After reading many responses, I am so glad our horses are at home. We took in Tony, the spoiled baby mini donkey, back in January. He reared, jumped on you, bit you and struck out with his legs when he arrived because he was in an inexperienced home with lots of children and adults with no experience with equines. He leaned quickly form us what was acceptable and what wasn’t. We had him in the front paddock next to the road. At first, it was cute that so many stopped their cars to talk to him, but when my husband came home and saw a bunch of loose children slink away a couple of times, I wonder ed what was up. Found out they were giving him treats and laughing delightedly as he tried to rear up and bite at them through the fence (no climb). They slunk away when we caught them because they knew it was wrong to encourage the behavior. Now, we knew why his behavior had deteriorated. It didn’t take much at all because of his experience. We simply moved him to a paddock out of reach and he began to behave himself again. We did have to do a couple of retraining sessions with him as well. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to retrain him with people sneaking him treats all day in a boarding situation.
I will feed my favorite lesson horses treats because I know its okay. I do not feed other boarders horses unless they are present and I ask first. I am okay with my horses getting treats. It does make them nippy and if the kids complain and I tell them why they are nippy. But its not a big deal to me or a big problem. I dont think that many people give them treats.
I get more irritated by the bags of carrots and apples that always get left to rot by visitors but I know they are trying to be nice.
I don’t feed treats to other horses unless I ask the owner first if it’s okay. I had a mare that would hang her head over the stall door and the stall was situated right near the tackroom so lots of traffic. She was very cute and friendly so people (mostly youngsters) would stop and give her treats. She was starting to get grabby and rather than have a child get bitten I put up a sign “no hand fed treats.” Luckily they respected this and the treat train stopped.
One barn I boarded at was leased by the head trainer but the owner felt they had carte blanch to hand out treats to everyone. She even brought in a bag of green apples from her tree at home and went around giving each horse about 10! I went around and removed them from everyone’s feed buckets (I was also working there). Talk about a recipe for colic.
I had someone stop along the road and try to feed my horse croutons! Luckily she didn’t eat any of them but I told her to never feed someone else’s horse without permission.
In general, no. Don’t feed another person’s horse anything unless they ask you to, or have indicated it’s OK with small things like treats. There are 3 people in the barn who are allowed to give my mare treats. Period. She is very good at begging, but people know the rules.
I am not sure I have ever fed treats to someone else’s horse without very specific permission, excluding a couple I had on lease.
I don’t feed treats to other peoples’ horses unless I ask first. And everyone is good about asking me.
I’ve given the BO’s carte blanche to feed my horse carrot pieces when they have visitors who want to see the horses (esp kids). We have bags of carrots in the fridge. Mainly because my horse is very people-oriented and is the gentlest “carrot taker” on the farm. He almost always uses gentle lips because I catch him with carrots and feed him pieces on the way to the arena all the time. He never bites unless there’s the very rare miscalculation of where your hands or fingers are.
Now, I did board at a boarding barn that had kid programs and my mare was across from the washstall and in a great location in the barn. The stall had a metal grate door for air circulation, my mare also loved people and was a gentle carrot taker, and I noticed that she started pawing on the door for treats. The owner was letting the kids feed her carrots and she learned to “ask” for attention. I put a stop to that pretty quickly. Mainly, I told her that she could open the stall and kids could feed her a few treats and pet her face but pawing and bad behavior was NEVER to be rewarded. I know how thrilled kids are when they feed a horse treats and how scared they can get when a horse is not gentle about it. The behavior stopped before I had to pull the plug on the kid camp and my horse interaction.
I never feed other people’s horses and I expect them not to feed mine. I boarded at a place where the owner would stroll by while my horses were tied and give them a handful of grain. I have one insulin resistant mare and even if she could have sugar, I wouldn’t allow it because she inevitably starts fussing because she wants more. I asked politely for her to stop feeding them and she just did it when she thought I wasn’t looking. Extremely annoying.
this 
One particularly PITA boarder husband asked if he could give my horse a carrot. He was standing quietly in the x-ties, so I said sure why not. Just days later, that same guy started to come daily to the barn with a grocery bag full of apples and carrots and feed ALL the horses. He loved the “positive attention” he got by getting a barn full of horses begging and pawing for treats. 
he was told to stop after that.
They don’t know the difference between love and cupboard love!
I don’t feed other people’s horses treats unless I have their express permission.
I’ve only in the last few years started giving my OWN horse treats out of hand, because when I first got him he was horribly spoiled. If he heard plastic crinkle, he would nicker and start scraping his hoof (if he were in cross-ties) or pounding on his stall door until he got a treat. It was incredibly difficult to break him of this habit, as you can imagine. Now, he gets one or two treats-- maybe-- out of hand, but most if not all go in his feeder.
I don’t want to deal with a brat again!
For someone else’s horse, I ask first, even if it’s a friend.
For my horse, despite what he says, he actually can’t chew carrots, apples or even horse cookies very well. I make special softened blanched carrots for him.
I never would unless I had permission from the owner ( in a boarding situation). I don’t feed my own treats unless we are catching them to ride( or putting muzzle on) it is a good incentive to being caught.
I also don’t feed other people’s dogs since I have one with diabetes and her diet is fairly restricted. The UPS man throws out dog treats like candy 
but since it is for his self preservation I try and keep our dogs in when he usually would be here.
Welp, 'tis confirmed. Turns out a fellow boarder (and her cousin) both feed my mare whenever they go out into the shared paddock to catch their own horses “because she’s soooooo cute!”. The admission surprised me so much that it caught me off-guard (especially as they said it with such confidence, like of COURSE they feed her goodies!) so naturally, I didn’t have a good clear response until an hour later.
So now I either bring-up the subject out of nowhere next time I see them (which just makes it sound like I overthought the whole exchange, then went online and posted about it to hundreds of strangers 
) OR mention it to the barn owner so she can put a request out to everyone in the next monthly barn email. Decisions, decisions!
I think @BatCoach was spot on thinking it could be a result of wanting that positive attention, though 
Definitely a N-O. You don’t feed any animals but your own without explicitly asking.
That being said, I do give stable mates treats at the gate sometimes, but that’s been ok’ed in advance.
I used to feed treats but that was well before I had a horse and found out better. Then - never again. And if signs said no treats, then no treats from me.
I was always amazed at the people who ignored the signs saying no treats. My favorite was the stupid mother who was letting her children feed stuff to the horse with the signs all around him stating NO treats! Horse bites! And he kept biting them, they kept whining and crying, mom keeps complaining, and I keep telling them stop, do you see the signs? They mean it - he isn’t nice. The owner showed up and had a fit. Mom stomps off after snarking at us that our horses weren’t very well trained. ok, sure…
Most of the time I did not have a problem with other boarders giving my horses a treat. Until…I kept finding weeds and weird plants in his stall. Once it was a pile of thistles, another time some leaves, another time some of that nasty mallow weed. Found out it was my friend who had gone all holistic on me and was trying to “help” my horse. Had to have a little chit chat with her.
I have an IR horse who has had 2 episodes of laminitis. Everyone wants to feed my horse treats. Everyone. Boarders on the other side of the barn. It’s a little weird, really. To the best of my knowledge, everyone asks. But it makes me feel a little guilty and a bit uncomfortable when they do. After all, one little piece of carrot won’t hurt her, right? I personally weigh all my horse’s hay and bag up the grain. I know they mean well.
Your post makes me go with the theory that these people are like I was when I was younger, unaware of what is now obvious, that feeding other people’s horses is not OK.
I would simple send them a note saying you are grateful that they think Dobbin is so cute and that they want to share with him but Dobbin can not have hand fed treats from anyone so can they please not give Dobbin anymore treats while in the field.
Then, inform the barn owner that this happened and that you asked them to not feed Dobbin anymore.
Say no treats.
Say no handfed treats and they will throw them on the ground
I had some kids picking grass and feeding my three horses in the paddock by the road one day. I would look out from time to time to make sure they didn’t go into the paddock until I look out and all three horses were crowded against the back fence. Apparently the boys got bored picking grass and had started throwing rocks at them. 
They were just reaching down for another rock to throw and I ran out of the house and screamed at them to get away from my horses. They got on their bikes and ran for it. I marched down to their house and had a little “chat” with their mother; of course she tried to defend her little snowflakes and tried to say they were only playing. I countered that with so I can come throw rocks at your dog when it’s tied up and can’t get away, you’d be okay with that right? Point taken, she shut up and made her kids apologize. Never saw them at my end of the street again.
I would never feed treats to other people’s horses. And I would expect the same no matter the circumstances. I’ve had to put a sign on my horse’s stall door asking people not to feed him treats as people seem to feel the need to do it. He’s only 4 and doesn’t have any experience with treats and I would like to keep it that way. However, my old horse knew that he would get an apple in his feed bucket after I was finished with him. So, he would wait next to his bucket for it. 
Although, I did ask people not to give him treats as he would get nippy. I think its definitely a personal decision. If it makes you and your horse happy, go for it! 
