I had no idea! What a bunch of big changes - but it sounds like you are looking forward to them? Fingers crossed those delays stop and that your last project goes seamlessly!! Have a great, stress free move.
Never without asking. I even tell some of my boarders to not feed treats to their own horses because they get nippy and I deal with them every single day, the owners not so much.
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Yes, looking forward to a nice 910 sq ft with screened lanai, washer dryer and no stairs. Wont miss trying to deal with a 3/3 2 story with full basement not to mention scraping ice off the windshield.
But its hard going through 25 years of horse stuff deciding what to keep then where to put it. Takes a day for each box of the stuff, even little boxes. Trying to put photos in an album is a time suck.
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Naturally I don’t feed treats to random horses. For all I know a horse may have a medical issue, a behavioral issue or an owner that lives in the anti treat camp.
As a matter of boarding social graces, when I’m in the wash rack next to Jane and Jane asks if my horse can have a peppermint I say yes of course and would your horse like a cookie? In the course of this convo we will suss each other out re can I give your horse a cookie if I’m here and you’re not. What kinds of treats are acceptable, favorite treats, treats that horses reject, and passing of info regarding other boarded horses that are in the NO TREATS group will also be touched on. IME, this is the informal way in which treat feeding boarders establish casual groups of “the horses I check on and give a cookie to while at the barn”.
Now if I’m in some sort of emergent situation, ie horses on the road I won’t hesitate to snag a bucket of goodies to try and corral loose horses.
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There are 2 rules of the country.
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Do not feed other peoples animals. If you feed another person’s animal and it dies. You WILL be blamed. It doesn’t matter if what you fed did not incur their death.
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Always leave a gate the way you found it. Opening a gate that was closed could let animals out. Put things in with entire males. Let animals out on roads, etc, etc.
Closing a gate that was open, could separate animals from water.
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Straight up no.
Noooope. Just got out of a large boarding lesson barn situation. My guy is a super cute and a massive begging machine. He also choked in the past. Clueless lesson people would proudly TELL me how much they were giving him: whole apples, cookies, unnamed food from home - you name it. Never mind the subdivision people in golf carts on fenceline tours. Of course, I was the jerk telling them to please stop it. I can only imagine each lesson in such a busy barn feeling entitled to feed him through each day added up to a huge amount.
He’s home now behind electric fence and has to be content with his nighttime peppermint when I take off his fly mask.
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A lot of the horses at the barn compete in halter and showmanship. I’d be buggy whipped if I hand fed treats to any of those horses. They could start “asking” for treats while being stood up for the judge.
It wouldn’t occur to me to drop anything into a horse’s feed bucket, either.
Yet there’s a horse and donkey rescue nearby. Every now and then folks will drive up in their car, get out with the kids to pet the horses and donkeys, and try to feed them treats, carrots, watermelon… lord knows what. The rescue people have to go out there and ask these people to please not do that. And yes, there are already signs up on the fence. But illiteracy apparently runs deep in our community. 
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Absolutely no treats to other people’s horses.
You never know what specific problems that could cause. BO has a horse that is a chronic choker. Apparently can choke on air. The choking is under control with a very specific, careful timed and monitored diet. A random treat could cause a choke episode.
For a bit of levity: the comedy movie Half-Baked may been educational for non-horse-people on this subject. I’ve never seen it, but the plot focuses around a man who is jailed for accidentally killing a police horse by feeding it all kinds of junk food when “the horse is a diabetic.”
We’d just started dating when my husband explained this scene to me. I gave him my usual lay person/young kid explanation of Cushings as being “kind of like diabetes,” saying there might have been a little truth behind whatever happened in the movie. After all that, he was gobsmacked when I asked him if he wanted to feed Tip a cookie, and saw me produce a grocery store bag of ginger snaps. “I can’t feed him that, he’s diabetic!” Turns out that after learning that horses really can have metabolic issues, he took the movie very much to heart and was afraid to feed any horse anything.
Tip is now happy to report that after a less rudimentary explanation of Cushings, metabolic disorders, and laminitis, my husband buys him Corn Pops.
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Once had a mare who was really bad spoiled and last owner was scared of. Bad combination to start with but a lovely jump, naturally long and low with a gorgeous head, big eyes and sort of 16h stuffed animal cute. Kind of an attractive nuisance in a big A barn with a teaching program
This mare didn’t nip, she’d swing her head around and come at you like a snake. Seller didn’t share that, guess it worked well for mare to control her human. First time she pulled it with me, right after the check cleared, I was using a wood backed Dandy brush on her shoulder and she got that wood back right smack on the nose as she grabbed my shoulder. She never tried that again but, ouch, that left a mark on my shoulder.
Same day, I slipped the halter off in her stall, with her head down, facing the door. Spun around and presented her back end to me, ears back, head down to unweight the hinds, yelled NO, smacked her as hard as I could with the leather halter with metal rings and bull snap on the lead. Swear she was downright sheepish turning back around to face me. Never tried that again either. She would sometimes bluff but never made good on the threat as it simply was not tolerated. Barn had enforced rules. Not your horse, don’t touch it and no hand fed treats in stalls, drop into feed bucket and only with permission.
Barn had professional, adult staff so proper handling every time she was touched as well as staff who respected what she could do made sure it never was allowed to get started. She was extremely successful in the show ring.
Fast forward about 8 years. Mare mellowed. I insist on my horses turning to face me in the stall as I enter and remain facing me as I exit. Mare started presenting her backside to me and actually bit me on the shoulder as I haltered her, left a mark too.Ouch. Blamed myself for getting complacent and worried about why this reappeared. One groom reported she was getting a bit territorial in the stall and had offered to kick him a few times when he was cleaning. They started just turning her out or cross tying her for stall cleaning, I was appalled and concerned, my horses don’t act like that, especially after almost a decade. Hate making extra work for grooms.
Because of this mares cuteness she was a magnet for attention and all lesson clients were constantly reminded stay out of her stall and no treats and that she was not their horse. Probably a little exaggerated to get the point across, mare very rarely displayed that crap any more, really didn’t even try very hard . Yet suddenly there it was.
One day I was grooming in the cross ties and mare started nipping, I verbally scolded mare, who promptly quit., this 16ish lesson kid ( she drove herself) comes up and reads me the riot act on how I handled my horse claiming she had clicker trained many horses not to bite and offered to take my mare into training. Kid said the barns methods were all wrong and actually told me I didn’t know what I was doing but she could teach me too. Then she starts to give my mare a treat, I said no, please, she sassed back. I put mare back in stall and told kid not to feed treats to my mare. Spoke to trainer, who was also BO.
Had call from trainer a few days later, kid was found in my mares stall hand feeding her treat after treat after treat. After kid was removed, return to consistent handling fixed mares behavior.
True story. Keep your hands off other people’s horses. You put other people in a position to get hurt. I was the one who got the nasty bruise here and the stall cleaners the ones faced with extra work. Thanks alot for that.
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Not going to lie, the consistency in the responses here so far is actually a relief!
Having a very cute pony mare (who was turned out with a very cute mini donkey for awhile), I suspect they were sometimes snuck treats as there were times when, upon my arrival at the previous barn, said mare would come over to the gate far too voluntarily 
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I love this quote so much. My mare is a member of the family, in essence, and her safety and wellbeing is a responsibility I take very seriously… just like my (human) children.
On a slightly related note, is this an issue that only affects horse owners, by the way? I’m just thinking of places like dog parks, you never seem to encounter anyone randomly handing out treats to other people’s dogs Or am I overthinking this?! (Don’t answer that 
)
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I don’t own a horse, but when I leased one, the barn owners where I rode were No Treat Enforcers (they made it known they didn’t particularly like it when boarders gave treats to their own horses, except in buckets, to catch a horse for a lesson, or to as a reward for stretches). At the time, that seemed a bit extreme, but now I’m very sympathetic. I’m riding at a lesson barn at present, and I know this makes me sound like the biggest bitch, but a few of the people who ride there “have” to give treats to all of the horses after they ride, and it gets kind of annoying.
A number of the horses will kick at their stalls until they get the treat when they see A Treat Lady is done with her lesson. They’re owned by the barn owner and are lesson horses, and since the barn owner doesn’t mind, I can’t really say anything, although I occasionally will mutter, “I wouldn’t give a horse a peppermint as a reward for thumping at her stall.”
I ride one horse who really seems fairly indifferent to treats (he will eat them, but prefers grain, grass, and real food), but the other horse will start nipping at me in the stall if she knows other horses are getting treats nearby. I have to put her on crossties in the stall if her neighbors are getting the full buffet of treats that day.
So no, I would never give a treat to another person’s horse. Truthfully, if I’m in the middle of tacking up, grooming, or riding a horse that isn’t my own, I’m not even crazy about people giving treats to the horse until my hour with the horse is up (and my responsibility for managing the horse’s behavior has ended). A few times I was in the middle of caring for the nippy lesson horse, and someone going by when I’d stepped away had given the horse treats (once when I was in the stall, picking the horses hooves!), and I would always know because the nipping behavior would start.
I’ve heard barn workers make similar complaints about owners who ride a few times a week, give their horses many, many treats, and then the barn worker has to deal with the behaviors for far longer the treats trigger when the owner has left.
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In my experience, dog parks don’t have a big problem with treats for two reaons.
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- Even random people who don’t own dogs understand that dogs CAN and WILL bite. Feeding treat = putting hand near the bitey side. Random people don’t seem to understand that horses also CAN and WILL bite. Think of all the videos of people going up to random horses they don’t know because it’s ~funny~.
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- The dogs’ owners are all there. Sneaky treat givers tend to get reamed out when the actual owner is there to say “and what made you think that was a good idea?”.
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A someone who also rode and worked at a lesson barn, this is my feeling as well. Thankfully none of the horses wound up nippy, but they would start mugging for treats if they thought they could get away with it (and most people would let them). There was one particular mare who would start kicking her stall if she knew there were teats and she wasn’t getting any. The amount of times I had to tell people NOT to feed her to make her stop was stunningly high.
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I feed treats, I like to feed treats. But I do not feed treats with out the owner’s permission.
But… I think this is something that each person gets the chance to admit they did not know, because now though it seems obvious to even me, way back when I had to be told this rule (one of those things in life that you look back on and feel like an idiot).
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“Sneaky treat givers” … that’s it right there! Opportunities present themselves when horse owners are not present 
( <-- wagging finger 
)
How do we feel about people who admit to feeding treats after the fact? “Oh Sassy was being SO CUTE yesterday, I couldn’t resist giving her some goodies … hope that’s okay!” (said more as a statement than a question).
Depends on the horse and why. My horse is allowed treats in her bucket, but she is good at taking them from hands as well so I wouldn’t be that upset if someone dropped her a snack. Now did someone admit to feeding her to stop her from being a brat? Absolutely not allowed. Is it someone else’s horse (not mine or theirs)? Another absolutely not. Do I know the person at all or is this some rando at the barn?
I’m at a small, private boarding barn, and we’re all pretty fond of each other and each other’s horses. That said, I don’t make it a habit of giving treats to other people’s horses with one exception. There’s a pony on stall rest next to my guy when he’s in during the day, and when I feed my dude treats in his feed bucket, I also drop a few in the pony’s pan too (because he’s mastered the art of being the cutest little beggar when he wants treats). I used to feed by hand, but I’ve been doing feed tubs for both since I think it makes them less nippy (pony can hang head out of stall, my guy can’t because he tears the door down, LOL).
When another owner has a horse in the barn/cross-ties, if I have a treat on hand and they’ve gotten done with a ride or something, I may ask if I can give the horse one. Usually that’s how it goes for my horse too, though I know the BO and the pony’s owner also give my guy treats on occasion, and I’m fine with that. He’s kind of a voracious treat snatcher and can get fingers if one is not very careful with a flat hand, so that usually scares off some people from wanting to hand feed him. If he’s in his stall, they can always drop them in his bucket.
We’re kind of a treat-heavy barn in general, LOL. And most of the treats are of the healthy variety, suitable for horses with metabolic issues, etc. so that’s good.
