vegie mix for horses

Kiparra · vegie mix for horses

So im thinking of introducing more vegie and fruit choices in mares diet for her over all well being.
I know pumpkin is good and she likes lettuce and celery, pears, apples and carrots. but what else could i give her and would it be ok if i made up a small mix of vegie to feed to her once a week or would people just recommend feeding ad lib?

Spitfire

No no to any avocado - several horses around here have died from accidentally getting into avo plantations.

Pumpkin and watermelon are my horses' favourites (apart from the usual apples, carrots, etc).

There is a good, recent thread on COTH about F+V in horse's diets, well worth the read. Gets into the nitty gritty.

Kiparra

Thanks, ive heard potatoes arent too good either?

What is COTH? sorry about my ignorance. do you have a link for the article? thanks

PasoBaby_CarolU

COTH is Chronicle of the Horse. It is a forum of (mostly) Hunter Jumper enthusiasts.

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/

I personally wouldn't do anything 'once a week' to change my horse's diet. I would feed a few carrots once a day or something, but only small amounts of anything.

Your horse will eat celery? Mine spit it out.

Horses like broccoli and I've had it recommended as a treat for my IR mare.

Clarissa

My personal diet consists of a whole range of F&V, therefore so does my horse’s diet. I grow most of my own F&V organically but do buy some stuff that doesn’t grow in this area. They get the skins & offcuts although I do eat any edible skins. I feed 20kg carrots over 3 weeks between 3 horses plus about a 2lt ice cream container full of F&V scrap each week. I keep the scraps container in the fridge until it’s full then it becomes afters at feedtime along with the normal carrots. They also get all edible remnants from the garden such as corn plants & old vegies.

The thing that I think is most important about feeding F&V to horses is to be very careful of the amount of sugar you feed them since all fruit & most veg are high in sugars not normally found in equine diets. The extra moisture is not important I’d say, but sprays might be a concern. Also I don’t feed any cooked food or any salad that has been in contact with any dairy type dressing or added meat products. Plain oil & lemon juice or vinegar dressing is ok. Onions skins go into the scraps but don’t get eaten. They just disappear into the grass when I spread the scraps out on the lawn for the horses to eat. They don’t seem to like ordinary potato skins. Egg shells get crushed & go in the compost heap. I rarely have meat or dairy scraps & of course that never goes anywhere near the horse scraps.

Here is a list of what I feed mine which would include the skins & seeds:- avocado, apples, banana, beans, beetroot, berry fruits, bread & biscuits, broccoli, capsicum, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, chinese greens, citrus, coconut flesh, corn, corn chips, cucumber, garlic, guava, herbs, kiwi fruit, lettuces, lemons, mangoes, melons (all), mushrooms, pawpaw, parsley, parsnip, passionfruit, pears, pineapple, potato crisps, pumpkin, rocket, rosellas, stone fruits, squash, sweet potato, snow peas, tomatoes, zucchini. I’m sure I’ve missed out a lot that I might buy in different seasons! They love drinking orange based or any other fruit or vegie juices & soft drinks, beer & I believe horses like hops! (Here’s a quick tip for guinea pig owners:- give half strength OJ to drink rather than plain water as GP’s need Vit C like us!)

Note that mostly those F&V’s are fed in moderation being just the offcuts & a real mixture of everything I eat over a week or so. That means they don’t get too much of any one thing other than apples or carrots which are always on the menu & sometimes in large volumes if free. I get boxes of spotted apples & 20kg bags of stock carrots from the fruit shop usually quite cheaply. I do always keep it all in the fridge which is something to think about regarding economy due to the cost of running a second fridge. I have a Kelvinator 360lt side by side fridge which is massive so plenty of room for both horse & human F&V.

One time I saved several malnourished horses from starvation during a drought by feeding exclusively F&V, mostly lettuce & some apples & carrots, scrounged from F&V shops all over the small town where I lived plus bulk tomatoes from a farm. The only other food they got was old bread & sweet buns from the bakery.

Be careful of boxes of F&V scraps from the F&V shop due to plastic closures & bags & silicon paper mixed into the jumble along with general waste since many workers just treat the box as a general garbage box. My horses actually like their F&V a bit decomposed & starting to break down! They stand there & suck it all up & slobber it all over the place until even the wax box has been eaten!

Horses also like eating banana, pawpaw, mango & mulberry trees plus many others I’m sure. Some trees really aren’t that good for them! Avocado trees are poisonous to them but I haven’t had a problem with the few seeds & skins they get from me although I do know it's not good. They really like crunching up the big avo seeds & will fight over them. They have jaws as strong as crocodiles! Banana trees are not very good for them either so I found out the hard way many years ago. Neither are stone fruit trees. I suspect they might actually benefit from decaying meat bones! Although with the modern high additive equine diet that should be unnecessary.

Honestly, I think horses are the garbage guts’ of the vegetarian world!

Spitfire

Garbage guts or not, avocado is toxic to horses

Kiparra

Thanks for the help guys! something to think about and a good thread to read.