My Horse Will Eat/Drink…

Even though horses are primarily forage eaters, many also seem to like candy, soft drinks, potato chips, and even meat.
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Although numerous books on equine nutrition list forages and concentrates as the primary food items for horses to eat, they don't usually mention the "human" foods horses also like to consume. Even though horses are primarily forage eaters, many also seem to like candy, soft drinks, potato chips, and even meat.

Yet the more important question to ask is if these human foods are safe for horses to eat. "Feeding practices around the world differ, and horses in other countries are commonly fed things that average American horse owners would never consider offering to their horses," says Sarah Ralston, VMD, PhD, Dipl. ACVN, associate professor in the department of animal science at Rutgers University. "For example, European horses are routinely fed silage, horses in Saudi Arabia happily munch on dried fava beans, and Irish horses are offered a weekly pint of ale or stout."

According to the following passage from Loudon's Encyclopedia of Agriculture in the 1907 text Diseases of the Horse, "In Arabia, because of the climate etc., horses are forced to subsist on milk, flesh balls, eggs, and broth from sheep's head."

Many readers of The Horse participated in a poll on TheHorse.com when we asked about the strangest food people's horses had ever eaten. According to Ralston, "With domestication, confinement, and modern technology, we are often confronted with horses that consume some really 'odd' things with apparent relish." The following are those food items (and non-food items) you said your horses have dined on

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