'allowed' them now ... although initially it was ok .... then Vet changed her mind
... but as he will not eat all his Vits (he really needs them as the soaked hay contains nothing and he get very little grass!) by adding little slithers of carrots and an apple is the only way that he can be 'bothered' to eat his tea. Recently he has even turned his nose up at the High Fibre Nuts he has for breakfast, but the carrots get eaten
... he used to love the nuts !!!
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Have you tried show mix? My friends boy is very fussy but he loves it....got alot of oils in though so not sure if it would be ok for yours....
I get those sacks full of them at this time of the year so they get a handful in their feeds every day, all except one pony who only gets 1 small one max a day because she is on a strict feeding regime to control her lami.
Toffee does over winter but only a few a day, Beano doesn't as they send him doolally, he's like a kid on E numbers on them! In fact anything sugary, gave him a Likit once, had to peel him off the ceiling...
They both have lots of other veg, scraps of what we have eg cabbage, brocolli, parsnips, sprout leaves etc
Carrots get too soggy too quickly in summer plus Toffee's diet will resume once the spring grass comes through...so anytime now really!
I feed a good handful 4 or 5 times a week. I'm suprised to hear that they effect some horse's behaviour. Surely a handful of carrots would have much less sugar in than few hours worth of grass? Then again my mare is a 16.3hh beastie so I imagine the sugar contained in a handful would barely register on her system!
Interesting point someone made about them attracting flys to horses in the summer. She is a fly magnet, so I'll try leaving them out.
Don't know why it is, but my 15.3 Appy looses the plot on carrots, but while she is on her toes on grass she does not go fruit loop on grass, but she does on the orange things!