Fruit and veg that horses can have

muckypony

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For your horses sake don't feed fruit and veg.

Do you never give your horse apples or carrots, ever!? :eek:

I've always fed my horses peelings and bits we dont eat at home - carrots, parsnips, cabbage/cauliflower etc. Of course, in moderation.

I also feed bread occasionaly (ver occasionaly!)... My ponies love it, they will do anything for it! At the moment, its the only thing i can use to catch them! I used to feed it to my old pony to help make her poo less loose :p Spoke to various vets re feeding bread and they said as long as you don't feed a lot then its fine.
 

Pale Rider

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Do you never give your horse apples or carrots, ever!? :eek:

I've always fed my horses peelings and bits we dont eat at home - carrots, parsnips, cabbage/cauliflower etc. Of course, in moderation.

I also feed bread occasionaly (ver occasionaly!)... My ponies love it, they will do anything for it! At the moment, its the only thing i can use to catch them! I used to feed it to my old pony to help make her poo less loose :p Spoke to various vets re feeding bread and they said as long as you don't feed a lot then its fine.

Nope, I only give celery as a treat, thats it.

Their feed is a non sugar non cereal based feed and ad lib forage.

What they call a barefoot diet now. :)
 

Buds_mum

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Ahh well my horse is shod so I'm the odd apple will be reet ;) ;)
His shoes mask how foot sore his awful diet makes him surely? :p
 

muckypony

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Nope, I only give celery as a treat, thats it.

Their feed is a non sugar non cereal based feed and ad lib forage.

What they call a barefoot diet now. :)

Ahh fair enough. I've never fed celery.. Never even thought of it! I suppose its just mainly water? Absolutely hate celerey myself haha!
 

LD&S

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Mine have treats from time to time, they don't get them every day. Sometimes they are added to their feed (a few nuts with minerals added) sometimes they're hand fed, and no, none of my horses have ever bitten anyone and sometimes I spread the bits round the field.
They get
carrot
apple
swede
parsnip
cabbage
banana
cauliflower
broccoli
pear
radishes
satsumas
cucumber.
Over the course of an average week they may get a sandwich bag of bits, that is between them not each and it is mainly peelings etc though I also give them my apple cores as well.
I doubt that amount in an otherwise healthy horse would bring on laminitis, there is probably less sugar in what they have than in rosehips that they would eat from the hedgerow.
Btw my little mare will drink black tea, no sugar!
My three are all barefoot so nothing masked by shoes.
 

weebarney

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Someone I know used to feed chocolate buttons to her dogs, I would say why do you feed your dogs chocolate when you know it's bad for them ? She would say but it's just a treat every now and then. I'd just rather give a more appropriate treat and be satisfied that my human need to treat isn't causing harm. Ps I wouldn't take advice from anyone saying they have done or fed xyz for so many years and its caused no harm, how do they know? People and animals can have so much going on inside that would not show on the outside.
 

sarahann1

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I don't tend to give much, if anything in the way of fruit & veg either. Very occasional bit of carrot and apple only if it so happens someone is offering a bit out. I never ever buy them anymore. Stopped when I came to realise just how much a problem excess sugar in a horses diet can be.
 

Tnavas

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This predilection people have for wanting to feed their horses inappropreate foods is beyond me.

If its not bad enough that feed companies have been taking advantage of horse owners ignorance for years by selling them cheap sugar coated cereals, at premium prices, when cereals and sugar are so bad for horses.

The fact is that most horses can tolerate sugar and cereals up to a certain point. This varies between one horse and another. One horse may come down with a lamanitic attack and another may not.

Every time you put something sugar laden in the bucket like carrots or apples or grapes, you are taking one step closer to a lamanitic attack. People worry about hay being full of sugar and soaking it for days, and then contemplate feeding grapes. How stupid can some folk be. One thing very often, is enough to tip a horse over the edge from being able to cope with the grass, the hard feed and that can be as simple as one apple too many.

For your horses sake don't feed fruit and veg.

Sometimes PR you write a lot of rubbish

My riding school was next to an orchard and the owners would bring fruit over by the apple bin load.

They would eat
Apples
Necterines
Kiwi Fruit
Fejoas
Mandarins
Oranges
Peaches
Apricots
Persimmons
Nashi
Pears
Bananas
I had to move my tie up spot with one of mine as he's steal the Persimmons off the tree.

The only veg I know to be really bad is potatoes and avocados are poisonous - at least the skins are.

HAve you never seen horses stealing blackberries off the vines in the hedge?

These are all peprfectly natural foods for a horse to eat and given access to them they would eat them in the wild.
 

swilliam

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I agree - they'd eat them in the wild if they got the chance! The Irish used to feed potatoes to their horses all the time. We give ours potato skins, but dry them out first - in the oven or just on a radiator. The big horse loves his horsey crisps. I wouldn't feed anything oniony, but I'm not sure they'd eat that group anyway
 

Pale Rider

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Tnavas, just because people do things and get away with it doesn't make it right.
Anyone with any real sense knows horses struggle with improved grassland because of sugar.
Yet you think it's ok for horses to eat fruit, not wild fruits, but stuff from orchards, made deliberately sweeter for human taste.
You may think I talk rubbish, but I don't feed it to my horses.
 

tallyho!

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Actually, fruit these days are considerably LESS sweet than they were before selective breeding of fruits and veg.

For example the banana... one day we will run out out of edible banana strains as each one succumbs to disease as they are cloned from the same tree.

And lets be fair, in the wild, horses would not consume such amounts of dried grasses and rich pastures (which we know can have high NSC). The odd root veg and apple here and there make life in captivity more enjoyable and laminitis is connected to many things and I doubt a floret or two of broccoli would tip the balance unless the horse was 99.99% already "there". In the real world, no-one feeds more than a few slices every now and then. Well, I don't anyway.

incidentally, celery is actually an ideal "snack".
 
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doriangrey

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Interestingly enough I was reading the other day about Bedouin horses and how they would be fed camels milk and dates when forage was scarce, I think grains were a big no-no. In some stables they still feed dates apparently.
 

Polos Mum

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Happy to report that my boys stuffed a couple of sweet potatoes each today (we've got a tonne for the pigs) and given the boys were stuck in with the terrible I thought I'd risk their health with something to entertain them for a little while (helping their mental health I'm sure)
 

Pale Rider

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Just been giving our horses a treat, celery, of course. We have 2 new ones here for training and they are on pretty crappy diets in my opinion. These two don't like celery, not sweet enough.
By the time they leave here, they will love it.
 

Tnavas

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Tnavas, just because people do things and get away with it doesn't make it right.
Anyone with any real sense knows horses struggle with improved grassland because of sugar.
Yet you think it's ok for horses to eat fruit, not wild fruits, but stuff from orchards, made deliberately sweeter for human taste.
You may think I talk rubbish, but I don't feed it to my horses.

I think if I can 'Get away' with it for 10 years feeding to 32 horses and ponies then I think someone giving their horse/pony a few odds and ends is hardly likely to matter

AND 'heaven forbid' they grazed rye grass and clover 24/7, were fed oats or barley and sugarbeet when worked and NOT ONE case of laminitis, insulin resistance or any other ailment in over 28 years.
 

AMW

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I must be a really bad owner, mine get a McDonalds fruit bag if I stop there with the trailer :)
They also like bananas, apples, melon, grapes & we share brambles when out an autumn ride. As for veg, carrots & , turnip are favourites.
Oh i feed conditioning feeds too & omg they are barefoot, happily so & no lammi, they are shown so dont live out 24/7 & wear rugs too.
Oh nearly forgot they are natives so probably been doing it all wrong for 30 years ;)
 

Tnavas

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Tnavas, lucky hope it keeps up.
I don't think LUCK has anything to do with it

32 horses and ponies 28years!

Out 24/7 on rye grass and clover!

No it's called quality horsemanagement! - they get worked, they get basic feed - no processed crap and only when necessary. In winter they get meadow hay and wear one wool lined canvas cover.

Prior to coming to New Zealand - my horses lived out 24/7, naked, lived on grass and only in winter were fed hard feed when the weather was hard (snow, heavy frost) Prior to that my ponies got nothing! They lived on 'hay on the stalk' in winter and dug down to the grass when it snowed. They ran on a 50 acre paddock.
 

MotherOfChickens

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I don't give veg as a matter of course but as a treat they have/will eat: pears, swede, apples, carrots,parsnips, bananas, orange segments and as a xmas treat they get dates-I take the stone out (not the sugar glazed ones). dates are full of fibre and relatively high in biotin-one a day for a few days won't hurt. oh, and all unshod.

I would not feed bread (although have done for a medication) or potatoes/peelings.
 

Pale Rider

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Course, it's all very well taking the P.
Very different story when your stupidity feeding grapes or whatever, and an acute laminitis attack happens.
Tnavas, work is the key, horses can cope with **** food if they burn it off. Most don't keep horses like you do, most don't work hard enough to cope with rubbish food.
Laminitis is a constant threat, if one person reading these posts, decides not to take a stupid risk with their horse, that will do for me.
I like my horses alive, I don't want to post on here asking which cremation service is best.
 

siennamum

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I am suprised to see people advocating feeding brassicas. They are indigestible to horses without causing (sulphurous) gas and I would never risk colic with mine, leaving aside the whole issue of excessive wind....

I am not a fan of feeding stuff other than horsefood really. I like to give carrots, apples, and mints so not logical, but pretty safe. My brother used to feed a LOT of bananas to his horses, it was a staple food, mine won't touch them tho.
 

AMW

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But horses are browsers by nature & like variety, just watch them if they get the chance, hawthorn, brambles, berries, thistles, they dont just eat grass & Happyhoof
 
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