I’ve seen people giving their horses human sweets- pop tarts, donuts; slices of pie, pieces of cake… etc. I was wondering if there’s any certain foods that horses should absolutely NOT have? I’m pretty sure chocolate is one but just wondering about any others. Dairy? Flour? Anything that’s an absolute N.O for horses under any circumstances? I want to give my boy some fun foods but am a little terrified! Thank you!
Anything in the nightshade family is a big no no (e.g. tomato, potato, peppers). Cruciferous veggies are also bad as they can cause gas. Dairy, caffeine and meat are not good either. I have never given my horse anything with meat, but he does enjoy the occasional plain donut and slurp of skim latte on a Sunday morning, and it has never hurt him. He has had all sorts of yummy treats - apples, watermelon, pears, cinnamon bun, homemade bran and molasses cake with frosting, carrots, horse cookies, sugar cubes, mints, butterscotch candy, twizzlers, starbursts. He lives for variety!
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Anything I’ve ever read that says “don’t feed x to horses” always seems to say “don’t feed a lot of x to horses”. Or “don’t feed the plant that x grows on to horses”. Or it’s not actually talking about human foods. There are so many stories of horses nicking a cheeseburger, a chocolate donut, or a cola when their human’s back is turned, with no ill consequences. I personally will never purposely buy cheeseburgers to feed to any horses, because it’s not ideal for them, but it’s really not “dangerous” for the vast majority of horses if they get a bite.
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Not sure if this is true anymore, but my old mare loved lemon poppyseed muffins. Apparently poppyseed is a no because it can show up as a controlled substance on toxicology tests!
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I had a horse that ate a hot dog once. I was more careful with my hot dog placement after that particular food theft happened. He also loved peanut butter cups (Reeses).
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Traditionally bread and sugar cubes were treats for horses. All the fruits and the root vegetables are fine, apples and carrots being traditional. Any sort of sweet baking in moderation. We used to split our popsicles with our horses when we rode to the corner store and once a horse ate the wooden popsicle stick too. Guiness beer is an old folk remedy for horses, but I’ve never given a horse beer!
Today many people feed hard mints or liquorice pieces to horses.
Not all horses love all flavors and textures. My mare dislikes food that sticks to the roof of her mouth like muffins. She liked one brand of gingersnaps but not another. One summer she was sharing lemonade slushies with me until the weather cooled off and she didn’t want them. Some horses like corn chips; she doesn’t really.
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Pretty much any human food is ok in moderation. Even a whole dark chocolate bar isn’t going to do anything to your 1000 lb animal.
COTH (and other places) sometimes spotlights the favorite treats of the famous horses and there have been some weird ones; pepperoni/cheese pizza, hamburgers, egg mcmuffins, Coca Cola, etc.
Most of my horses will try anything. A recent hit has been fruit snacks. Stormy loves starfruit and bananas.
As a sad aside: a local rescue once saved a horse who had subsisted on a diet of potatoes that grew in the paddock it was kept in. 
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Another weird memory that I just remembered; at a picnic after a trail ride stormy found a plate of watermelon no one was watching very closely and ate the whole plate of watermelon, which was covered in mint and feta. :lol:
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When I was a kid, my mom always packed us a lunch for horse shows because she thought the food stands were way too expensive. At one show, i wasn’t paying attention and had my lunch too close to my horse and he ate my ham sandwich. I remember that I was really bummed because there was no way my mom was going to pay horse show food prices to buy me another lunch.
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Not sure about what not to give, but I remember the face on the coach and some boarders when I started feeding the fancy, organic, but hardened bread to the horse we leased at the time and gasp offered them some to feed to their horses too 
In my childhood my mom used to pack the dried out/hardened bread for me to bring to the stable and it was the biggest treat. Not sure how American bread/toast is to feed since now the bread contains so much junk and never hardens anyways due to all the preservatives… AFAIK fresh bread is not recommended in large doses because probably could get stuck in the GI tract, but I don’t know the reason for sure.
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That is hilarious. But I’ll bet you learned your lesson. :lol:
Once I left a box of dog biscuits too close to a horse, and he ripped open the box and ate most of the Milkbones.
And I knew a horse many years ago who absolutely loved grapes. He would make the world’s cutest face to beg for them. And he had a very cute face to start. 
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Just ask Elaine…
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I started giving my horse black licorice, which he really enjoys. He gets maybe two “vines” a day, and not even every day. He just had a dental and he has a cavity…! Cause and effect?
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You are not alone. My horse did this. I think it was a chicken pita. He liked the tzatziki.
He also stole a kid’s cheeseburger and was working on her nachos when interrupted. It’s probably best if you don’t feed your horse a cheeseburger but he didn’t come to any harm.
OP, I find that ginger snaps, nilla wafers, and so on are enjoyed by most horses and are a sight cheaper than horse treats from the tack shop. (I do a lot of carrot stretches so I go through a lot of cookies.) I also like that you can readily break them in half or in quarters, and they are easy to chew. Pretzels and peanuts are often recommended for metabolic horses who are on a strict no sugar diet (though this depends on the pretzels, and my vet says “for your 1150-lb horse, the sugar in one cookie is of least concern.”) Fig Newtons are excellent for hiding pills and low-dose liquid medications. I know people who use Oatmeal Creme Pies for the same purpose. Speaking of, many powdered medications come to solution in Powerade or lemonade, and that can be easier to dose in a syringe than that old standby, applesauce.
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Oh yes whole salted peanuts in the shell! They eat the whole thing happily. These are quite inexpensive.
Long ago I remember reading in a VERY respected horse book (by Horace Hayes (?)) that they discovered that the reason that feeding wheat bread to horses was bad was because it could form “dough balls” in the intestines, causing blockages and colic.
Long, long ago they used to make “horse bread” with wheat and beans in it, and that was often the main food for in-town working horses. They fed this horse bread to horses for centuries, then all of a sudden they stopped. Too bad it turned out to be bad for the horse’s digestive track because it sounded really convenient to carry around while traveling and it was easy to feed to the horse.
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My horse is a non-sweater & he loves his Guiness in the summer. You can clink the bottles in the barn & he will let out a nicker! Gets one poured on his dinner grain every night in the summer months…
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When I was little I had a pony who loved to drink Coke. I’d buy a cold bottle from the coke machine at the barn (yes, it was that long ago :D) and slide it between her lips and teeth on the side of her mouth. She would tip her head back, drink the whole thing down and then drop the empty bottle back in my hand.
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I had a gelding that loved white wine. I was glad to have discovered it because it turned out to be the best way of keeping him still for the vet. Once he tasted wine from my finger the outside world disappeared for him and he concentrated completely on the wine tumbler.
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Back in the the dark ages, at Pony Club rally, I learned my late great mare and I shared an adoration for corn pops cereal. Sadly my mom would not buy it though.
For those speaking of bread, my mom worked an old school dealer back in the early 60’sish, and he had a deal with local bakery to take stale bread.
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