What are good substitutions for sweet feed in horse treats?
I clicker train and handfeed treats. I just use an extruded or pelleted feed with a large enough kibble that once piece works as a treat. It is not a feed horse gets as part of her daily menu.
Chunks of carrot are also good but they will rot in your pocket if you aren’t careful.
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I use a dried, pelleted apple pomace treat for training- the pieces don’t crumble but aren’t too hard. Every horse I have met loves them!
Licorice. My horses love it, they’ll choose it over anything else.
If you mean for treats you are making, maybe shredded carrots?
Flax snacks. My horses love them. They are low sugar
My horses only get enough grain to carry their mineral mix so are happy to work for more of it (pelleted complete feed).
I’m a clicker trainer so my pockets are always loaded up with treats, and back when I was feeding sweet feed the chipmunks and mice would chew through my pockets to get to the grain if I forgot to empty them. But they don’t like the pelleted complete feed so that solved that particular problem.
My treats are peanuts in their shells. Started with the peanuts because I had an EMS horse in the barn who was not allowed to have treats with sugar such as apples and carrots. The peanuts do not freeze in the winter or rot in the summer. They fit nicely into all coat pockets so are always handy and the horses like them.
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I like mini timothy/alfalfa cubes. They’re easy to pull apart into smaller sections and the equines act like they’re the best treat ever.
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My horses love the animal crackers.
In clicker training we distinguish between regular and high value treats.
I go through a lot of treats trick training, so they need to be cheap, easy to carry, and low sugar. The right extruded kibble is perfect, and much cheaper than buying the same thing packaged as a treat.
Sometimes though I need a high value treat. We do an annual trick performance on a grass lawn and horse would prefer to just graze.
I give her bulk superstore ginger snap cookies. That gets her attention. Or mints. But I’d kill her if I fed half a pound of gingersnaps every time we practice tricks in the sand arena!
Pure grain, Cow Cubes!! The horses LOVE them…they are cheap - $8.50 for 40 or 50 pounds…hard enough to keep their form in your pocket (can survive a full washer/dryer cycle if you forget them in your pockets)…bite sized chunks that any horse/pony/donkey can easily chew, easy to distribute while mounted. Did I mention that horses LOVE THEM!!!
I alternate between:
-an extruded apple-flavored pellet - about the thickness of a Sharpie pen & in chunks from about an inch+ down. TSC carries them in 5# bags for about $6
-Dollar Tree gingersnaps
The pellets don’t crumble, the cookies do.
My 3 horses literally line up to get their daily treat ration.
Pellets in the morning, cookies at 10P barncheck.
3 apiece & they can count 
Mini does the Pocket Check, the other 2 know “no mas” once they get #3.
I believe the love is just plain old unwaterdown attention.
Sure there are some treats they like better, but just being noticed and appreciated seems to work the most.
We have this new weanling who has never had anything but alfalfa hay, that’s it. For him he expects nothing other than attention and I believe we will leave him at that
You’re the second person I’ve heard of doing this. I bought my Icelandic from the breeder who would go out into the pastures with his pockets full of peanuts and hand feed them to the horses. He had them trained to come up and wait quietly for their peanut. I never knew horses could eat, or liked, peanuts.
My horses always approach me. They know that all my pockets always have peanuts in them. Maybe I overdo it. They get a peanut after I put their halter on. They stand quietly at the open door of their stall. Once we enter the field for turnout again they stand quietly for a peanut before running off. The dishes in their stalls always have a few peanuts in them when they come back in. I am not sure if they could chew them properly with a bit in their mouth so they do not get one while working.
I buy huge bags of peanuts at the feed store at $60 which last about 6 months for 4 horses.
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