I think the best treat for a horse is his daily ration of grain in the pan. Feed them by hand, and they tend to get pushy and nippy.

I hear of folks feeding cookies, candy, Jello, and even special-made cakes to their horses, and I think it's crazy. Horses are herbivores and should stick to grass and grains.

Totally depends on the horse - the barn manager at my barn always goes and gets coffee before he comes in and he always picks up half a dozen donuts. If you come in early and help him, you get a donut. One of the donuts always goes to one mare in particular, though. Every morning she whinnies when he comes in, he says good morning to her and gives her her donut.

One of the geldings at my barn is crazy for bananas and the one I lease would do anything for mint. They tend to like sweet things like apples, bananas, etc. They did a study that said that horses prefer garlic flavoured foods, and the results were as followed: fenugreek, banana, cherry, rosemary, cumin, carrot, peppermint and oregano. Apples didn't even make the top 8!

Most treats are okay, just watch out for sugar infused commercial things like Likits: the sugar won't really hurt them but it's suicidal for their teeth.

Oh, and most things that are poisonous to horses are things you would never think of feeding them and are mostly flowers and plants found in the wild, stuff like: wort, oak, foxglove, poppies, hemp, nightshade (all types) among others. You should try to avoid tomatoes, as they are a member of the nightshade family. Potatoes are also not recommended along with flax. Basically, try to avoid feeding your horse flowers and greenery (and this is why it's SO important that your horse not eat on trail rides) and you should be fine.

i think that i should buy that horse that likes donuts - he's a horse after my own heart!

I tried to feed my horses and apple one time and none of them would eat it, i just threw it in the pen, so probably one of them ate it later, but i was kind of surprised no one would eat it out of my hand.

our horses favorite treat is without a doubt sweet feed and/or corn. i've never really tried to treat them with anything else. Laurens' post about some of the poisonous things for horses is a really good point though!

On the topic of hand feeding horses, I would have to say, no matter how fun it is, don't hand feed your horse! My old gelding's ex owner used to feed him baby carrots from her hand. He thoughgt my pinky finger was a baby carrot and bit down hard - I needed six stitches to sew my finger back together. There's still a scar on my right pinky and it affects me sometimes while I ride. The only time I hand feed is when doing stretches with them.

This might be even farther off topic, but what kind of stretches do you do with horses, Lauren? I've never heard of stretching a horse.

Everytime you girth up before you ride you should stretch your horse but standing in front of him and pulling his front leg out towards you so that any skin caught can be stretched out. Do this for both legs. Take a treat and stand beside your horse at his belly and show him the treat. Try to get him to stretch his neck around so that he doesn't move his feet to get the treat. You can do this for both sides as well as getting your horse to get his head through his legs to try and get the treats. Be sure not to do too many though or your horse could get sore.