My mare also dislikes mushy treats, and that includes apples that are not crisp and juicy. Sigh. Hard peppermints are her favorite, but she also loves a treat which is basically a pellet of dried apple pomace - can’t remember who makes it, quite cheap. Granola bars are acceptable (oat and honey), liquorice is yucky, fig newtons are NOT the right texture, donuts are poisonous, watermelon is “what the h…”, doesn’t see the attraction in sugar cubes.
I made horse cookies for Christmas that were OK but not WOW. The commercial horse treats like Stud Muffins are nice, but NOT the flavoured hard chunks by Martins (artificial flavours!). I’ll have to try gingersnaps.
Three of mine love everything. But my one other gelding only likes Manna Pro treats…not sure what they’re called officially, but they’re a hard little nugget. He turns his nose up on apples, carrots, peppermints, Nickermakers, Stud Muffins…basically everything I’ve tried. So he gets the MP treats. I had another gelding who wouldn’t eat apples. And my favorite horse ever would only eat Fuji apples. He could tell the difference and wouldn’t touch a Delicious or Gala or any of the other varieties I tried.
Weird.
I was at the dollar store after reading this thread. Noticed they had banana chips! I decided to see if my horse would like them as a treat. He is far from picky (Morgan) and usually gets sugar dots or baby carrots.
I offered a chip and he sniffed a bit and then took it. He seemed to roll it around his mouth and chewed quite a bit and then repeatedly curled his lip. I wasn’t sure if that meant he liked it or didn’t. He kept up the faces for a couple minutes. After grooming him I offered another. He grabbed it and repeated the performance. Strange…
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Mine will take anything offered. Had a mare a million years ago who was entranced by Wintergreen TicTacs. She could lip one out from between my teeth and then would roll it around in her mouth for a minute, savoring the taste before crunching it, with a beatific expression, eyes closed, in ecstasy.
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My guy enjoys Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies. We split them. 
Genius. Do they prefer raw or roasted peanuts?
I have never tried roasted peanuts. I buy a huge bag of peanuts still in their shells from my feed dealer. Haven’t met a horse yet that didn’t like them.
Do you feed them shells and all??
Oh, I never thought to ask if they have them at the feed dealer. I suspect I am in a wrong geographical area for the answer to be yes :yes: I was just thinking of the in shell raw or roasted peanuts I can get at the grocery store.
Let me introduce you to my mare. I have tried this several times because it comes up in threads here. She is a full no on peanuts. She takes them and spits them out.
I would guess most feed stores sell them as bird/squirrel feed. I buy them at the grocery store for my family to eat so the peanuts my horses eat are from the grocery store bag.
The bag I buy fills a large garbage can. It costs $60 and lasts for 6 months for 4 horses. They get a couple at the gate when I turn them out so they don’t take off right away. Always have a couple in their feed bins when they come in. Also very handy for sticking their Previcox in one.
They know that all my pockets are full of them so they don’t mind coming to me when I want to get one of them from the field.
Most of my past horses and regular rides were rude about treats. I didn’t realize there was a way to easily reinforce polite treat manner. New mare gets an absurd number of hand-fed goodies per day (30+). I am the person I swore I would never be but she’s just so darn polite!
I use Nutrigood Low-Sugar Snax, which are essentially beat pulp and soy bean pellets for most of the treats and then break up two soft molasses treats into tons of little pieces (https://www.farmhousetack.com/dimples-horse-treats/). Randomly reinforcing things like standing quietly for tacking, picking up feet, ground tying, etc. has been phenomenal for her brain.
I don’t like keeping the soft treats in my pockets for more than the day but nearly every winter jacket and vest with a zipper has extra Snax in them right now.
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Same here. As soon as I realized that I could use the treats to teach them how to be polite around treats, I became a clicker trainer. Now I don’t even mind the muggy phase they go through when they’re first learning, because I know it’s just temporary.
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Herballs are a big hit but they will pretty much hoover up any horse treat along with carrots and apples. My horse growing up used to love strawberries.
