Treats/snacks without sugar?

velocette

velocette

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Hello all

My barefoot trimmer has told me I should try and cut all sugar out of my horses diet not because there is a problem with her feet but to help keep them healthy and avoid any potential problems. She is doing very well on very little spring grass ATM.

No carrots or apples, turnips ok, i just checked the herbal treats I have and they even have molasses in them!!!!

Anyway, just thought I would ask for suggestions for treats/snacks that don't have any sugar please?? :-D

Vel xx
 
Most if not all treats will have mollasses as it is needed to bind together ingredients. I would be very doubtful if your horse cant cope with the occasional treat that contains sugar- if a treat weighs a few grammes and is 10% sugar then that is hardly sugar overload!

Carrots are 80% water, so even though they have a high sugar content compared to other fruit and veg when you work it out in one carrot even thats not very much.
 
My horse loves celery, although it will some natural sugars I would have thought it was fairly low. And Banana skins, obviously bananas themselves will have a fair bit of sugar, the skin wouldn't be too bad. We have a deal, I eat the banana, Frankie gets the skin.
 
As far as I know, glucose and fructose in grass combine to make sucrose. So sucrose (sugar) is a part of the natural horse diet as a herbivore.

Horses are designed to eat grass but I do acknowledge that the pampered pastures we offer them may well be too much.

It is probably a case of taking your horse off the pasture for a few hours if he/she is putting too much weight, or increasing exercise.

IMHO I would be wary of taking the advice of someone who advocates cutting sugar out of a herbivore's diet. It's like saying you can feed a cat on cucumber.
 
Sunflower seeds. Although going sugar free is only going to be temporary so just do without for a while.
 
I just bought a tube of sugar-free polo mints on the way home (and couldn't help chuckling to myself that nobody knew they were for ponies!)...
 
Perhaps the horse is laminitic. That is usually a good reason to a avoid sugar?

A friend asked my trimmers for advice on her shod, lame, TB last year. Trimmers recommended staying shod but some modification to the diet, cutting out mollassed feeds and even his ten carrots per day and the horse went sound.

Very low cost miracle!
 
Apples are the highest in sugar, carrots and parsnips are about equal, and turnips are nearly as high (considered high sugar in their own right) but are only half the sugar of apples approx. Bananas are very high indeed - approx 4x carrots etc. However, having said all this, it is not refined sugar and if fed in small amounts as treats I really don't think you need to worry, but you are going to find it very hard to find anything that doesn't contain sugar at all - you could try making something out of raw oat bran but you'll need something to bind it all together (oil for example) and add some weetabix or some cooked rice. Cucumber is very low in sugar and my pony loves it but again there is a small amount in it.
 
Simple Systems do a mint pellet but I don't know what the ingredients are. They smell strongly of mint so you only need a tiny amount.
 
Kate - I thought it was in the title but maybe didn't explain it well. She was advising I don't feed treats that have sugar in them, not cutting out all food and grass!!!

I just wondered if there really were any sugar free treats out there? It's a bit hard to do 'carrot' stretches if I don't have something to entice her with!!

I don't want to start another discussion about what to do or not to do with a laminitic.

velocette said:
not because there is a problem with her feet but to help keep them healthy and avoid any potential problems.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
velocette said:
Kate - I thought it was in the title but maybe didn't explain it well. She was advising I don't feed treats that have sugar in them, not cutting out all food and grass!!!

I just wondered if there really were any sugar free treats out there? It's a bit hard to do 'carrot' stretches if I don't have something to entice her with!!

I don't want to start another discussion about what to do or not to do with a laminitic.
Click to expand...

My apologies, Vel :)

Had a quick google and found some recipes which are sugar free for babies teething rusks - would she eat hat sort of thing?
 
You are joking. Flipping heck its a horse for goodness sake. I give my horse about 6 medium sized carotts a day, and half a packet of polos and his teeth are fine. He is now 13.
 
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