Feeding your horse bread?

Shavings

Shavings

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feeding your horse bread?

does any one do it?

is it bad for them?

is it good for them?

i never have done it or even really thought about it but a new livery 4 doors up from me feeds her pony a sandwich ever evening and says its his treat for the day

just wondered hat affects it may have on a horse and does any one else do this?
 
Many years ago we used to feed bread to horses, in fact quite a lot but it was well soaked down with water first. I don't do it now though.
 
No I haven't, no I wouldn't. I have no idea if nutritionally is is a good or bad thing but I seriously don't understand why a horse needs a daily treat. Mine have ample grazing, good quality feed if they are in and ad lib hay. No need for jam sandwiches, polos, refreshers or all the other sugary rubbish people give their horses.

Apologies for rant!
 
Our horses & ponies loved old bread e.g. crusts, single slices of bread, stale pieces of pastry. Occasionally we got a big bag of leftovers from a bakery nearby and we fed it in small portions. Was more like a treat.
 
Bread is full of gluten not good for horses .
However I used to feed my first pony slices of mothers pride all the time he looked well on it .
 
I have heard of people feeding bread to put weight on horses that are poor. Personally I try to feed a healthy balanced forage based diet without cereal, and my horse is a pretty good doer, so it wouldn't occur to me to feed bread.
 
Dried bread is nothing but empty carbs and sugars (especially the white variety) and, depending on the ingredients, god knows what additives can be in it. Can be fed as a small treat, but shouldn't be fed to laminitics, sugar-sensitive individuals etc.

Fresh bread, on the other hand, may cause colic and should not be fed at all.
 
I worked on a yard in Australia 13 or so years ago and twice a week the local bakery would deliver all the unsold stale bread products (inc iced buns) and we would drive around the horse fields throwing them off the back on the pick-up. Horses loved it.

Probably really bad for them, but there was a drought at the time and some of the lighter built horses were really starting to look ribby, so something was better than nothing.....
 
A riding school back in Norfolk fed only bread and carrots. For all its various other failings, the horses weight and health were never an issue!

Nugz occasionally gets crusts, and he gets some of a bun off a bacon roll at a show. But its not very often at all.
 
Met a man whose Hackney seemed to live on bread and apples

About 30yrs or more ago was sitting in the tack room with the farrier and others and the girls were all excited about a new feed to put weight on, farrier picked up the bag and said that's just bread and vit/mins you could do it yourself for a fraction of the cost (I can't remember what feed it was)

If you have a sickly sheep/goat this has saved quite a few over the years, put 2 pieces of wholemeal bread (Nothing else but wholemeal due to bloat) in a mug, put in 2 spoonfuls of marmite and cover in hot water, let it go to mush and feed it, syringe if need be

Never fed bread to equines but one did put his head in the jockey door and pinch a ham sandwich, I do know someone who gives her mare a piece of toast every morning :)
 
Cecile said:
About 30yrs or more ago was sitting in the tack room with the farrier and others and the girls were all excited about a new feed to put weight on, farrier picked up the bag and said that's just bread and vit/mins you could do it yourself for a fraction of the cost (I can't remember what feed it was)
Click to expand...

Isn't it Baileys No.1? Crumbs soaked in fat? I remember a feed that was that, at least.
 
Old cob loves a slice of bread as a treat, or ideally a peanut butter sandwich - at the age of 30 I reckon he deserves a few of his favourite things now and again. When I first bought him he was in a field next to a home for people with learning difficulties and they fed the horses the ends of sliced loaves each morning.

I know that wheat is not a normal horse food - but if you look at the ingredients in a lot of pony cubes etc then micronised (cooked) wheat is often listed!
 
Nugget La Poneh said:
Isn't it Baileys No.1? Crumbs soaked in fat? I remember a feed that was that, at least.
Click to expand...

You could be right, it was so many years ago but Baileys was quite the feed to buy at that time
Farrier (long gone now) was an incredible source of knowledge and he only opened the bag and had a quick look at the ingredients and knew exactly what the magic feed was :)
 
SEL said:
I worked on a yard in Australia 13 or so years ago and twice a week the local bakery would deliver all the unsold stale bread products (inc iced buns) and we would drive around the horse fields throwing them off the back on the pick-up. Horses loved it.
Click to expand...

In the early '70s when hay suddenly shot up in price and it wasn't easy to afford any wastage, I did similar - was given scrap bread from the bakery by a local farming friend. No obvious side effects, but I only did it one winter if I remember rightly. It's based on wheat which is high in starch but it depends on the % of the daily diet. Small amounts won't hurt I don't think
 
If they are in the right paddock ours get a slice with a carrot every morning when our elderly neighbour feeds the birds. We did ask him to stop when they were on a track in case of arguments but normality resumed this winter. They have breakfast, go out in the field and hang around at his end of the field pretending they aren't waiting for seconds :D

It is worth pointing out that they only seem to like bread that they know they shouldn't really be having, they won't eat it on the yard or have any of a sandwich etc!
 
marmite sandwiches can be used to keep flies away the b vitamins in marmite are good for them but one sandwich or so a day I doubt would do much harm. We too fed bakery old stop and crusts from the bread packing machines to put weight on skinny TBs, we also fed draff which was the boiled barley waste part of the whisky industry a lorry turned up with the steaming mass and dumped on a hard standing in the field
 
If I have an out of date loaf/slicee gone a bit moldy(or left over ends). I give a couple of slices to my pony rather than waste them. Never did her any harm. She won't eat them if they are green though lol Wouldn't do it everyday though
 
Everybody throws their old baguettes to the horses over here, including me, you can go into any supermarket and ask for them and iv'e even seen adverts on line, i don't do it every day but at least once a week a few go into the field and they love it
 
I used to feed my old cob a marmite sandwich every day to help him with his sweet itch, my daughter's current pony has sweet itch but I just use brewer yeast as a supplement now as there is no way she needs the fat/sugar/carbs - welsh pony who needs more fresh air than anything! My husband's hunt horse used to get a loaf of bread a week thrown in his field as a treat but we don't do that now either xx
 
Oh my! Years ago, when i was young, a friend of my Mums ran a catering business and he used to bring round the cut off crusts from the sandwiches. We used to throw them into the field for my ponies as a treat. They would love it. I suppose in those day you weren't so aware of what you should and shouldn't feed. None of them ever suffered any ill effects and apart from a few leg injuries I can't remember them ever being ill! not sure I would give them bread now though.
 
Mine is highly suspicious of any food that isn't "for horses" once my friend and I stopped for an ice cream whilst on a hack and harking back to her childhood my friend got a slice of bread for the horses to share whilst we ate our ice cream. My horse was horrified after snorting and looking at it suspiciously she eventually tasted a bit and spat it out. Her loss was my friend's horse's gain though 😁
 
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